The doorstep of Earth

From our vantage point, seeing Earth out the observation ports and on the main displays, it was hard to be patient. In the short time we'd been here we'd learned much about the homeworld we'd left behind. Where some thought we'd find a barren husk of a world, we'd found a largely recovered biosphere with and a rebounding Human population.

Where most of Earth's once great cities had been abandoned and dismantled to help build the Exodus fleet generations ago, there were still signs of habitation in the shadows of some of them: mostly a scattering of settlements in widely separated pockets. We could see them. We were still avoiding contact, but we had enough resolution from the drones to see some of the settlements. And, from a distance, they didn't seem like they'd have been entirely out of place on some remote moon back home.

The only glaring difference between a colony at home and the villages or few small cities of Earth appeared at night. While even a small town on a Rim colony glowed enough to be seen from orbit, the cities of Earth were mostly dark. The few lights we could see had the spectral characteristics of either open flame or a mantle lantern. From above, the nights of Earth were lit with torches.

In fact, we hadn't detected any power systems at all. With the exception of a few small sources, probably the remains of a long forgotten fission reactor, there was simply no power. No electrical fields. No radio. No controlled gravity sources. Nothing that we could detect from orbit or the drones tentatively exploring Earth's atmosphere. Our cousins had either abandoned or forgotten the technologies that had taken their ancestors into the Black. Either that, or their shielding was very, very, good.

It was a mystery we'd solve soon enough. Our observations so far showed several styles of architecture, differences in living styles and conditions, some hints at culture. But so far no language and, without any kind of broadcast communications, it would take a much closer approach before we were ready to make contact. Not that we hadn't planned for this.

Once we had a good idea where to start, we'd set up a concealed observation post to learn all we could before making contact. Some of the science crew were already sorting through the data we had in their eagerness to get on the surface. But there was still so much to do. Closer observations. Sample returns. A bucketfull of biology to see if it was even safe for us to go home. All things that would take time. Something we may, or may not, have in abundance.

There were other things on my mind other than Earth, unfortunately. While we'd been sorting and disseminating fifteen years worth of assorted comms traffic to the crew, we made some effort to keep some of the developments back in 34 Tauri obscure. We weren't going to lie to the crew. But we weren't going to worry them with the possibility that there might be a robotic warship on its way to turn us into ionized vapor. We just didn't know, which meant we were going to continue with the main mission while bringing some contingency plans into effect.

Though there were still some pressing matters which justified a meeting of the senior staff. Unlike the late Captain Gill, I wasn't especially fond of meetings. With the exception of some tactical planning sessions and the related briefings, most meetings took people away from actually doing the work that needed to be done. A dozen people sitting around a conference room usually wasn't the most efficient use of resources. But, sometimes, it was part of the job.

I kept it to senior staff. Operations. Science. Engineering. Medical. The ORCAs. They were all aware that Mission Control on Ariel had stopped sending updates part way into the mission, leaving us very much alone at Sol. Most of them knew the likely reason why the folks back home had stopped streaming updates. Some of them had been in discussions with each other, and me, on how we were going to handle the situation. It was the main reason for this meeting.

That, and announcing my replacement for Executive Officer. There was a reason the position existed with duties separate from the Captain. Actually several reasons, some of which changed dramatically depending on the dynamics of the crew, the mission, and the relationship of the officers involved. Where I had been well qualified to handle crew matters and some of my other, not so obvious, duties, I was less qualified for the role I found myself in. Which meant my XO would have to fill a different set of gaps than I'd filled for Captain Gill.

The problem was we didn't really have the luxury of a dedicated officer to fill the role. Whoever I picked would have to maintain their original duties in addition to being my backup and advisor, which made it an even more difficult choice. But in the end, the choice was fairly obvious. There really was only one officer on this ship who was not only capable of doing the job, but was well liked by the majority of the crew. That, and I trusted him. As much as I trusted anyone.

I rarely stood on formality, even when dealing with the lowest ranked members of the crew. While I understood that in many circumstances a rigid chain of command helped maintain discipline, on this ship, with this crew, it wasn't a requirement. We'd trained and worked together long enough that respect, sometimes grudging, albeit, had been earned all around. It was one of the changes since Matthew Gill's demise.

"I'm going to try and keep this brief, if possible, to let you all get back to work," I started once everyone had arrived. At this stage, they were all busy. Even the ORCA's, who were fulfilling their "Operational Reserve" duties for most of the other operational crews. "First off, I want to announce the promotion of our lead navigator, Lieutenant Commander Andrew Schulps, to the position of Executive Officer. Given the changes in our original command structure and the fact he'll still need to cover Nav, there won't be many changes in how we've done things since I took over. I'll still have an open door policy for anyone who needs to talk to me, but point your teams and Commander Schulps if they want to go up the food chain officially."

I let the congratulations die down for a couple of minutes. Andrew was well respected by the officers and crew alike, and a damn fine navigator. He actually had a doctoral in it and had taught at Academy for a number of years. Of the original bridge crew Gill'd hand picked to serve with him, Schulps was the one man I'd honestly gotten to like. Probably helped that his hobby had been collecting high quality knives.

"Second, and probably more pressing, is how we're going to deal with the rest of the mission in light of the last transmissions from Mission Control." The assembled staff got quiet, since only a couple of them had been in on all of the various discussions and decisions. "We knew going in we would be on our own. That was the nature of the mission. We hadn't planned on Mission Control going quiet before we got here, or the possibility of having hostiles coming along behind us."

No surprises. They'd all known this shortly after I'd read the briefings from home myself. "The Sled was never intended for combat. She's big and ungodly fast, but not especially maneuverable or well armed," which got a couple of suppressed laughs. The fact was, Children of Earth was, for all intents and purposes, essentially unarmed. At least by design. She was a purpose built exploration ship, intended for one very specific missions. No one had ever planned on us having to fight the ship.

"Not counting any light weaponry we have on the landers, the Sled's ATR launchers and small rock guns won't do much against a warship if it comes to that. But there is one bright spot. You all know the big dorsal communications laser we were using to send signals back home. What you may not have known was that the emitter core was re-purposed from a Qilin class destroyer's spinal mount," I told them with a faint smile. Letting that settle in.

The Qirin's main armament was a high power rapid pulse laser that more or less filled the spine of the ship. It had longer range and better penetration than the pulse cannon that made up the primary armament of most other ships, at the cost of greater expense. On a Qirin it in a fixed spinal mount, which meant turning the ship to train the weapon. On the Sled, the big communications laser was steerable so we could punch messages back to 34 Tauri no matter which way we were facing.

"Sabrina's pretty sure the Engineering team can adapt the comms laser to act as a weapon once again. Which means if we do have to fight, we'll have something fairly formidable to fight with. The bottom line though, is we have no reason to suspect there is a hostile ship inbound. None. At all. We're doing some limited combat planning based on the remote possibility we'll have to fight this ship. The mission, as we know it, is going to continue as we know it. Engineering and Operations will work any combat preparations into their existing schedules as a secondary duty."

I could see relief on most faces. With the exception of Belize, Sabrina, and myself, none of the Sled's crew had ever dealt with the Machines. To a lot of people, they'd been like Reavers: something made up by backward colonists on the Rim to scare their children. Only, like Reavers, the Machines had been quite real. Unlike the Reavers, the Machines were an experimental weapon gone awry. Also, unlike the Reavers, the Machine threat had the potential to grow, rather than die out through attrition and poor dental hygiene.

"We'll have updates on the combat prep in future meetings, but for now, let's get back to our primary mission. We've got a home to return to. Let's figure out where to go first."

The rest of the meeting went like most of these meetings: progress reports and a lot of open discussion. Officially or not, everyone on the Sled was part of the Science and that was what got most of the attention. A fact I didn't mind.

Very soon now, we would be sending the first teams to the surface, and where they went would be a fairly monumental decision. Recontact would go into the history books. Someone's history books, anyway. Where we made contact, who we met, and who we sent, was something we were almost guaranteed to get wrong. The Science teams would have their recommendations. So would the ORCAs. But ultimately, the decision was mine.

I could only hope History would treat the decision kindly.