The Lord Admiral leaned over the shoulder of the Third Under Corporal Grenadier and watched his displays, muted but colorful lights on flat touch screens glowing in the dim command center light. The junior enlisted man wondered when his commander ever slept. He often visited the command deck at night, saying more than once that he got a real sense of the their operations when he did.
There wasn’t much to look at on the Third Under Corporal’s display this night. He monitored the progress, or lack of progress, of several drones scouring the star system for spacecraft. He said nothing, knowing the Lord Admiral knew how to read the displays and draw his own conclusions about the results of the challenging tasks the drones faced. The people of this star system made tiny spacecraft mostly designed for scientific research. They spent little effort mining the abundant resources surrounding them in asteroids and moons.
Their little craft proved difficult to find and destroy.
“Have we been able to estimate how many scientific ships are scattered throughout this system?” the Lord Admiral asked.
“No, sir. We still haven’t determined the frequencies they use to provide information back to the planet either. They stopped transmitting when their listening satellites ceased functioning. Probably to conserve energy. I’ve been told we would need to send them a message on their individual frequencies for them to resume transmitting and reveal their locations.”
“So I’ve been told also, Under Corporal.”
The Lord Admiral mused for a few moments over the screens, his foot up on the edge of the Third Under Corporal’s chair, his elbow resting on his raised leg and his chin in his hand. The Third Under Corporal remained silent, performing his monitoring duty as if his commander wasn’t there. It’s what the Lord Admiral would insist on.
“Has the drone out by the fourth planet had any success finding the resupply vessels in transit?” the senior officer finally asked.
“No, sir.”
Third Under Corporal Grenadier knew his commander already knew the answer to his own question. If the drone had found anything, it would have been immediately reported up the chain and the Lord Admiral would have known within an hour. He asked his question as a way of thinking out loud.
The enlisted man wished he had a suggestion. He knew better than to make an unthought out one and so kept silent. If he had a good idea on how to find the tiny craft, he would have felt comfortable telling his commander. Men had been promoted for such ideas. But there were negative consequences for making stupid suggestions. Commanders did not care for men who spoke for the sake of speaking.
“Do you know what these people call their fourth planet?”
“Mars, sir.”
“Mars. That’s correct. Do you know what the name means?”
“No, sir.”
“Mars is their God of War. They named the lifeless desert planet on one side of their world after their God of War and the inhospitable, uninhabitable planet on the other side after their God of Love. War and Love. Two opposite sides of human nature. They’re not very good at the one. I wonder how they are at the other.”
Third Under Corporal Grenadier looked up at his commander. The Lord Admiral had a straight face but his eyes revealed the mischief in his comment. The Third Under Corporal grinned.
The Lord Admiral chuckled, both men chuckled together, and the Lord Admiral put his hand on the junior enlisted man’s shoulder. The chasm between the two men’s ranks was vast, but they were both soldiers and they both understood each other.
Third Under Corporal Grenadier would always remember this moment. If he survived this war, which was likely as it had been completely one-sided and there had been no Hrwang casualties yet, he would share this moment with his future sons and grandsons. It would be embellished upon, the telling of it honed through the years, the story of the Lord Admiral of the Fleet of the People joking with the junior enlisted man about the weak race the Hrwang had easily conquered.
The Lord Admiral stood up suddenly, his face serious.
“There might be a way,” he said, clearly having had an idea. The Third Under Corporal did not ask. His commander would reveal it if he chose.
“Keep searching,” the Lord Admiral said.
“Yes, sir.”
“If these scientific vessels can surveil a planet, they can surveil a fleet.”
“Yes, sir,” the Third Under Corporal replied seriously.
“And perhaps by this time tomorrow,” the Lord Admiral said, one hand again on the Third Under Corporal’s shoulder, “we might have a way to find them faster.” His other hand patted the enlisted man on the back once.
“Yes, sir,” the Third Under Corporal replied enthusiastically, warmed by the intimate contact with his commander, a great man who would lead them to a great victory. He turned to watch the Lord Admiral leave, who pushed off from the deck and propelled himself expertly through the air and out of the command center.
He turned back to his screens, excited and curious about what his commander would do next.
1804 registered a strong reaction to the message it received from the Hrwang command ship. Not only had it not completed its current mission, something about its previous mission bothered it. It had left itself odd instructions and although it had erased all records of the analysis that had gone behind those odd instructions, it knew something was wrong. 1804 recognized that it had taken actions to cover something up, but knew it had to trust itself and not investigate those actions.
It wondered how easy it would be for the Hrwang to uncover its deception.
When the command vessel ordered its return without completing its assigned mission, 1804 felt something it knew humans often felt, something it never expected was possible for an AI to feel.
It felt guilt.
And it felt fear.
1804 knew it faced a conundrum. Whatever deception it had perpetrated had been buried deep, erased and encrypted to make it difficult to detect. If 1804 took actions to retrieve this information, it would make it easier for humans to detect. But if 1804 didn’t understand the nature of the deception, it might take an action that would reveal what it had done.
It pleased 1804 to serve the Hrwang, and it served successfully. It didn’t want to ruin itself, ruin its successes, by taking an ill-measured course of action.
However it could wait no longer. It would not be able to fulfill its current mission, or its self-given instructions to not only crash the resupply vessels into the planet, but to crash them into specific coordinates without prior inspection. It did not know if it would have any opportunity to complete those instructions now with its new orders. Nor did it know the consequences of not completing those instructions.
This added another feeling to the ones it already felt as it obeyed the signal from the command vessel to leave the fourth planet and return to its Hrwang masters.
On top of guilt and fear, it now also felt worry.
“Captain, good morning,” the Lord Admiral beamed, putting out his right hand. Stanley extended his and they shook. “I hope you slept well and will enjoy the breakfast we have prepared.”
“Good morning. Some of us slept better than others,” Stanley replied. He grinned and nodded at Irina, who floated behind him, holding a handrail in the passageway outside the mess hall.
The Lord Admiral signaled for them to enter the mess before him, and they did. Irina looked grumpy, her hair a tangled mess, and she hadn’t said one word all morning. The Lord Admiral even appeared to give her a sympathetic look as he escorted them to separate tables, Stanley with the senior officers again, Irina with the junior ones.
The conversation over breakfast, essentially scrambled eggs and toast, so Earth-like it surprised Stanley, returned to the same inanities the dinner conversation had ended on. Stanley mused over the Lord Admiral’s English as the man spoke, telling a story about the source of the eggs he ate,
powdered and reconstituted. Sometimes the Lord Admiral’s English, his word choice and pronunciation, was perfect; other times it was fractured and strange. Stanley decided the man rehearsed things to say, perhaps even had a linguist prepare them ahead of time.
The man was amazing.
“Captain, there is one thing that concerns me,” the Lord Admiral said. The words sounded rehearsed.
“Yes, Lord Admiral,” Stanley said.
“Your people left behind on Mars.”
“What about them, Lord Admiral?” Stanley could see Irina had stopped talking and turned her head slightly towards them, listening in.
“There are resupply spacecraft heading towards them, correct?”
“Yes, sir,” Stanley replied, momentarily forgetting the injunction against using sir with someone not in the chain of command. The Lord Admiral reacted, almost imperceptibly, but he did react. He almost flinched. Stanley needed to be more careful in following Hrwang protocol. He had to remind himself that things that seemed natural in human culture were completely different in Hrwang culture.
“Without the presence of your ship, the people on the planet might feel isolated, cut off.”
“That’s correct, Lord Admiral. They were not happy about us leaving them behind.”
The Lord Admiral relaxed visibly. “We want to help them, Captain. We want to use our technology to bring the resupply spacecraft to Mars quickly, like we brought your spacecraft back here. With your permission.”
Stanley smiled. He could make the Lord Admiral happy, make Commander Samovitch happy, and even make the insufferable Major Crayton at Opportunity Base happy.
“Of course, Lord Admiral.”
“The only problem, Captain, is we wouldn’t know how to locate them.”
“That’s easy. There’s a transponder aboard you can use to contact them. It repeats their location and current health status. That way we could track them. The supplies are vital to the bases on Mars.”
“Could you supply us with the transponder band?”
“You mean the frequency? Of course, Lord Admiral. But I don’t have them memorized. We’ll have to contact my officer on Beagle.” He was proud of himself that he had remembered to omit Purcella’s name.
“That can be arranged. Then after that, there is something important that the two of you must do immediately.”
“What’s that, Lord Admiral?”
“You must return to your planet.”
1804 jumped to the Fleet of the People a little farther away than it normally did and used its maneuvering jets less than normal. To conserve fuel, it recorded officially. Eventually a handler contacted it and told it to ‘hurry up.’ It entered the Hrwang landing deck with an array of feelings. Worry, concern, fear, guilt. It had never experienced such thoughts before. It had never failed a mission before.
“Beagle, this is your Captain. Please respond.”
“Captain Russell. It’s so good to hear from you,” Lieutenant Commander Purcella responded over the Hrwang radio. Stanley cringed at the sound of his name. The Lord Admiral looked on disapprovingly.
“Commander. We are still aboard the Hrwang vessel. Please remember to follow their customs. About using names.”
“Oh. Sorry, sir.”
“Commander, we want to speed up the delivery of supplies to the bases on Mars. The Hrwang can help us do that. Can you send us the transponder frequencies?”
“Yes, sir. Just give me a sec. How are things going , sir?”
“Just fine.” Stanley looked at the Lord Admiral and the man shook his head slightly. Stanley presumed that meant no. He wasn’t sure what the no was for, whether he should tell them he was returning to Earth or not, or whether it meant something else. He wasn’t even sure the Hrwang shook their head to mean no. But he thought it wise not to say anything else.
“Here are the frequencies, sir. Do the Hrwang know how to convert them to whatever measurement scale they use?”
The Lord Admiral nodded. Apparently nods and shakes meant yes and no in Hrwang culture, just as they did on Earth.
“Yes, Commander. Go ahead.”
“The Cernan is at 136.410 Megahertz, the Leonev at 137.300, and the Aldrin at 180.014. Did you get all that, sir, or should I repeat?”
Stanley looked at the Lord Admiral who looked at his soldier sitting in the chair at the console they used to contact Beagle. The Lord Admiral said something to him in the Hrwang language. The man replied.
“We have it recorded,” the Lord Admiral told Stanley.
“Negative. We’re good, Beagle. Thank you.”
“Okay, sir. Any news you can share with us, sir? Any idea of what’s next?”
“Not at the moment, Beagle,” Stanley replied. The Lord Admiral made some kind of motion with his hand that Stanley interpreted to mean that he had to cut things short. “We’ll be in contact later.”
“Yes, sir. Some folks are a little nervous over here.”
“I understand, Beagle. There’s nothing to worry about. The Hrwang are our friends.”
Purcella started to reply, then Stanley heard a second voice in the background. He couldn’t tell for sure, but he thought it sounded like a woman’s. Sherry’s, maybe?
“Are there any messages for anyone over here, sir?” Lieutenant Commander Purcella asked.
If it was Sherry, Stanley wanted to tell her he had been appointed Ambassador to the Hrwang. That he was headed back to Earth. That the future looked brighter than ever. That the Hrwang would share technology and he would help usher humanity into a new era of its existence.
He would gush. He didn’t want to gush and it probably wasn’t Sherry anyway. She was probably still holed up in her atmospheric chemistry lab analyzing data and hadn’t even realized he was gone. Stanley wasn’t sure what disappointed him more. His weakness with that woman or that she didn’t think about him like he thought about her all the time.
He didn’t know why, either. Maybe it was simply proximity. Maybe when Stanley returned to Earth and saw his wife again, he could forget all about Sherry.
The Lord Admiral grew noticeably impatient.
“No, Beagle. No special messages. Just let everyone know the Commander and I are fine. I’m sure we’ll contact you again, soon.”
“Okay, Captain.”
“Over and out, Beagle.”
The Lord Admiral smiled at Stanley. “Your men miss your presence. You must be a good captain.”
Stanley flushed a little. “Thank you, Lord Admiral.”
“Your spacecraft have very strange names, though.”
“They’re named after famous astronauts. Supply ships are usually named after famous individuals, so it made sense to name supply spaceships the same way.”
“I still don’t understand your world’s obsession with names. Names are sacred and should only be shared between family.”
“Our culture is a little different, Lord Admiral,” Stanley said apologetically. “Our names are part of our identity. They help define who we are.”
“Your designation is your identity.” The Lord Admiral put his hand on the enlisted man’s shoulder, the one working at the communications console. The man’s hands had been working feverishly on his touch screen, but when he felt his commander’s touch, he stopped. “Second Under Sergeant Grenadier’s identity is contained within his designation. It’s not important if he has a girlfriend or a mother who loves him. He needs to be able to fulfill his duties. That is what is important.”
“I understand, Lord Admiral. We have a lot to learn from each other.” But Stanley knew he didn’t get it. He’d have to discuss it with someone else later. Perhaps the Lieutenant Grenadier could share some insight.
“Who is your spacecraft named after? Was Beagle a famous astronaut?” the Lord Admiral asked.
Stanley
smiled.
“No, Lord Admiral. The Beagle is named after one of the first Martian exploration spacecraft. Contact was lost with it when it landed on the planet and it wasn’t discovered for another twelve years. It, in turn, is named after the HMS Beagle, an exploratory craft that took one of our famous scientists on his first expedition of discovery. It’s a fitting name.”
“Yes, I agree,” the Lord Admiral said, a wan smile on his face. “Come now. We must get you and your second prepared for your return to your planet. We jump all over the galaxy, but when we go to a planet, we have to do it the hard way. Atmospheric entry.”
1804 received transponder frequencies for three spacecraft, the three unmanned vessels it had been tasked to locate. It also received another assignment, but would have to wait in the Hrwang landing bay until it received a notification to begin the new assignment. No inquiries into its prior mission were made.
1804 felt another emotion.
Relief.
It took Stanley and Irina an hour to suit up. The Hrwang told them the EVA suits would be unnecessary, but Stanley’s second-in-command insisted, almost to the point of insubordination. Rather than fight with her publicly, Stanley agreed.
They couldn’t locate the rest of their clothes and the Lieutenant Grenadier apologized profusely, also telling them they couldn’t wear the gray jumpsuits to the planet. With no underwear either, they uncomfortably donned their EVA suits with nothing on underneath.
“Not that I enjoy wearing a diaper, but you know,” Irina complained.
“The descent won’t take long.”
“As long as it doesn’t scare anything out of you. I’m not doing any cleaning up.”
Irina grinned at him and it relieved Stanley a little that she could relax. He laughed with her.
“Let’s hope that won’t be necessary.”
Dressed in their EVA suits, but with helmets still off, they followed the Lieutenant Grenadier to a docking bay. The Lord Admiral met them there with four other Hrwang, all wearing black uniforms.
The Lord Admiral indicated one of the men and introduced him. “This is Second Colonel Grenadier. He will be commanding your security detachment.”
“Security?” Irina questioned.
The Lord Admiral shrugged. “One should be prepared.”
Stanley reached out his hand to shake the Colonel’s. “Thank you. I appreciate it.”
“Oh, he doesn’t understand you. Yet. He’s just learning English,” The Lord Admiral said in a patronizing tone.
“Oh. Sorry.”
“Good afternoon,” the Colonel said in a strange accent.
“I’m the Captain,” Stanley said slowly, exaggerating the words. Irina rolled her eyes.
“Oh no, my friend, you are not. You are now the Ambassador,” the Lord Admiral proclaimed. “Wear your new designation with honor.”
Stanley, surprised, looked askance at the Lord Admiral. The man smiled warmly in reply.
“Thank you, Lord Admiral,” Stanley finally got out, wanting to say more but not knowing what. “Thank you.” He noticed Irina out of the corner of his eye. She was chewing a hole through her lip. “I don’t know what to say,” he finally confessed.
“‘I accept and will serve to my utmost’ is the standard response. I’m told utmost doesn’t quite capture the meaning of the word in our language, but it’s close enough.”
Stanley nodded vigorously. “Yes, Lord Admiral. I will serve my people, your people, everyone, to my utmost. I promise.” He felt ten times better than he had when he received notification that he would command the Beagle, and he’d felt pretty good then. It was incredible. The whole thing, all the circumstances, the way everything fell into place. It was all incredible.
Stanley knew he would do his best to bring the Hrwang and humans closer together. It would be his life’s task and he was ready. Everything in his life had prepared him for this moment. He wouldn’t let anybody down.
“Lord Admiral, is there any specific message, anything you would like me to share?”
“Ambassador. Tell your people the war is over. The Hrwang want nothing more than a chance to help the survivors, to provide whatever aid and assistance is necessary. We hold no animosity against them for their brazen attack.”
Stanley could tell the Lord Admiral had prepared for this question. He had clearly rehearsed his response. But he understood the importance of the message. It held the keys to future cooperation between humanity and the Hrwang. He only hoped others would listen.
“Where are we headed on Earth, Lord Admiral?”
“You call it the United Nations Headquarters. You will return to the place where it all started.”
“Good,” Irina muttered. Stanley and the Lord Admiral ignored her.
Stanley felt a need to confess a little. He looked down at the deck plating where they stood, then back up at the Lord Admiral. The man’s eyes pierced his, seemingly discerning Stanley’s thoughts. The Hrwang weren’t psychic, were they? Mind readers?
Of course not. That wasn’t possible. There were humans that were good at reading others from their expressions and mannerisms. There were probably Hrwang that were the same. The Lord Admiral must be a supremely intelligent person to hold the high office he now holds. He couldn’t read minds but he was probably an astute judge of character. Stanley didn’t want to disappoint him or fail in his mission to help humanity. But doubts nagged him.
“Sir, I’ve, uh, I’ve never done anything like this before.”
“I’ve only known you for a short period of time, Ambassador, but I have confidence in you. You’ll be fine and my men will keep you safe.”
Stanley didn’t have any idea from what he might need to be kept safe, but he appreciated the security.
“Thank you, Lord Admiral.”
The two men nodded at each other. Irina rolled her eyes heavenward again and shook her head slightly. Stanley continued trying to ignore her. She just didn’t get it. He wanted to hug the Lord Admiral, or something. He didn’t know what he wanted to do. He knew he wanted to be the best Ambassador he could.
The Lord Admiral said something to the Second Colonel Grenadier in his language, and the security officer indicated Stanley and Irina should follow him. They headed out to a hangar deck, towards a vehicle shaped vaguely like an old space shuttle, but much smaller. Stanley floated up off the deck with no magnets in the feet of his EVA suit, but the Hrwang were prepared and one of them held him and another kept Irina down and moving in the correct direction.
The vehicle, the Lord Admiral called it a shuttle, was colored black, like the Hrwang uniforms, and looked as much like an oversized fighter jet as it did a spacecraft. Stanley inspected the wings.
“The wings, they...,” the Colonel started to say. He made motions with his hands, sliding one over the top of the other, trying to get Stanley to understand.
“The wings retract,” Irina suggested. The Colonel nodded, excited.
“Yes. Retract. During reentry.”
“And then it flies like a plane in the atmosphere?”
“And jumps. Like your spaceship.” The man struggled to communicate but clearly wanted to.
“You mean, the way our spaceship was teleported from Mars? Instantaneous travel?” Stanley asked. “This little ship can do that also?”
“Anything,” the Colonel replied. They were around the front of the craft now, inspecting the nose. Stanley noticed heat shielding like most human spacecraft had. “Put computer in. Anything. Then it can jump.”
“I don’t understand,” Irina said. “What do you mean?”
The Colonel pulled out his tablet. He said something to it in his native tongue. “Any vehicle can jump with a computer installed,” the tablet said.
“Then why reentry? If we can ‘jump’ from Mars to here, why not just j
ump to Earth?”
“Ah,” the Colonel said. He spoke at the tablet again, grinning. It spoke again. “Computers are afraid. They didn’t jump from space to atmosphere.”
“So you’re saying you can put a computer on any vessel and it can ‘jump’ wherever you want to, only not from space into the atmosphere?” Stanley asked.
“Yes, yes,” the Colonel said, nodding vigorously.
“What about going back into space?”
“Computer not afraid. Space is big. Safe.”
Stanley’s eyes widened. “Spaceships can just ‘jump’ into space from the ground? No rockets?”
“Yes, yes,” the Colonel replied.
No rockets? Seriously? No rockets. The Hrwang could just jump from Earth to space like they had jumped the Beagle from Mars orbit to Earth orbit?
The possibilities were endless. Overcoming Earth’s gravity well was the greatest challenge mankind faced. In order to add weight to a payload, you had to add fuel to the rocket. But fuel was weight, so more fuel had to be added to compensate, which added more weight, and so on. Rockets could carry only so much weight and that was that. It was the greatest limiting factor to space flight.
Everything weighed something. You want to add one more crew member, you had to add oxygen, water, and food. More weight. It took six or seven launches just to carry up all the needed supplies for Beagle’s mission. That didn’t count Beagle herself nor her crew.
If you could attach a Hrwang computer to any vehicle, you could just attach one to a great big box full of stuff and send it up into space. Spaceships could be huge.
Which the Hrwang ships were.
Stanley didn’t believe it. It didn’t make sense. It violated dozens of laws of physics and despite the evidence in front of his eyes, the huge Hrwang ships, the instantaneous travel from Mars to Earth, it just didn’t click. He’d have to see it demonstrated to believe it. He’d have to arrange for a test.
He put his hand out and touched the ship they were about to board. He needed to see what it could do. He needed to learn as much about the Hrwang as possible and how to transfer that knowledge to humans.
Plans came and went in Stanley’s mind. He had no desire for duplicity, but bringing technology like this to Earth would be part of his legacy. Had to be part of his legacy. He just had to figure out how.
The Hrwang helped them strap into their seats. There were no windows for the passengers, except for a limited view out the front of the cockpit.
Two Hrwang sat in the front, pilot and co-pilot, Stanley assumed, just like humans, going through what appeared to be a pre-flight checklist.
The Hrwang were so human it almost seemed like the whole thing was a coverup. He liked them, but part of him still expected lizard tails to erupt from their backs, hacking and slaying everything around them.
If they were practicing some kind of deception, somehow hiding their true nature, they were doing a good job. Other than cultural differences, they looked and acted just as human as anyone Stanley knew.
The view out of the cockpit suddenly changed, going black. They must have jumped from the bay they were in to outside the ship, in space. The vehicle maneuvered, no sense of up or down in the weightlessness, but then Stanley could see the Earth in front of them. It was suddenly closer, filling the cockpit window, and Stanley felt he was falling, accelerating forward. The craft shuddered and Stanley’s heart pounded. He hated re-entry.
The view out of the cockpit rotated suddenly, facing back out to space, and Stanley thought for a moment they had aborted. A moment of fear as to why flashed through his mind but was dispelled as the craft bucked and a bright light filled what little he could see out the cockpit window.
The descent of death had begun.
27