The Long Dark

According to the Scientists, the Heliopause, where the outward flowing solar wind stalls against the inward streaming interstellar medium, is officially the edge of the system. Past that, you're in interstellar space. In a single star system like Sol, that boundary is at least easily defined if not always easy to identify. With 34 Tauri, it was a much different story. The interaction of five stars and half a dozen or so protostars made the heliopause less of a sphere and more of an amorphous blob. When you crossed it depended more on what vector you were taking out of the system than your distance from Bai Hu.

For us, crossing the Heliopause was a mission specific milestone. There were only a handful of us awake when the senior scientist declared we'd crossed the border and their observations would be done and transmitted in a matter of two more days. The rest of us would sleep shortly thereafter.

The order of those last entries into the hibernation tanks had been a point of discussion off and on for over a year. You'd think that it would have been settled long before it was actually going to happen, but that was the nature of such decisions. In the end, the last to sleep would be 'Brina, Captain Gill, Lieutenant Conner, Belize, then me. The Captain had wanted me to sleep before he did. When I pointed out the mission profile required me to oversee his entry into the tank, he insisted Conner remain awake to observe as well. I don't think he was actually being paranoid, as our working relationship was civil if not exactly friendly, but he was obviously uncomfortable.

Gill, understandably, wanted to make sure there were medical personnel on tap to assure he, the Captain, was put safely into cold sleep. He'd actually made noises about wanting the Flight Surgeon to put him to sleep himself, instead of Bel, though they'd been neither loud nor persistent. I'd actually have been happy with Bel watching the tank when I went into hibernation. But she'd already be asleep, trusting me to make sure things went smoothly before I trusted myself, in turn, to Nora.

I had to admit, I had mixed feeling with the announcement we'd crossed the Heliopause. Cold sleep wasn't the greatest thing on my mind. I'd gone through several dry runs already as part of training, as had we all. It wasn't exactly pleasant but it held no terror for me. I would go into the tank, deal with a few minutes of discomfort, then awaken to deal with a few minutes of disorientation. Possibly longer, according to some of the studies. I would be the last to sleep and the first to wake up. Trusting Nora with my life even more than anyone else on the crew.

That wasn't the issue.

We'd been getting further reports of Machine attacks for several weeks. The Alliance military was holding its own without much difficulty so far, but who knew how deeply dug in some of those Mother bots were? On some level it felt like we were running away from that particular problem, though there were plenty of people back home with the experience, and cunning, needed to end the threat. The Machines might have been part of what I was feeling, but they weren't the entirety of it.

There were things I was leaving behind that would be lost to time long before I returned. Optimistically, it was an 75 year mission. Minimum. The more conservative estimates had us in Sol system for at least a decade before returning to 34 Tauri. If we returned to 34 Tauri. If we ever went back, chances were good that no one we'd ever known would still be alive. The 'Verse would change while we stayed the same for much of the intervening decades.

I wasn't usually sentimental. But the notice that we'd passed the Heliopause and were about to enter the cold sleep stage of the mission brought it home that there were people I knew I would never see again. I'd said my good byes. We all had. But until that moment, it had been an abstract concept. Forever.

Lily and Krenshar might still be alive when we got home. Neither of them were organic. They didn't age the way we did. Same with Raids. And Blue, who wasn't even physical in the strictest sense. But the men and women we'd left behind? For their enkelkind, we would just be a footnote in a history book. Our memory lost to the Black.

Or maybe not.

* * *

"Not used to seeing the melancholy show, Sea. You ready for this?"

Bel's question wasn't unexpected. In the two days since I'd given Sabrina a loving kiss good night, and watched the Hibernation chamber cycle into operation, I'd shown the Zen calm I'd been long known for. It was the same when Gill, and then Conner, had gone into the tanks, leaving Belize and I the only two living beings awake in the vast Black between home and Sol.

"I'm ready, Sis. More letting the situation set in than feeling melancholy. You trust me to push the right buttons?"

She laughed then set down her tea. "Same thing isn't it? And if I didn't, do you think I'd be here?" I had to smile. She was right. She'd trusted me enough to come along on this mission, to leave everything and everyone she'd known behind to burn a whole through the Black into the unknown.

We all had. All four hundred thirty three people aboard Children of Earth had made that decision, to trust their lives to this ship and each other to be part of something bigger than any of us. There was huge cultural and scientific significance to the mission, yes, but it was also a great adventure. Probably the greatest in centuries.

But none of that changed what I was feeling. It was once said that the Reavers were just Men who'd stood at the edge of the Black for too long and lost their Humanity to it. It wasn't true, but the mythology had taken hold long before the Reavers had even appeared. Of the billions of people who called the 34 Tauri system home, the vast majority had never been off their birth world. It didn't matter that millions of people were in space at any given time, shuttling between colonies spread between five stars. The distance between those worlds was vast. The distance between stars in the 34 Tauri system vaster still. And the distance between star systems? It was more than a Human mind could absorb. According to our navigator, the closest we'd get to another star en route would be Hippocaros 31635. And even that was almost half a parsec from our course.

Numbers too big to process.

We both dragged out that last day longer than needed. I think Bel was more concerned for my well being during the time I'd be alone than anything else. It wouldn't even be a long time alone. A day, maybe two, depending on whether I wanted to enjoy the absolute solitude or not.

Sending Bel off to sleep though, was in some ways even more difficult than it had been with 'Brina. At least from a purely technical standpoint. While I knew these systems as well as anyone who wasn't an actual doctor, and I'd assisted with dozens of hibernations, this one was entirely in my hands. If Bel didn't wake up, it would be me that'd killed her. Wasn't a matter of consequence, so much as being personal.

When the hibernation chamber cycled Belize to sleep, I was as alone as any person could be. Children of Earth was still accelerating at a steady eighty meters per second per second. Bai Hu, and the rest of the stars that made up 34 Tauri were just dim points of light in our wake. A little brighter than the background stars, and a bit red shifted, you could still see them with the naked eye. But soon, no eyes would remain awake in the Black to look back.

There were still some duties I had to take care of before I went into cold sleep myself. Sabrina had already worked her magic on the Bussard Ramscoop, a vast electromagnetic construct that would, in theory anyway, scoop up the tenuous interstellar medium and funnel it into our fuel tanks. It worked. After a fashion. The ramscoop wasn't effective enough to recover all of our fuel, at least given the performance so far, but it would make life a good deal easier for the trip home.

It was something else Nora would have to take care of. Along with the drives and the power piles and the hibernation tanks. Which was the next thing I needed to check before I could go to sleep. We'd all checked and triple checked the tanks in the days leading up to this. But I needed to make the last check myself. I trusted Nora. I had to. But there was something oddly comforting in personally checking the integrity and status of each of the chambers. Something personal in spending a few moments lingering over each sleeping crew mate, and more than a few moments over the few here with me who mattered deeply to me.

Deep in the Black, absolutely alone, I had a few last dispatches to get off to home before going to sleep myself.

Most of the final communications was simple logistical housekeeping, final status and condition reports, a bit of Science, and my official log indicating the completion of this stage of the mission. I wouldn't be awake then the acknowledgement came back. Interplanetary postal mail was faster than our communications at this point. We were that far from home. But there were still a few personal messages I needed to get back.

General,

I'm sending this message to you and Jin in the hope that you never need to use the information enclosed. I know Jin was just a kid when you helped me assemble the crowbars, General, but I'm fairly certain he'll remember a twelve ton osmium spear with a pulse drive on the end. We built six of the things and we only used the one to crack the second Mother Bot on Hale's Moon.

Left a right fine crater, it did.

In any case, I had to downcheck on of them about three years ago, but the remaining four are still on station. I'm sending along partial control keys to take control of the crowbars. They're the kind of weapon the Alliance wants to pretend can't be made, because people would panic if they know how easy it was to construct a city killer with a surplus pulse drive and a big hunk of metal.

With the Machines on the move again, I figured you could use the crowbars if it came down to it. Between the key components I'm sending here and a few of the records I left behind with Genni, you and Jin should be able to piece together where I parked the crowbars and the command codes you'll need to get them running. Puzzles may not be your thing, but you know how I am about securing assets and these are ones I don't want getting into the wrong hands.

If the 'Verse is kind, you'll never have to use them. If it's not, I can't think of anyone better than the two of you to use them right.

I'd steal Duncan's old line and say Stay Lucky, but this isn't about luck. It's about being smart.

Make me proud.

-S

I embedded the partial keys in the message and wrapped it in Jin and General's private keys. They should be able to figure out the rest of it from what I'd left behind. Originally, I'd planned to send this to Genni herself, so she could hold the crowbars in reserve in case they were ever needed: like the Epic Weapon left in hiding in an old Fantasy story. Only the crowbars weren't so epic, and this was no fantasy.

The directional array would put the signal on target when it arrived, crawling across the Black at light speed. It was only a matter of time.

With my final duties taken care of I took one last walk through Children of Earth and headed to my hibernation chamber, checking on sleeping friends and turning off the lights on my way. Part of me felt desperately alone: the feeling Belize had seen as melancholy. But part of me was absolutely at peace. Perfect solitude. I was, if just for a moment, alone with the Universe.

And then it was time. Settling into the hibernation tank, fastening the monitors in place, the pinpricks of the IV lines and internal probes seating themselves. The lid coming down over the coffin-like chamber, Nora's smooth voice going through the checklist with me, double checking everything according the the procedure we'd been over a dozen times before. The lights dimming, then the world itself starting to fade as the darkness started to take hold.

No fear. Just the realization that I was going to be asleep for a long time, and when I woke up the universe would have changed.

"We're all yours Nora. See you in Sol."

"Understood. Ship's systems are nominal. Hibernation systems are nominal. Sleep well, Little Dragon."

"Little Dragon? Wait. What?"

And then the darkness closed in, and Nora was gone.

The Plane of the Ecliptic

Children of Earth's course would take her on a roundabout tour through the core worlds, then a slingshot past White Tiger to send us up over the plane of the ecliptic and out on course for Sol. With the raw performance we had on tap, the Sled could have slewed the nose around towards Sol and just punched it. But that wasn't the way such things were done and for good reason.

34 Tauri was, technically, still 'young' as far as stellar systems went. There was still a fair amount of debris slinging around the system from the system's formative eons. There were still a surprisingly large number of uncharted, kilometers wide, objects to run into vectoring between worlds. Even now, it wasn't unheard of to lose a transport to a random rock that no one'd ever seen. That was until the hapless transport smacked into it in the Black. It was one of the reasons that prospecting was still a decent way to make a living.

It was also one reason the Sled was on a course though well charted space with a lot of performance in reserve. Even with the armor plating over her leading edges, hitting a rock in 34 Tauri would make for a very short mission. With the acceleration she was capable of, the only safe route was to hold back until we were well clear of the ecliptic and starting the curve towards Sol.

Still, even pulling 2G, barely 1/4 what she could do at full burn, we were doing nearly a 10th lightspeed by the end of the second week. Blink, and we crossed the width of a planet. And with the main body of 34 Tauri behind us, we could finally pour on the thrust. Across a few hours, with Sabrina carefully watching her Engineering monitors, the Sled's acceleration quadrupled. While my own Matagi, Wave Equation, could generate considerably more delta V, the Sled would hold this thrust until reaching turnover half way between 34 Tauri and Sol. By then we'd be so close to lightspeed the universe would effectively have stopped from our point of view.

But no one would be there to see it except Nora.

The two weeks between departure and Full Burn hadn't been completely uneventful. Final tests of the drives. Final tests of the power piles. Getting a slew of research readings done and sending them back to flight control before we got out of range. Putting the rest of the crew to sleep. Getting the last messages in or out. Making the final decision on who'd be last to sleep.

Physical objects couldn't go faster than light. Nothing physical could. But the communications network that made up the Cortex wasn't entirely physical. How'd it work? Do you have a PHd level Physics degree, and a few hours for me to find someone who can explain it? Describing the system itself, with its network of relay's scattered around the 'Verse was straightforward. In that regard, it was like the RF Comms that went as far back as Earth that Was. Relay stations. Signal boosters. Repeaters. Transceivers. Store and forward servers. Datastreams flowing through networks of faster than light virtual particles. Using the Cortex was easy. Explaining it? Not so much.

With our position over the plane of the ecliptic, and accelerating rapidly, we slipped out of relay range fairly quickly. But that didn't mean we were out of communication. Children of Earth had a fairly extensive communications suite in addition to her elaborate scientific and navigational sensor arrays. Even with out the Cortex, we had radio, maser, and laser communications that could, when needed, reach across interstellar distances. Unfortunately, they would do so limited by lightspeed. It would be decades after we reached Sol before the folks at home knew about it. By then, the mission would have long before succeeded, or failed, and we'd be on our way home. Or not.

Being out of range of the Cortex relays though, meant our last communications with Flight was more or less a series of one way communications. Like writing letters rather than having a conversation. Though some of those communications were interesting. In the classic Chinese meaning of the term.

Take, for example, the message we got from Imrhien a couple days after we slipped beyond relay range.

She'd sent it to me directly, but it was there for all of us, and it effectively started out with "Hi, guys, I'm pregnant. No. Really." She didn't say how far along it was, or whether she knew if it was a boy or a girl or twins, or whatever, and she didn't say who the father was. But she really didn't need to. We all knew. Ultimately, we were all happy for her. One of us, at least, would leave a legacy beyond a footnote in a history book.

There were more like that. Many more. By now, though, we were down to a handful of scientists and about a third of the operations crew still awake. Maybe sixty people out of the Sled's compliment of four hundred thirty three. Those that were asleep would miss the chance to respond but would awaken to some final words from a home they might never see again. A care package across the Black.

The personal notes were really just a fraction of the communications that streamed to the Sled as we burned further into the Black. The Sciences team was sending back a continuous stream of deep space astrophysics and celestial navigation information. For some types of research, there was a major advantage to having a big fast ship with a massive sensor array clawing its way across the Black above the 34 Tauti system. Some research required perspective.

The Engineering traffic tapered off quickly after the first week, then flared again briefly when we went to full burn. Telemetry that essentially said "Yes, the Sled works. What were you expecting?" Honestly, I think the most important messages that came and went every day to or from Engineering were between 'Brina and Elsoph. My beloved 'crazy uncle' was seeing his magnum opus fulfil her mission. And aboard, his more or less adopted 'Little girl' was in charge of his 'Big girl.'

Sadly, none of us expected him to live long enough to see her reach Sol. Certainly not long enough to get the message that we'd arrived. In fact, if the mission went to profile, Children of Earth would be on her way home long before the signal from Sol crawled across the Black to reach Flight Control.

If it went to profile.

What we hadn't expected was a communication from High Command directed to the Sled's military officers. While there were some experienced military personnel aboard, this was hardly a military mission and a secured classified communication wasn't our usual fare.

The captain brought a handful of the senior flight officers into the briefing room to disseminate the gist of the transmission: The Machines were back.

It had been a few years since the last time anyone had encountered the weaponized von Neumann machines that had plagued several Rim worlds. Originally designed as simple self-replicating mining machines, or complexes of them, really, since there were a whole set of specialized designs, they'd been weaponized by a Black Ops unit under Hardliner influence. One of Uncle Elsoph's creations turned into a weapon of terror and unleashed on an unsuspecting 'Verse.

We'd fought the machines and won, at least on the small scale. Hale's Moon. Blackburne. Carsten's World. Several others. Those involved had always wondered if we'd gotten them all. Whether the "Loyalists" had dispatched even more of the things, or whether some of them had reached the stage of launching Seeders of their own. We couldn't know. At least until now.

The news of simultaneous machine attacks on three worlds, two in the Border region, one on the Rim, came as an unpleasant surprise. Where the original incidents had been largely covered up in the Media, the latest attacks had been against well populated areas rather than tiny Rim colonies. It wasn't the kind of thing that could, or would, stay quiet for long. Worse, there was a distinct implication in the wave that they were expecting more attacks on more worlds even further in-system.

Captain Gill's reaction was not entirely surprising. "It is our duty as Alliance Officers to return and assist."

I resisted the urge to beat him senseless for suggesting we abandon our mission over a classified sitrep, and managed a polite "Captain. With all due respect, it's just a SitRep. There's nothing in there ordering us back to base." To my slight surprise, the Navigation and Operations Officers both appeared to agree with me, and, after a brief discussion between the dozen or so officers privy to the report, Gill agreed to get clarification from Flight Control before ordering the Sled turned around and go back to Ariel. He did, however, order the drives brought back to standby until we were sure.

He also made a point of ordering me to his office after the meeting to, once again, call me on the carpet for daring to disagree with him. It reminded me in many ways of some of the amusingly unpleasant incidents from childhood. Being called to the Principal's office for daring to disagree with a teacher, but knowing full well that I'd been right and they'd been wrong. It even had the same feel of 'bruised ego' I'd seen in them so many years ago, and their not so subtle reminders that whether or not I was the daughter of a privileged family I didn't have the right to challenge someone in authority.

I knew this story, but he also knew I was right. I hadn't even brought up the reason I thought he wanted to turn back: that he'd seen a chance to be seen as a Hero for returning to a crisis, rather than burning across the Black into the pages of history.

It took a couple days for Flight to get confirmation back to us, but their answer was exactly what I'd expected. Children of Earth was to continue on her mission. High Command was already mobilizing forces to deal with the machine incursions, and continuing on to Sol was our one and only priority. I felt vindicated, and Gill, ever the politician, accepted our updated orders as if he'd never suggested we turn back.

So there we were. Tearing a great gaping hole in the Black while back in the 34 Tauri system, the Machines were once again making their presence known.

Given our success fighting the machines before, I wasn't surprised as they contacted Bel, Sabrina, and me, for more detailed information on our experiences. The core infection 'Brina'd developed had been successful in a couple of cases, and my Crowbar technique was equally effective, if a good deal more disruptive.

We passed on our contacts as well. People who'd successfully fought the Machines on the Rim and who's input would be valuable now. At least the ones we figured would be willing to put their dislike for the Machines over their personal dislike for the Alliance.

But it was very quickly becoming someone else's problem. Every second, we got farther away. And, ultimately, it seemed unlikely the Machines would be able to stand against the combined might of the Alliance military. If a handful of colonials on remote Rim worlds could destroy half a dozen Mother Bots, it stood to reason that it would be a piece of cake for an Alliance regiment with a Cruiser for support.

Soon. Very soon. It would all be behind us. Literally. The last of us would be asleep and 34 Tauri would just be a few points of red-shifted light in our wake. Someone else would handle the Machines.

We had our own mission.

Departures: Another of several

There has always been a somewhat uneasy relationship between the Military and the Press. It's a relationship as old as the Press. The Psychological Warfare folks have historically considered the Press a useful tool. Manipulate the press with the right propaganda, and you can win sometimes win a fight without firing a shot. Where PsychWar uses them as a tool, the rest of the military considers them anything from harmless, to minor annoyance, to a serious liability.

As a former Spook, if "former" can ever be applied to someone with a deep Intel background, my opinion tended towards the extremes. They could be a useful tool in the right circumstances. But in far too many cases they were a liability that could get you killed. Where I was fond of a few individual reporters, Tillery coming immediately to mind, the Press as a whole was not my friend.

In the final weeks before departure, I had quite the opportunity to actively control my personal dislike for the Press Corps.

There had been press coverage of the Children of Earth project almost since its inception. While most of it showed up in science journals, technical or otherwise, there were a few OpEd pieces on the "human interest" factor of sending a mission to Humanity's home. I'd always read them with interest, even when they weren't especially flattering of the project or the engineering team that was implementing it. In truth, I could understand why anyone interviewing uncle Elsoph would have a hard time taking him seriously. He usually sounded a bit atamagaokashi. He was, in fact, a bit atamagaokashi. But he was also a brilliant engineer and had created some of the most powerful and efficient drives ever devised by the hand of man.

Not surprisingly, the Press took more and more of an interest in us as a whole, as the time for departure drew near. Most of the time, they were talking to someone like Captain Gill, or Elsoph, or even Sabrina as Chief Engineer. I'd managed to dodge most of those figurative bullets. A skill, perhaps, translating from the world of real bullets. But my good fortune wasn't to last. Sure, I'd given a few interviews since joining the project, most of them in the first month when the newly assigned Executive Officer was still a novelty. After that, the focus shifted to the scientists, the Captain, and the project.

By the time departure was a month away, all that had changed. There were whole days where we did nothing but interviews. Gill, with his political aspirations, always managed to replay the official stance that we were engaging in a noble endeavour to restore contact with our past. When it came to the more difficult personal questions, he always managed to deflect them. He'd always drag it back to duty and how his vast experience in the Alliance fleet had prepared him for the most difficult challenge of his career.

As Medical crew, rather than Flight Surgeon, Belize managed to avoid much of the press crush. But not all of it. Like Sabrina, Bel coming from a Rim world made her a favorite for some of the media. They loved trying to play the Human Interest aspects of a girl from "a backward Rim world" being involved in such a grand project. Inevitably, they'd ask something like "So how does it feel to come from a backwater like Blackburne" or Hale's Moon, depending on who was asking and whether they'd done their homework "and be selected for such an important mission?" Which usually got a politely scathing response to the effect of "I am a Doctor and Healer. Learning my craft in the Wastes on Blackburne just means I'm used to saving lives with minimal resources, which may become vital during this flight. I have the kind of experience you can't get on a Core world and I'm here because they need my skills. Next question?" Bel'd always managed to make it sound like the reporter was just ignorant of her qualifications, rather than trying to make it sound like there was something inherently wrong with being a Rimworlder.

Being Chief Engineer, Sabrina collected more than her fair share of interviews too. Coming from the Rim as well, and being largely self-trained, she got her ration of that kind of question, which usually elicited a snort of laughter and the comment that "the Flight Surgeon wouldn't approve Elsoph Kawanishi for the mission, and Elsoph wouldn't trust anyone else with the drives. So I'm it." That was when they weren't asking the usual, lame, technical questions about range, speed, how they'd keep the sled maintained, and all the others. But the question they always asked, every one of them, every single interview, no matter who they were asking, was how it felt to be leaving your family behind. Which always got "I'm not" in reply from 'Brina.

Seems some of the reporters thought the idea of the Chief Engineer being married to the Executive Officer was still novel.

Personally, I hated the interviews. I'd put together a whole set of canned answers I would throw back at the endless series of canned questions: Yes, it was a big responsibility. No, I wasn't afraid of the unknown. Yes, I felt the Captain and I made an effective command team. No, I didn't regret stepping away from a career to take this position. Yes, I thought my experience as a Colonial Manager would be valuable. No I wouldn't have any difficulty at all working so closely with my wife. Yes, I believed that every member of the sled's crew was qualified for their role and would be an asset to the mission. No, I really didn't know what to expect when we reached Earth that Was.

Mommy, can I go home? I don't like reporters.

The interview days almost always wound down with a group of us gathered together to watch the latest round and laugh over them. In a couple of cases, people had placed bets as to whether they could slip in some kind of obscure phrase, word, or reference, and make it sound natural. Belize had an easier time slipping the word 'Pagoda' into four interviews in one day than I did trying to somehow get 'Schrodinger's cat' into even one. While it was silly, it was ultimately relaxing.

Fortunately, the Media Frenzy stage became less intense as we got closer to buttoning up and lighting the burners. The ship herself was ready to go, while the crew was another matter. With over four hundred people aboard, all of whom would need to be in suspension, we had a lot of work do do. The ship's science and support crew were actually the larger fraction of the Sled's compliment. While there were no "non-essential" personnel, there were a lot of people who weren't required to operate the ship in flight. Which meant putting two hundred odd scientists and about eighty support personnel into suspended animation before we left 34 Tauri.

There had been a lot of debate over that decision, but ultimately it came down to the simple fact that it was safer and simple to utilize the resources we had in orbit around Ariel than it was to accomplish the same task in deep space away from help. Actually, 'in deep space, away from help' was exactly what we'd have to do when we left Sol system to come home. Assuming we made it to Sol, completed our mission, and subsequently made it back to 34 Tauri.

Of course, the other advantage to putting most of the crew into suspension before we left was that it would get us ready to put the rest of us into cold sleep after we'd gotten under way. The plan was simple. Once we were under way, the last of the Science team, Astrophysics, mostly, would go into suspension. Then the Sled's support crew. Then finally the skeleton crew who'd have to trust Nora to get us the rest of the way to Sol. Someone though would be last to sleep, half a light year from White Tiger, all alone in the night.

Would that be peaceful? Terrifying? Lonely? The stars ahead shifted to blue, those behind lost to the deep red. It would be Epic. But it was still some months away.

But every day getting closer. With the last of the pre-flights done and the last of the non-flight-necessary crew in suspension, Children of Earth pulled away from the gantry for the last time. It would be days before we'd reached the point of no practical return. Our flight plan would take us on a loop through the inner Core system before finally looping past Bai Hu for a bit of free acceleration, then over the plane of the ecliptic before we went to full boost.

There were still last minute preparations. System checks with the Yard. A handful of annoying interviews. But, at last, we were finally on our way.

Unlisted cargo

Belieze caught me in the corridors between a couple of the incessant preparation meetings that invariably occupied my time between mission drills, and solving personnel problems, and dragged me into the oversized closet she had as an office. "Have you seen this?" she asked, sliding a data display across her desk to me.

Bel's look was a mixture of concern and bemusement, and at first glance I had to answer "yes, I have, but . . ." The fact was, I hadn't seen all of what she was showing me. Several of the Sled's cargo sections were mounted near the core of the ship along the central spine. The spine itself housed some of the ship's most critical equipment and supplies behind an additional layer of armored hull plating. Nora's core was down there, along with emergency life support, a secondary infirmary, a control trunk that would let us run the Sled in case the bridge was out, an emergency power system, and several small storage areas. What she was showing me was the acceptance report for a very specialized cold sleep section and its equally special cargo.

"Twelve thousand frozen embryos?" I said, a bit bemused myself.

"Thirty two thousand more split between two of the inner ring cargo areas as well." Bel replied, sliding over another data display. "Plus a seed bank, about four thousand animals, and incubators. Sea, they sent us enough frozen people to start a whole Gorram colony."

She was right. While I'd been staying on top of the mission loading as best I could, detailed cargo manifests usually didn't make it up the food chain to my level. The Sled's Loadmaster, Leon Grant, had been handling things professionally and I had no reason to ever question the details. Honestly, I didn't care if our food stock included 4691 Irradiated Haggis. The people reporting to me were supposed to be better at doing their job than I was at doing their job. That's why it was their job. But this had completely dodged notice.

There were incubators that could take a frozen embryo and nurture it from frozen to birth over the course of several months. There were eight of the things and kits for four more in storage, plus a pair of larger ones that could handle any mammal up to the size of a cow. Which we had. Horses too. Further down the list, under medical supplies, Bel pointed out the specialized equipment that could thaw an embryo and the additional instruments that would be needed to implant it into a natural Human host.

"You didn't know, did you?" Bel said in a consoling tone. I shook my head no, because I hadn't. I knew the possibility of colonization was in our mission profile. There was the very real chance the Sled was on a one way trip and we'd have to settle where we were. But this went far beyond that. There'd been colony ships that left Earth that Was during the Exodus that weren't as well equipped as we were.

I looked through the load out and project logs Belize had passed me, and everything pointed to this being part of the project for a long time. Unfortunately, no one had ever thought to relay the specific details of this particular 'Mission Contingency' to me. No one, in this case, being our Captain, and me being the Executive Officer who'd nominally be in charge of making sure the extra forty odd thousand not-yet-people made it to Sol system alive.

"Thanks for showing me this, Sis. Not sure why they kept me out of the loop, but that'll change."

Belize nodded. She'd seen this look before. The 'I'm on a mission, and being between me and my goal is unhealthy' look. It was possible there was some kind of legitimate reason why this had been kept from me. Given Children of Earth's loadout, the embryos and support equipment was only a small fraction of our cargo. If Bel hadn't explicitly shown me, chances are I would never have seen the gear. Unlike my beloved Sabrina, I hadn't crawled through virtually every passage, access tube, ventilation duct, storage space, and compartment in the Sled. Still, I had every reason to know.

I would be very calm when I met with Captain Gill.

I managed to track down Gill after dinner in the Officer's Mess. I'd never been exceptionally formal when it came to separating Officers from Enlisted personnel. When I was in the field I was just as likely to be trusting my skinny ass to a non-com as I was another officer and I never saw the point. Even at base I was more likely to be spending time with people who worked for a living than people who told others what to do. Not so Gill. For him, the Officer's Mess was some kind of sacred space that only senior officers, not just any officer, were allowed to dine. He'd once explained that formality was how Fleet maintained discipline, and a ship couldn't operate without sound discipline. While I agreed that discipline was important to any kind of mission like this, I'd always thought maintaining it by earning your subordinates respect was more effective than setting some kind of arbitrary barrier. But then, that's why he was in charge of the mission and I was in charge of the people who would execute it.

Gill hadn't yet learned that I had levels of Calm, and Icy often translated into Annoyed. Though, to his credit, he did seem to know why I was cornering him after mess. Of course, since I'd spent several hours before tracking him down looking into loading manifests, cargo bays, and the Loadmaster's business, chances were someone had told him directly that I was looking for him and had been asking pointed questions about our cargo.

"You want to know why you weren't told about the embryos and the incubators," he started matter of factly. His tone translating roughly into 'I didn't tell you because I didn't think you needed to know.' His actual explanation wasn't actually that much better. Somehow the idea that since it was all just a mission contingency and, thus, exclusively his purview, I didn't really need to be involved unless, or until, such a time as the mission called for us to start thawing cargo.

I didn't agree with his assessment of my need to know, and told him as much without my practiced exterior calm ever breaking. Of course, that gave him an opportunity to lecture me on all my perceived shortcomings: I didn't have experience as a ship's officer. I was too informal with the crew. I was married. I'd spent too long as a civilian. I was only there because of my family connections. Ground force officers didn't understand discipline. I didn't show him the proper respect. I couldn't possibly understand the gravity and scope of our mission. Several other points equally as irrelevant or inaccurate. All without actually answering the questions I had about the cargo and those aspects of the mission.

Fortunately, probably for both of us, he hadn't made the mistake of dressing me down in public even if it was quite civil in tone and text. The discipline and respect for military decorum he claimed I didn't have was, ultimately, what let me take his criticism without making it a matter of honor. Something he, apparently, didn't understand. As it was, I put on my best 'calmly subordinate' face and excused myself.

A few hours later as I was digging into the Classified parts of the mission profile, working my way past the security locks where needed, Lieutenant Conner appeared at the door of my office. I waved him in towards the seat across from my desk. "What's on your mind, Lieutenant?" I was still calm, but no longer Icy.

"Ma'am, we, ah, heard you and the Captain had words earlier." He kept his tone level, calm, words chosen with care while still being straightforward.

I looked at him for a long moment, before nodding slightly. "Word gets around, doesn't it, Lieutenant?"

"It does, Ma'am. Big ship, small crew. Hard to keep scuttlebutt in check. But it got the team talking."

"I see, Lieutenant. And what is the the team talking about?" I asked curiously. The tension between Captain Gill and I had been simmering for months, but never heating up to the point where we, or the Mission Management Team, worried that the mission was in jeopardy. We were professional soldiers. We didn't have to like each other to work efficiently together.

Conner smiled a little, just a faint uptick at the corner of his mouth. "Ma'am, we are all loyal to this mission, this ship, and her crew. The Cap'n's in charge, but Ma'am," he paused a moment, looking unflinchingly at me, "the ORCA's report to you."

I nodded thoughtfully, looking at him, understanding more than I could say. "Understood, Lieutenant. Thank you."

The inter-service rivalries ran deep, but rarely affected the outcome of a mission. The line infantry and the transport pilots didn't have to like each other, and often didn't. But they needed each other. Without the pilots, the gropos couldn't make planetfall. Without the gropos, the pilots didn't have a job. A Cruiser could turn a planet into a shiny glass ball, but only a ground force unit could actually take and hold territory. We all understood that. Even the Captain.

Sometimes though, it helped to know where the lines were drawn.

"You're welcome, Ma'am. If I may?" He nodded faintly towards the door, asking to be dismissed.

"Dismissed, Lieutenant. Tell your team I appreciate their dedication."

Conner rose from the chair, saluted crisply, and stepped for the door before pausing and turning back to me. "Yes, Lieutenant?"

Conner paused a moment before continuing. "Well, Ma'am. There's a rumor going round that you killed an Operative of the Parliament a few years back. Beat him to death with your bare hands and left him pinned to a bulkhead with his own sword."

"I'm familiar with that rumor, Lieutenant, yes," I said calmly with a hint of a smile.

"And?"

I hadn't thought about the incident on the Sun Tzu in several years now, but I'd always wondered just how long it would take for High Command to connect me to it. "It's true, Lieutenant. Though I'm surprised the rumor made it this far. High command rarely admits that Operatives exist, let alone any details about how they lost one. Why do you ask?"

He surprised me with a smile. "You know how it is with Rumors, Ma'am. Sometimes you need to do a little research before you can put them to rest."

I laughed lightly, waving him out of the office - "Aye, Lieutenant, that I do."

He gave me another salute and disappeared back into the bowels of the Sled, leaving me to my work and the realization that the respect I had for the ORCAs was mutual. Something I found quietly reassuring.

Free Flight

The Sled is complete. At least technically. Other than loading the rest of her fuel and supplies, and some final systems integration, Children of Earth is a fully functional spacecraft. After years of planning, political wrangling, engineering, re-engineering, more political wrangling, and finally construction, she's able to travel under her own power.

For such an important step in the project, Children of Earth's first free flight as an independent ship was something of a non-event. At least as far as the outside 'Verse was concerned. For us, it was the culmination of years of work by the yard and months of intense preparation by her crew. All to show that she was capable of being Humanity's first starship in centuries.

For me, it was something of a trial. I settled into my practiced, Zen like, calm, and took to handling crew matters. We'd drilled for this. Practiced it. Prepared for it. But nothing really prepared you for the feeling you got when the Captain gave the order to maneuver away from the gantry to our staging area, and you saw the yard slipping away astern.

This wasn't the first time the Sled has been free of the gantry. There had been systems integration flights to test maneuvering thrusters, sensor arrays, and various other subsystems that couldn't be tested while attached. But this was the first time the drives would be turned up full and, all went well, the first time Nora would take control.

The Expert System at the core of Children of Earth's integrated computer system was related to the pseudo-AI I'd written in college in name only. Where my Nora of years past had managed to pass a Touring test, the state of the art had left it far, far, behind. While our Nora lacked the full Artificial Intelligence capability of, say, Blue Man, it was fully capable as serving as the core of our system. Where Nora had been fully integrated and on-line for months, letting the neural networks learn the best way to interact with the ship and crew, she'd never taken full control of the Sled.

She was as much my responsibility as the crew themselves. For all practical purposes, Nora was part of the crew. While I hadn't written more than a couple modules in the massive code base, I did have a more then passing understanding of how a sophisticated Expert System went together.

Unfortunately, Nora was a point of contention between me and Captain Gill. Where I'd actually written an Expert system and learned to rely on them, he'd never been comfortable with the concept. At least not in letting them have full control of the ship. Never mind, of course, that every spacecraft for the last six hundred years had been computer controlled almost in its entirety. Nora acted Human when you were dealing with the interface. Not just the usual voice commands Gill'd been used to on his last command, but full heuristic interpretation and responses that passed for Human.

Nora could pass a Touring test.

In spite of Gill's reservations and the non-argument between us over the ship's computer, Nora performed flawlessly. As did the Sled's sixteen main drivers.

KHI had been building high performance drives for generations. They were at the heart of all of their high performance spacecraft, all the way back to before the Exodus. Children of Earth was no exception. Fully fueled and loaded, the sixteen mains could generate a little over eight standard G. Flat out, the Sled could simply outrun most gunboats in service with the Alliance fleet. She was that fast. As fuel burned off and the Sled's mass dropped, the drives would throttle back to keep the acceleration from overwhelming the inertial compensation and artificial gravity.

The real difference was that the Sled could keep the drives running at full acceleration for, literally, years. At full crank she'd be pushing relativistic velocity inside a year, when the drives would throttle back and compensate for the drag of a Bussard collector that would, hopefully, be able to replenish much of the fuel supply en-route. If everything worked as planned, and the interstellar medium was dense enough, we'd arrive in Sol system with enough fuel to return home.

Amazing what you can remember from your Astrophysics courses in college when it becomes part of your job to understand it.

During the week long integration flight, we put the Sled through her paces. The drivers were arranged in pairs so if we lost one, we could shot down a pair an not have to deal with asymmetrical thrust. But that also meant testing various combinations to make sure the pairs, or triplets, were arranged and tuned correctly to keep Children of Earth going in a straight line under load.

Sabrina was, not surprisingly, happy as the proverbial clam. Though truthfully I never understood that proverb. What was so satisfying about living life burrowed into the sand, or mud, or whatever clams lived in, straining lunch from free flowing water? But I digress. Sabrina was in her element here, watching the ship that had become so much of her life come alive as a fully functional vessel. Where I saw the meticulous testing of the drivers as a necessary, but tedious, requirement, for 'Brina it was a chance to get in some extra tinkering to make sure everything was working exactly as planned.

Not surprisingly, it was. The Sled functioned flawlessly. While we never left the White Tiger system proper, it was enough to show she had what it would take to get us to Sol system in one, very large, piece.

There were only two systems that couldn't be tested in-system before we left. Unfortunately, one of them would be vital to the success of the mission. Where having the Bussard Ramscoop not work as planned would, at worst, lead to it being shut off and not providing us any extra fuel, it was secondary. And yes, there were actually some failure modes that would endanger the whole ship. But the probabilities were so low as to be irrelevant.

The only real unknown was the hibernation system.

Ultimately, we'd be trusting our lives to Cold Sleep. Hibernating for the years it would take us to cover the distance between 34 Tauri and Sol. There'd been early plans to have a small 'awake' crew for the sublight trip. A brave few who'd have to deal with the immeasurable loneliness in the deepest Black between stars. In the end, they decided to put the whole crew into cold sleep and rely on a sophisticated Expert System to keep ship and crew alive. Nora. Who Captain Gill didn't like.

The up side was that hibernation systems had been well developed over the years, going as far back as the Exodus. When Humanity left Sol system they'd done it in a mix of generation ships and sleepers with roughly the same rate of success. The sleepers were smaller of course, and faster, so they'd given the first colonists a bit of an advantage, arriving between ten and fifty years ahead of the slower generation ships. But the slowboats had carried more equipment and in many cases the sleepers had to wait for the terraformers to finish their missions before they could actually colonize.

In the generations since the Exodus, sleeper systems had matured to the point where the expected survival rate was close to one hundred percent, even for the decades long duration of our flight. Due to relativistic effects, ultimately, the sleeper tanks would only have to keep us alive for a few years subjective time. Given the reliability of proven systems, very few people had any doubts we'd come out alive at the other end.

Having a skilled medical team aboard was part of that high expectation of success. Belize and the other doctors would be some of the first people woken up, so they could make sure everyone else woke up alive and healthy.

Piece of cake, right?

In the end, after a week's solid testing, the Sled's first integration flight was a success. Systems worked. Power piles worked. Drivers worked. Nora worked. Crew worked. There would be two or three similar flights over the next few months. Even with everything working now and the hundreds of individual integration tests over the last couple years as she came together, there was room and need in the schedule to make absolutely sure we'd gotten it right.

But in the end, we wouldn't know until we arrived at Sol that we'd gotten everything right.

We wouldn't know until Children of Earth got home.

Letters from Home

Working on the Children of Earth project has been the most engrossing thing I've ever taken on. For the last six months this ship, and her crew, have been my life. Sure, there are occasional breaks surface side to Bolinger's Rock or into the city for something, but for all intents and purposes the Sled is my life.

That's why anything personal in my daily mail is a bright spot. The vast majority of my incoming waves and hard copy packages are directly related to the project, so when something comes in from someone who's actually part of the 'Verse outside of this little artificial world I always set aside time to enjoy it.

When the courier delivered a small package from Hale's Moon, I was naturally excited. Not that anyone who looked into my office could tell. Aside from Belize and Sabrina, who knew me well, and Lieutenant Conner, who understood the facade of a fellow Special Ops veteran, the crew all knew me as calm and personable, if a little reserved. None of them actually knew I had a temper, or that I felt emotions deeply, and that it was all kept hidden behind a calm, peaceful, exterior by years of self discipline. Good or bad, the only thing that changed in the calm was whether it was a bit warm or a bit icy.

Now, it was a warm calm.

We'd gotten semi-regular waves from the folks back on Hale's, but something you could hold in hand was special, and I knew who it was from without opening the box. An address label printed with machine precision, using a crayon, could mean only one person. Well, two, really. In concert. The handwriting was Krenshar's, the selection of lipstick red crayon could only be Lily.

Part of me wanted to wait until 'Brina and Bel were both off shift so they could be here when I opened it. They'd both left friends behind on Hale's to take this assignment and I knew they'd both want to know what was in it. Unfortunately, 'Brina was, almost literally, up to her elbows in drive tuning, and Belize was planetside again for a couple days getting some updated medical equipment. Which meant I wasn't really being bad by giving in to temptation and opening the package.

I opened it carefully, setting aside the wrapping as close to pristine as possible. I knew it was silly to want to preserve the wrapper, but it was all special. At least to me. In some cultures, the wrapping a gift came in was considered part of the gift itself, and often as much thought went into the wrapping as went into the present inside. So there was at least a precedent. Sort of.

Inside the wrapper was a small polymer packing box, just big enough across to cover both my open hands and maybe thirty millimeters thick. The original markings had been removed, but fr0m the looks of it, and the faint scent of coffee, it had originally gone Lily's little coffee shop. Now, instead of whatever markings it had once had, it was now covered with about a dozen hand written little notes from various folk back on Hale's.

My smile was just a shallow reflection of what I was feeling inside. The package is part of the gift itself. The sentiment of a small world in wildly varying script.

I opened it as carefully as I had the outer wrapping. Inside the box, nestled on some carefully cut padding that hadn't been part of the original package, were a dozen or so individually wrapped pieces of hard candy, several pieces of jewelry that looked like they'd been hand made by Lily and Jin, a couple of hand written notes, and half a dozen video posties.

It was easy to tell who the jewelry was intended for. The pendant, hanging on a woven titanium necklace, was obviously for Sabrina. Looking like a set of intricately linked clockwork gears, hand carved from the aft bearing of a Firefly's main drive, it screamed Jin's work. The other pieces were equally obviously Lily's handy work. Made from gemstones and precious metals she'd dug out of Hale's crust herself, mixtures of garnet, amethyst, platinum, silver, and gold, she'd sent along something for each of us.

Each of the posties was signed by one or more of the folks back on Hale's. I would save them until Sabrina and Belize were back to watch them with me. All save one. The one that said L I L Y on the back, block printed in crayon.

I ran my fingers over the smooth glossy surface. Flexible, thin as a sheet of paper, the postie was both storage and display media. They would last for decades, able to play the recording again and again before needing to be recharged. Giving the bottom corner a little squeeze, I watched as the image snapped into view.

For a moment I was confused, until I realized I was looking at an extreme, jiggling, closeup of Lily's nose. "This on? Ok ok ok! Hi Mommy Seana!" her voice came from the postie before the image suddenly shifted wildly to show sky, part of a building, a leg, then Lily's feet. Somehow I managed not to giggle.

"Would you like me to hold the recorder, Miss Lilybell?" Krenshar's voice from off screen somewhere, then Lily's "Ok, ok! You hold." The image suddenly bobbing quickly, and I could picture Lily nodding rapidly, like she did, before the image slid around, obviously passing the recorder off to Krenshar. The image suddenly stabilized with Lily center of frame, letting me identify where they were standing - near the main lift beside Fook Yoo's.

"Hi Mommy Seana! Hi Mommy Sabrina! Hi Auntie Belize!" Lily said, grinning wide and waving madly at the camera. "Hello, Mei Mei." I said softly back. "Her misses you all! Wanted show you everything ok wif us here. We takes good care of people wif Miss Genni." Lily nodded fiercely, then started explaining what everything was around her starting with the main lift. Krenshar dutifully followed her around town, keeping her, and often what she was trying to show, in frame and in focus.

For the next hour I watched the recording as Krenshar followed Lily around town, stopping to show off every little change she could find since we left. Furniture re-arranged in Fook's: New paint on the Church: An awning at Starstrucks: The updated sound system at Firefly's: The latest harvest from the Hydroponics building on sale in the Farmer's Market: A roughly Matagi sized rectangle hand painted on the pad behind Town Hall with the words "Reserved. You no land here!" scrawled across the middle.

I had to laugh aloud at that. We'd had Wave Equation parked on that spot for the better part of five years. My boat. Our home. She was still my boat, though the interior had been changed around to carry more passengers since we used her fairly often for runs planetside. But I doubted she'd ever see the surface of Hale's Moon again.

Eventually, they worked their way through town until they arrived at the little courtyard above the Infirmary. That little sheltered area, quite literally in the center of town, had always been a favorite spot of mine. The fountain, centered in the carefully tended stone garden, was an open challenge to the desert that was Hale's.

Years ago, lacking a church or temple or even a simple alter, I'd hand cut a small alter from spare stone and placed it in the courtyard. I'd needed it to offer a prayer to Caitlin's memory, as I had every year since her death. As I still did. That little stone alter had somehow come through Buddha only knew how many firefights, explosions, celebrations in the courtyard, and what have you, in the years since. I never expected it to be permanent, but somehow, like the colony itself, it had survived.

"You see, you see? Her saved this for last, Miss." Lily said brightly, then stepped off to the side, Krenshar holding the recorder focused on the little stone alter and the structure they'd placed around it. A tiny gazebo built around the alter, sheltering it. On shelves built into the small structure, people had placed posties and stills. Pictures and memories of us.

They'd turned the simple alter into a shrine.

"You likes? Whole town help build. Put up pictures and everything. You goes all the way to Erf that Was, but we remembers. Her remembers. But her gots to go now. You be safe Mommies! You be safe, Auntie! Her loves you." Krenshar held the image of the shrine in frame for a long time before the recording stopped, frozen on lily and the shrine. A moment frozen in time.

I stared at the frozen image for several minutes before a single tear landed on the glossy surface, bringing me back to the moment. "I like, Mei Mei. And I love you too. I'll never forget. We'll never forget."

Five months on

Officially, at least, the major work on Children of Earth and the crew integration phases are complete. The ship, now, has started into the Acceptance phase with the crew's undergoing their final training stages before we start the final shakedowns before departure. Never mind the 'last testing stages' would take another four to six months, depending on how things went.

Sabrina and Belize were both taking well to their roles. They'd both settled in well with their teams and quickly earned the respect of the people in both directions of their respective food chains. I hadn't had it quite so easy. While I was a competent leader and had managed to gain the respect of many of the people who reported to me, most notably the ORCA's who I understood, and the Scientists, who I did not, there was still a very subtle friction with the Captain and other members of his hand picked ex-fleet staff.

The inter-service rivalry between those who served in the Ground Forces and those who served in the Alliance Fleet, was as old as the Alliance. Older. Records from Earth that Was had some famous examples of rivalries between the different services almost as intense as the rivalries between different national militaries. As long as it didn't interfere with operations, the rivalries were usually pretty healthy. They kept the services sharp by trying to out do one another, rather than just drilling against synthetic enemies. And therein lay the problem.

While I was an accomplished pilot with hundreds of hours in the command chair, my official service record was with a ground unit, not a fleet element. I was a Major, not a Lieutenant Commander, and that difference in title apparently mattered more to the Captain's senior staff than my current position as their Executive Officer. Never mind there was an official promotion in the works, which would actually give me the Fleet rank of Commander, equivalent to a Lieutenant Colonel, the fact was my capabilities and matching responsibilities had never been limited by my official rank.

There was a reason Admirals would would talk to me when I asked.

I would deal with things, of course. I actually understood Captain Gill's reason for being a little standoffish with me. He'd wanted to pick the deck crew entirely on his own, but to his mind, had been saddled with an unsuited officer who'd been picked by the constructors, rather than the Alliance.

Not that our problems were even that pronounced. But one thing I had learned from my covert operations experience and, to a lesser degree, running the colony on Hale's Moon, was how to read when someone harbored ill will. Even when they may not admit it to themselves, I had learned to see it. He could claim he was perfectly happy having me as his XO but I know, deep down, he resented a Gropo, picked by the company, on his staff.

Dealing with Gill, and all the fleet specific retraining, made me relish the occasional breaks we took planetside. I'd been born and raised on Ariel. I'd probably been to every worthwhile place to get some away time on the planet. But a favorite, shared with a fair number of Children of Earth's crew, was a small island roughly in the middle of nowhere.

Bolinger's Rock wasn't well named. While the center of the roughly five my three kilometer island was indeed quite rock like, it was actually the highest point of a mostly submerged undersea mountain: the central cone of an ancient undersea volcano. Shallow reefs surrounded the central island, providing natural breakwaters that let Bolinger's retain some truly pristine beaches.

There wasn't actually much on the island, save a tracking station near the peak KHI had installed decades ago to monitor atmospheric flight tests, some bungalows used by the station's resident technicians, and a couple of landing pads. The island itself was named for the Range Master who'd overseen the station's construction, and had become kind of a 'special benefit' for KHI executives and specially invited guests once they'd landed a retired luxury transport in the island's lee on a specially built pad.

Now, it was mostly ours.

Since the finalization of the crew and their coming aboard, we'd pretty much annexed the "Liner-turned-Hotel" for our own needs. Given the stress the crew was under, and the fact that we may never see a beach again, Grandfather had been willing to turn the keys over. While the station was still quite active, it's crew had been augmented by a handful of people who were dedicated full time to supporting whoever was visiting the grounded "Lady Minerva."

Laying out on the beach, under the light of a star I would soon leave far, far, behind, listening to the waves, I could forget, if only briefly, the troubles of the 'Verse. It was an excuse to pretend I didn't have any responsibilities. Besides, 'Brina still liked me in a bikini. for that matter, I think the ORCAs may have too.

Two months on

Several years running a mining colony, after my time in the military, had given me a fairly good idea of what was involved in the "logistics" of running what amounted to a major project. Or so I thought. But Children of Earth wasn't a frontier mining colony or a covert operations unit. It was a starship the size of a downtown city block with a crew of four hundred thirty five people, all of whom I would be directly responsible for.

It was mostly a KHI project still, with their project management staff handling most of the details. But I still had things to keep track of through far too many aspects of the project. And as more and more of the ship's crew was finalized and came aboard, I found myself having to fully integrate them into the mission plans. Scientists. Technicians. Operational crew. Most of whom had been selected and in training for a good deal longer than I had. But they were only now coming together as a crew. And that's where my responsibilities really started.

While I still hadn't gotten a good handle on the Captain, aside from a vague feeling that he wasn't especially happy to have me as his XO, I had established a working relationship with most of the other department heads. Including the tactical unit we'd been assigned for 'mission security and other miscellaneous duties as required.'

I fully understood having a couple squads of specially trained soldiers aboard, even if their primary duties would be grunt work for the science and maintenance crews. There was the finite possibility we'd receive a hostile welcome on Earth when we arrived, and having some dedicated professional soldiers might make the difference between mission success and a bunch of dead scientists.

Of all the crew dossiers I had to read, theirs were the ones I understood. Each of them had been in one of the Alliance elite units. Drop troopers. J-TAC. Special Forces. All elite, hand picked, combat troops. All of whom had volunteered for this and spent most of the last year training to do all the other jobs they'd have to do aboard Children of Earth, while maintaining combat readiness in case it came down to it.

They'd been designated "Operational Reserve, Combat Auxiliaries," which promptly got shortened to ORCA. Operationally, they were answerable to the Captain, like everyone else, but their CO, Lieutenant Conner, answered to me. These, at least, were folk I would know how to lead.

Over in Medical, Belize appeared to be having an easier time of it. Socially, if not technically, since her job was so technical at this point. At least from my perspective.

There were two major stages to this mission that would take a doctor's care. The first, and longest in duration, if not in direct attention, would be Cold Sleep. Hibernation. There was a fifty odd year period at each end of the mission where the entire crew would be in suspended animation. The doctor's care going in, and coming out, would have a huge affect on the crew member's survival during that long period in the middle where the only thing watching them would be the ship's mainframe.

While Bel was a good doctor already, and well prepared for the other half of the job - maintaining the crew's health for the decade or so we were expected to stay in Sol system before coming home - cold sleep was something new. Or, more precisely, the kind of long duration hibernation systems we would be trusting our lives to were new. We'd dealt with people who'd been stuffed into Cryo more than once out on the Rim. But those were always short term, self contained, little freezer pods, intended to keep someone in suspension for up to, maybe, five years. This was a whole different animal.

On this end, leaving 34 Tauri, most of the crew would be in suspension before the sled pointed her nose at Sol and lit the torch. The doctors would have to worry about maybe fifty people to get safely to sleep before they, themselves, went into the tanks.

That was a job I didn't envy. There was some debate, still, as to who'd be the next to last person to go into suspension: me or the Captain. The last person to sleep, though, would be one of the doctors. They would have to put themselves into suspended animation. No one but the computer looking over their vitals as they settled in for the long sleep. No one to bail them out if something went wrong.

That would be scary. Probably the most alone a person could ever be.

For her part, I don't think I'd ever seen Sabrina happier. Since getting here, she and Elsoph had been almost inseparable. I would actually be worried if I was the jealous type, and I'd ever seen Elsoph show interest in, you know, a girl. But for 'Brina, this was like being a kid in a candy store. She was getting hands on with Children of Earth at a level that most of the people who'd worked on her hadn't. She'd been looking at specs for this ship for over two years at an academic level, and now she was up close and personal with a truly amazing piece of hardware.

She was making it her ship. She'd been Elsoph's baby, but now Sabrina was coming in to be the big sled's step mother. The good kind. Not the wicked, send to your room so the mice can talk to you in the dark, kind.

Her enthusiasm for the job was contagious though. We were both working crazy long hours, but when we got time together she could barely stop talking about all the shiny new things she'd gotten her fingers into, and how amazing the engineering was, and the mods she wanted to do but wouldn't have time for, and how tomorrow it would be the pre-nuclear framastatz decoupler, or something else that was only just within my comprehension. In contrast, I normally didn't want to talk about dealing with personnel issues away from the compact office I had as Executive Officer. Which usually resulted in my having to gently remind her that she was my wife, as well as my Chief Engineer, which subsequently led to both of us sleeping quite well, if not long enough.

All in all, things were coming together. As massive as the project was now that we were actually into it, I could see how it would all fit together. It was still overwhelming, to be sure, but it wasn't insurmountable.

And we still had another eight months left to go.

Arrivals: One of several

Our flight from Hale's Moon to Ariel was, ultimately, uneventful. We'd each made the flight, often together, many times over the last few years. The only real difference this time was the sheer number of waves we got en-route. I usually flew with an active Cortex feed going and this time, everyone and their brother seemed to want to send their regards.

What had the last few weeks been for? You'd think by now they'd be tired of wishing us well, and hoping we had a grand adventure, and missing us, and, and, and. I couldn't really blame them. Any of them. As far as most of the 'Verse was concerned we were about to be dead and gone. Literally.

We weren't gone, yet, of course. There were still months of preparation left to do on Children of Earth, and nearly as many months of training for us to become her crew. We'd become part of a project far bigger than I think any one ever expected, both in scope and duration.

Decelerating to dock at the orbital yard, we could see the massive shape of Children of Earth in her gantry less then her own length from the platform. Structurally almost complete, she dwarfed the IAV Huygens, docked for maintenance, in length, if not bulk.

While Sabrina and I had been aboard a number of times, and Belize had seen the big sled before they moved her to the platform, the sight was still awesome. Her fuel talks and drives overwhelmed the rest of the ship, including the massive long duration fusion pile and the life section for her four hundred odd crew. All told, she was one of the largest speceships, no, starships, ever built by Human hands.

"That is one gorram big ship," I heard Bel say softly as we slid past the sled's gantry and backed into our spot on the platform. "Aye. More living space in there than we had in buildings on Hale's," I replied, hard docking Wave Equation to her cradle. "She'll be our home soon, if we don't decide to back out."

Sabrina let out a little snort of laughter. "Back out? As if."

I managed to suppress a giggle myself as a familiar voice came over the local intercom asking us to please hurry up and open the hatch because Uncle Elsoph was so glad we were finally here and he had so much to say and hardly enough time to say it because there was just so much that needed to be done and we had to start getting ready and don't forget to breathe before you run out of air because you can't stop talking.

I loved my uncle. I always had. He was the beloved, crazy, gifted, brilliant, uncle who was often hard to follow because his mind could easily, and frequently, jump tracks and you had to hope you could somehow keep up. He'd designed the last three spacecraft I'd called home and, spiritually at least, fathered Children of Earth herself.

Sabrina practically tackled him when he came aboard. Since meeting her, Elsoph had treated her like the daughter he'd never had time to have. But more, he treated her like a kindred spirit. Another natural Engineer. Never mind she hadn't had that much formal schooling when they met. Invention was in her blood, and the formal schooling was something she'd been able to add later.

Elsoph wasn't the only one who wanted to see us when we arrived. My parents and a handful of friends had come up to the Yard, probably knowing it would be a while before we had any time to go planetside.

In fact, it would be almost a week before we managed to get planetside. While we spent most of the first day or so visiting with family and friends, we very soon got into the details of what our respective roles would be during the upcoming mission. Something you never quite know until you you start doing it.

As Executive Officer, my duty would be to the ship and her crew first, while the captain, a former Alliance cruiser captain by the name of Mathew Gill, would be in charge and have overall command of the mission. His resume certainly looked good. Results driven. Attention to detail. A history of successful command. There was just something in our initial meeting that put me a bit on edge. Nothing I could put my finger on, really. But there was something about the man I just couldn't quite pin down. Usually, I could get a read on someone in a matter of moments, but not Captain Gill. Figuring him out would take time. But time was something we had.

Belize would be one of three actual medical doctors aboard. The chief of staff, and flight surgeon, Doctor Bernard Olson, was a former emergency surgery professor in a teaching hospital, with a background in 'space medicine' - the sub-field of dealing with the fā kuáng tián sè people encountered in space and on other worlds. Bel seemed to hit it off with him instantly, which was fortunate, given their wildly different backgrounds. Still. Belize was a real doctor now. Board certified and everything. But it wasn't the board certification that brought her here. It was the experience on the Rim, in the Wastes and on Hale's and other Rim worlds, working minor miracles with not much more than safetly pins and duct tape.

Where my world would be Children of Earth and her crew of four hundred odd souls, Sabrina's world would be Children of Earth herself. As chief engineer, hand picked by the big sled's designer, she already knew more about the ship than half the people who'd worked on her.

Long before she'd decided to accept Elsoph's request, he'd been sending details and exchanging ideas with her, nurturing her natural machine empathy with toys and data she couldn't get out on the Rim. It didn't matter there were still a few gaps in her formal education, there was nothing in the sled's systems she couldn't fix given time and tools. I wasn't quite sure how she'd have an actual staff under her, being used to working alone or with one or two hands, but we would worry about that over the next few months.

The next few months. So much to do. Honing skills, finding our place in the mission, coming up to speed on the myriad details already worked out over the years of planning already in place. It was going to be a busy eight or so months.

But at least there was a pristine beach only an hour's flight away...

Departures: One of several

"You look sad," I heard Sabrina say from the passenger seat just behind me. "I'm not, love. Not really. It's just this'll be the last time we do this," I replied softly, going through the preflight for Wave Equation's burn from Hale's Moon across the Black to Ariel. It was the last time most of the people here would ever see us and the last time we would see any of them. In less than a year, Sabrina, Belize, and I, would be in cold sleep on our way to Earth that Was. By the time we came back, if we came back, the 'Verse would be a very different place. The folks here would be another generation's honored ancestors, and the three of us would be footnotes in a history book.

"Hale's control, this is Wave Equation, requesting departure clearance." I said calmly, keeping the layers of emotion out of my voice. Looking out through my long suffering Matagi's ports, I could see a couple dozen people scattered around the ramps and on nearby rooftops. Over on top of the Sheriff's office, I could see a crew of three, a bit too far away to identify, holding a banner - "God's Speed, Children of Hale's!"

Children of Hale's? A pun on the big sled's name, but somehow appropriate. I'd come to Hale's Moon a damaged woman, with emotional scars hidden behind a calm, confident, veneer. This little slice of Heaven had changed me. This world and the people here had taught me I could love again, and could be loved. Taught me that Humanity wasn't restricted by form, that the shell didn't matter to the ghost within. Taught me that right and wrong were more important than legal or not. Taught me that I couldn't fix everything that was wrong in the 'Verse. That sometimes good people died and bad people lived, no matter what we had to say about it. It'd given me a family. And now? Now it was time to say good bye.

"Wave Equation, you are cleared for immediate departure. Safe journey, Miss Seana," came the reply. Krenshar's smooth artificial voice from the tower. It might have been imagination. Hard to say. But I thought I could hear emotion in his tone. A machine with the soul of a man. The one person who might actually live long enough to see us return.

"Thanks, Krenshar. You take good care of Lily, ok?" I said, loading the departure clearance into Wave EQ's nav system.

"Always, Miss Seana. Always."

I rotated the lateral drives and hit the throttles, launching us skyward, the colony we'd called home for over five years shrinking rabidly as I kicked the nose up and lit the main drivers. Wave Equation clawed sky as she had hundreds of times before, burning for orbit before turning towards Xuan Wu to take advantage of its gravity for the run in to Bei Hu and Ariel. At maximum burn, Ariel was barely a day away: the advantage of a Matagi's impressive performance. But somehow, I didn't want to make this trip short. While I knew we'd made the right decision to go, it didn't make it any easier to leave our friends behind. Going max thrust would feel like we were running from them, rather than going to embrace a new future.

Sabrina, and Belize lounging in the main cabin, left me with my thoughts for the few minutes it took to climb to orbit and swing around to burn clear of Hale's Moon's gravity well, before 'Brina drew my attention to the transponder. Two ships, with Alliance military idents, vectoring in on an intercept course.

Given things had been Shiny 'twixt us and the Alliance for months, I was a little confused. Then the comms lit up. "Wave Equation, this is Delta Two Niner. General Silvermane asked us to provide you an escort to the edge of the Kalidasa sector. You don't mind if we form up, do you?" said a voice I hadn't heard in nearly six months. Lieutenant. No. Lieutenant Commander now, Otsuka.

I could still remember the day we'd met the man and he'd taken up arms on our behalf, standing shoulder to shoulder with our militia to take on a nest of Reavers. He'd made a genuine effort to live up to the 'spirit of cooperation' then Colonel Silvermane had set for her compliment on the Sun Tzu. We'd done our part too. Treating fair with the Alliance soldiers as long as they treated fair with us. It was probably what saved us major pain during the Second Independence War, if you could really all it a war. We'd found a way to live peaceably with the Alliance forces on the Rim, but it took willing folk on both sides to make it work.

"Sidle on up, Commander. We're glad of the company."

"Thank you, Ma'am. The General sends her regards. Wishes you and yours luck."

For the next couple hours we talked to the Commander and his mates, holding our thrust back so the Alliance patrol boats could keep up. But eventually, it was time to go. Bidding farewell to our Alliance escort and, ultimately, everyone we held dear in the Black Tortoise system, I throttled up to vector for Ariel.

"This really is it," Belize said softly as the drive flares from the two Alliance escorts faded into the Black behind us. I just nodded, watching Sabrina give Bel a hug in the reflection from my console.

Behind us, lost in the actinic glare of Wave Equation's drives, Hale's Moon faded into the Black.

But never from memory.

Decisions

I've never been good at delivering speeches. Even worse at writing them. I never seem to quite find the tone I'm reaching for when I'm trying to get people to listen. Fortunately, I don't have to deliver a lot of them. The folks on Hale's Moon have never been for long winded speeches in any case. When they elected me Mayor the first time, my acceptance speech consisted of "Thanks, folks. I'll try and do you proud." It went over well.

But now, standing in the midst of two hundred odd colonists packed into Fook Yoo's and damn near everyone else watching on a screen somewhere nearby, I hoped I'd be able to say what I felt. There were so many people here who'd touched my life, saved me from who I'd been when I arrived, made me feel welcome and wanted without caring about who I'd been before. I owed them a lot. More than they owed me, and I sincerely hoped I'd managed to do them proud.

"Relax, Boss, you'll do fine. Now get your skinny ass up there," Genni chided me, giving me a gentle nudge towards the stage. In the two years she'd been my assistant and the three she'd been Deputy Mayor, we'd grown close. Who'd have thought our friendship started after she shot me? Now, years later, I'd be turning the colony over into her capable hands. From disgruntled colonist, to Town Elder and mother of three.

I nodded, gave her a hug, and started working my way through the throng. I knew all these people. Colonists and visitors alike. Folks from Shadow, Washtown, Burnholme, Suzhou, half a dozen other Rim worlds. Folk from Blackburne who'd settled here after the Reavers wrecked their colony four years ago.

The people in this room had changed with me over the last few years. Some more than others. Little Jin, growing from an enthusiastic, gearhead, orphan to a strapping 17 year old who'd learned to shoot from General and Duncan, and learned to wrench from Sabrina. Uncle Sobi and Lady Jade, married two years now, watching the crowd arm in arm from the loft. Krenshar, the machine with a soul, sporting a new skin around the same core chassis. General, talking quietly with Belize in the loft opposite Sobi and Jade, mellower, more mature, the anger that'd driven him now years behind. Lilybell. My Mei Mei. Standing with Krenshar, watching, knowing what I was going to say, a look of both sorrow and joy on her engineered feline features. And somewhere, somewhere unseen, Aurora and Blue, watching as well.

At least I hoped they were watching. Somewhere.

Folks quieted quickly when I stepped up onto the small stage between the two well worn dance poles, voices fading to a murmur then actual quiet, waiting for me to speak.

"Good morning, Citizens. Thank you all for coming here or watching on the feeds," I started, settling into a nice, protective, zen-like calm. "First, thank you for letting me serve as your Mayor for a full term and now re-electing me for another. Can only guess you're glad it gave the folks looking to harm us a better target than your fine selves."

I let the round of light laughter subside. it had been a running joke for years that I'd been elected more for my ability to attract bullets away from the townspeople than my ability to lead. In fact, it wasn't entirely a joke as I'd caught more than one bullet over the years as Mayor.

"As many of you know, I've been offered the Executive Officer position aboard Children of Earth for her mission back to Earth that Was. My wife, Sabrina, and Doctor Carver, have also been offered positions on the crew, as Chief Engineer and Medical Officer. After a lot of soul searching, and talking to the Town Elders, we've decided, all three of us, to take the assignment," I waited a few moments for the crowd to absorb what many of them already knew, and the murmurs to die away.

"To that end, I'll be resigning my position as Mayor of Hale's Moon effective the end of next week. With the Elder's blessing, Genni Foxtrot will take over in my place until you fine folk decide whether to let her finish out my term or to hold another round of elections."

"If we shoot ya again, will ya stay?" I heard from the back of the crowd, followed by a wave of laughter. The familiar voice of Sam Foxtrot, Genni's husband.

"Sorry, Samuel. This decision has been a long time coming. It's been a pleasure and a privilege to serve as your Mayor, and I hope I've managed to keep my promise of doing you folk proud. We've stood together through interesting times. We've fought back to back against enemies and the elements, and I can't think of a finer group of people to have done it with. We've survived some major challenges together. We've shared both suffering and joy on this little slice of Heaven. But the fact was we had to choose before the opportunity burned a hole in the Black, and we've chosen to go."

I looked across the room, the sea of faces. Some smiling, others nodding, showing signs of acceptance or regret. Sadness. Joy. Hope. Loss. These were good folk and I would miss them.

"Some of us have had our differences over the last few years," I said, looking directly at Genni across the room to another round of laughter, bringing a hand up to rub the spot on my chest where she'd put a bullet into my armor. "But the fact is, I'll miss all of you. I've tried to give enough time to get everything in order before we leave, but I know you'll be in good hands. So rather then us dwelling on departures, let's have ourselves a little shindig and celebrate the ongoing prosperity of Hale's Moon."

I waved to a round of friendly cheers and laughter, stepping off the small stage to give Sabrina a hug. It was a brief speech. Probably didn't say all it could have. How could it? I was saying good by to the colony I'd called home for over five years to set of on a one way trip to a world out of legend. Half these folk probably thought I was toppyoushimonai, and I might well have been. Over the next few days I was pretty sure more than one person here would try and talk me out of it, but we'd made the decision. Sabrina and Belize and I. We were going.

Butsuriki help us. We were going.