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.