Presode Two
"Beginnings"
Robotech IV- The Odysseus Epic
Act One: Superdimensional Starforce Orion
by Presley H. Cannady (cannady@magiccarpet.com)
and Lou Barnes (lbj@magiccarpet.com)
_______________________________
But this story takes place long before Commander Noriko Hirota
fought that battle which hung peace in the balance. It began long
before the tragedy of the Third Battle of Rubia. Long before the
day I stepped onto the Academy campus, greener than a Rigellian
dollar bill. No, it
began even before what I once thought to be a beginning.
-the preface to Kyoko Yatsumi's Diaries of the Odyssey
* * *
Earthdock, Medium Earth Orbit, August 22nd, 2090
AS THE FIRST RAYS OF THE NEW DAY'S SUN GENTLE CARESSED THE LUCID GREY-WHITE
finish of her outer hull, her elegant and elemental form, silhouetted
against the fiery monstrosity rising over the Earth's curvature, flooded the
void with a brilliant illumination. Below, the dawn began to etch the
outlines of continents, only to witness the tirelessly animated air masses
push sprawling, white-grey overcasts into place--obsfugating the refined
detail into a white and brown-bluish vagueness.
From the vantage of a distant observer, drifting within Earth's orbital
space, the form of the station began to take on a light of its own; the
initial radiance of the sun diminishing as the observer grew accustomed to
the increased brilliance. Instead of the magically twinkling, castle in the
night-sky, a lustrous, imperial form remained in its place. Whereas the
evening brought the focus to the thousands upon thousands of tiny points of
light radiating life from the station's hull, daylight went further to
coalesce all that nocturnal fairy magic into a single lifeform, as grand as
any mortal vision of paradise and as beautiful as the soul, as seen through
the mind's eye. Indeed, Earthdock Space Station took on a life of its own.
The wholeness of its form, however, deceived the eye; within its bowels,
and underneath its outer membrane, the same lively and sparkling luminousity
that could only be appreciated in the cold light of the moon continued.
"The acquittal and re-instatement of three UN Spacy officers charged
with the violation of the civil rights of three Zentraedi subordinates on
duty in the Southland Quadrant instigated riots throughout the Zentraedi
quarters of Brasilia and Rio de Janerio. Moreover the Hatewatch Foundation,
an North American organization dedicated to the tracking of hate groups,
issued formal protests to the Fifth Civil District Court of Terra's South
American Quarter. Single-interest group 'Furies in Rebellion' has expressed
their opposition to Hatewatch's move largely in the form of printed
literature and other visual media. Still, generally fundamentalist
organization managed to secure permits to march along side 'Terrans First!'
protestors. Both groups have protested a free Zentraedi presence on Terra
since 2045, as well as the Invid Sulagi settlement in Australia--
incommunicado for over a century following the San Fransisco Accords--and
other off-world Confederation races that have established permanent
residences or have secured citizenship on Terra. President H'thl-a Mur and
Prime Minister Maria Redes have jointly severely expressed displeasure with
the military court's decision, and plan to endorse a case that will bring
the case before a federal civil court. Various political analysts point to
Prime Minister Redes burgeoning power-base as a strong indicator that her
disapproval will undergo serious consideration by the UN Spacy leadership.
"In financial news, the Mutan Stock Exchange has bolstered while the
Eridani Cumulative Market Estimate experienced a loss of thirty-eight...."
The news brief droned on as the ceiling-mounted screens were largely ignored
by the hundreds of passerbys. A few, perhaps, might have gathered around
one of the larger wall screens, stretching from ceiling to floor and spaced
roughly one per section. Still, unless an important announcement from
Arrivals/Departures came on, most were content to go about their business.
Unlike the VIP or the corporate receiving terminals, this particular deck
catered to the private traveler.
The Sentinel's Day Break had brought millions of tourists to Earth, a
sizable minority traveling from the outbound colonies under Terran
jurisdiction and an impressive many from other Confederation worlds. All of
them arrived to enjoy the summer-long celebration marked by one of the
largest annual veteran memorials in the entire star-nation. Shuttlecraft
and transports of all classes readily transported this diverse mob of
pilgrims to and from the blue-white world. As the largest and most visible
structure in near-Earth space, Earthdock served as a transition point
between the stars, Terra's Lagrange Space Island colonies, and the Earth
itself. Even though hundreds of other, smaller stations serviced the
stupendous increase in traffic, Earthdock carried the greatest burden;
thirty-nine percent of all intra-Terra Planetary System Traffic proceeded
through the starbase.
Earthdock's significance as a crossroads for tourism only matched its
necessity as the Terran corporate reality's advance base into space and the
primary command facility of both Earth's and the Confederation's armed
forces. Still, the station had been designed and constructed to be massive,
and her immense cubage alone effortlessly handled the segregation of
Earthdock's three primary responsibilities while placidly housing them
within a single edifice. With all that space, it seemed only natural for
humanity to demand a few creature comforts, particularly one-million cubic
meters of recreational space. That, combined with Earthdock's internal
citidel and rotating colony, all located within the lower portion of its
axis, allowed for thousands of private, small-business entrepreneurs to open
on over a seventy-eight decks. In fact, various recreational and public
domain areas were spread throughout the station's interior, mostly located
within the thin outer shell of Earthdock's form. In addition, the station's
designers attempted to capture the aesthetic appeal of Earthdock's
environment; public observatory lounges proliferated throughout the
station's outer hulls, like pores in a patch of flesh.
It came as no surprise that one of the most appreciated views onboard
the station was the Main Public Observatory, located right next to the
civilian space transport terminals to permit arriving and departing
wayfarers--Terrans and aliens alike--to relish a final glimpse of one of the
most beautiful, living worlds in this part of the galaxy. The view, as one
might expect, was more than enough to capture the lively imagination of an
eight-year old child.
The sparklingly youthful eyes of an innocuous, young Kyoko darted about
the Earth's western curvature, searching the dark forms that marked a
pre-dawn overcast moving across the Southern Pacific. The continents and
islands lay tranquil, cloaked in the hemispherical night, although she could
easily point out the brilliant lights eminating from Honolulu, situated on
Hawaii-proper. As her gaze moved from the world below to the bleak darkness
of the vacuum that was only two centimeters of transparency away, she could
find nothing to hold her attention for very long. From space, most of the
other orbital stations and colonies were out of view, especially at ten
thousand miles away. As Earthdock fell around the Earth, her gaze finally
caught the semi-crystalline Panama Tower. The spyre was well over thirty
thousand kilometers in height, one of two such wonders on Earth, and
hundreds in the entire Confederation.
As the sun rose in the east, she gazed widened eyed as the last rays of
the glowing orb transitioned between states of lavender and red, finally
turning a lovely scarlet before bursting over the horizon. However, Kyoko's
view gazed directly towards the Earth's surface.
Magically, the sun's illumination danced across the Pacific, dispelling
with the darkness and cloudy mists of the early morning as the definition of
Hawaii's eastern-most tip began to refine itself. The lights slowly
flickered away as Earth's most intimate stellar relation demonstrated its
ferocious dominance. The water, a deep blue under the morning sun, seemed
so still and calm--one could only appreciate the conquistador's nomer from
the distance obscurity of the vacuum.
A small shape appeared as first, a bright star on the face of the Earth.
As it grew larger, "Little Ki" recognized it as a small passenger shuttle,
just like the HOTOL that skirted them from Hasake Spaceport to--
"Ki!" a hand clasped heavily on her shoulder. "Damn it! Why can't you
stay with the rest of us?!"
"You said a nasty word!" the eight-year old quickly retorted, although
Kyoko's rebuke hardly phased her fourteen-year-old sister. Pushing back two
ribbon-like tails of full, dark-brown hair, which often fell too far in
front of her cheeks, Linna Yatsumi dragged her sister away out of the
observatory--her grip slightly rough and clearly unfriendly. "I'm gonna tell
mom!"
"Yeah, yeah," Linna said nonchalantly. "That's if mom doesn't kill you
first. C'mon, you little brat."
* * *
Earthdock was the largest structure ever assembled by mankind. Although the
Department of National Infrastructure currently planned to release a new
breed of starbase, which would dwarf even this one, Earthdock remained the
Confederation's sole monolith. Basically, the design consisted of a long
axis; divided the short way in half by a red line. Two conic-like
hemispherical "caps" adorned the tipe of the axis, while two other, rather
diminuitive umbrella-shaped cones were located on each main cone's
under-rim--serving as a reinforcing joint connecting the two hemisphere's to
the main axis. The larger truncated hemisphere, Section Alpha, "capped" the
main axis--serving as the primary docking ring. The lower one, Beta, faced
the opposite direction on the central axis. The design was held resemblence
to old 20th century Terran sciencefiction vidmovies.
One of the supervisors on the project, a conservative engineer by the
name of Tahashi, commented. "It looks like the Goddamned Mushroom, right
outta Star Trek." The approximation was rather accurate, and the
resemblence quickly become the butt of respectfully genteel
space-architectural gibes.
The main docking cluster contained roughly two-hundred and fifty three
kilometers of free volume for the reconstruction of the UN Spacy military
ships and mecha. Many of the vessels had been destroyed with the previous
Earthdock and other orbital facilities during the Marduk War. The main
docking ring stretched one-hundred and fifty kilometers in radii, a massive
engineering feat in both material and force-field sciences.
Just above center, three beams stretched out for forty kilometers, and
two-hundred meters in width at the narrowest point. These beams served as
access conduits for ships, shuttles and peoples moving between the round
clover-like tri-docking assemblies, three on each crux extension from the
extending beam. The three support beams were placed equidistant from each
other along a small ring on the central axis, connected by sweeping curves
into the infrastructure and supported by a powerful structural integrity
field. Otherwise, the structural stability of such massive extremities
would rate zero against the tidal war between the Earth and her moon.
Situated between the two mushroom "axis caps," the beams supported three
cap-like structures. They served both as docking rings, which operated as
supplementary to the primary rings, and as housing for additional
facilities. Four other mushroom cones between the tripartite beam
structures and the main docking ring were aligned with the primary conic
structure--base "down." Two more, below the tri-beam assembly, were
constructed in the opposing direction; following the endcap suit.
In primary leaf of the 270-degree "branch"--the one pointing down
towards the Hawaiian Islands, the indefinitely swamped International
Stellar-lanes terminal: second exterior ring, section Echo-Tango, Deck
Five-Six-Zero--a tall, venerable woman--probably in her
late-forties--scanned anxiously through the crowd. Her attire was typical
of most civilians returning from the Sentinel's Day summer celebration; the
khaki-shorts and pastel colored tee-shirt motif had changed very little in
nearly one hundred and fifty years. Standing on her toes, she finally
sighed in relief as she caught sight of her prodigal daughters. "Nevermind,
David! They're back!"
David Yatsumi acknowledge, her; he waved his hand in the direction of
his parents, Catherine Yatsumi--Chief Botanist of the RSS Koyatoma--and the
new CO of the same vessel, Commander Hiro Yatsumi.
"Ki," Catherine turned to her youngest daughter; kneeling to Ki-chan's
height, despite the uncomfortable bustle of the crowd. "Watching sunsets
again? You like sunsets, don't you, sweetie?"
"Sunrise!" Ki corrected her. She was right. At this time, Earthdock's
orbit had placed its tilted end face the east--one side of the
counter-clockwise-rotating station was always tilted away from the Earth.
However, Ki-chan was lucky to catch the sunrise over North America as the
"Twelve-to-Six" arc--just opposite the 270-degree leaf--was reaching the
half-way point to its aphelion. Looking away briefly, Catherine felt
briskly through her sidepack. After a moment of thought, she blinked as if
she had recalled something., she turned her husband.
"Did you bring the-"
In immediate response, her husband held up a self-recorded
multivid-card, labeled "Earth's Sunrise/set's A01." Kyoko delightfully
snatched it from his hand, stuffing it into her jacket pocket.
"She could use them as a screen saver when we get back."
"I still don't know how to put one up," Catherine threw her hands on her
hips. Having gotten a chance to spend a great deal more time with her
children, she took wry notice that her kids actually worked better with
their personal terminals better than she did, and Catherine was
undergraduate computer science major, too! "Must be your side of--"
She was cut short as the arrival call for their flight came over the
loudspeaker. "Flight Arrival Rivendell has now entered the shuttlebay.
Passengers for Flight Rivendell One-Three-Three please proceed to your
assigned gangway."
* * *
"This is Golf-Tee-Mike-Charlie," How the hell did I get caught up in this
chickenshit outfit. Major Presley H. Cannady V, an ASF-Aerospace Force
officer temporarily attached to the AF's 2nd Commerce Escort Wing--detail
normally pulled by the Spacy, gazed out into the interior of the massive
Earthdock through his canopy's transparency. The shuttle-bay alone was
several hundred meters wide, supporting the massive amounts of shuttle
traffic that passed through this area. The "four-o'clock high" docking ring
itself was thirty square kilometers in capacity, supporting over a hundred
small cruisers, vessels, frigates, shuttles, and VTs like his own. "Escort
clearance Eight-mark-Eight Clear-Sierra. We're ready to roll, Rivendell."
Just had to live up to the family legacy, eh? he asked himself, thinking
how much easier and generally more comfortable his life would be if he were
working with his brother, now the president of the largest corporation in
the galaxy, TXI Encom. However, the direct line of Presley Horatios had all
served as officers in service of whatever nation (or star-nation) the family
patroned at the time. His direct ancestor, the second Presley Horatio
Cannady, was largely responsible for the family tradition; he assumed that
each and every one following--including PHC-II himself--grumblingly accepted
their lot and life and did their duty.
"Copy that, GTMC," the captain, a recent refugee from the hectic the
serviceman's life, replied; her voice brimming with authority. Major
Cannady bristled slightly. He hadn't struggled for twelve years to take
orders from an ex-Spacy fighter jock--a former lieutenant commander, in
fact. Surprised at his reaction, he quickly rebuked himself as the captain
went on to an abbreviated commo checklist. "Commo signal reads
five-by-five. Data-link synchro--nominal. Just keep your pants on now;
we're almost finished."
He suddenly realized the tension he was feeling. "All right, Shuttle
BSL Rivendell One-Three-Three. It's time get your cute little ass moving."
"Watch it, Golf," the reply came back. "We have ladies present."
A gruff hurumph, followed by a curt "all right, out" cut the channel.
He carefully piloted his fighter on the starboard side of the red
shuttle, patiently waiting for the last of the passengers to board. Through
the transparent boarding shaft, using his rear-view camera on high-zoom, he
could see the faces of a hundred or more men, women, and children--human and
alien--staring right back at him in with mixed feelings of awe and agitation.
* * *
Commander Hiro Yatsumi held the hand of his youngest daughter as he boarded
the shuttle not as an officer, but a tired vacationer and a weary father.
As he and Kyoko stepped onto the moving gangway, he watched as it slowly
slid through the crystal clear umbilical, the seemingly minor docking ring
panning all around it.
Another shuttle, from British Spacelines, quickly rushed by; probably on
the same route as the Delta liner. Only this time, three escorting mecha
craft--two third-generation Ultra Valkyries and one of the new VF-9
Khybers--rushed past the shuttle on the port side, heading for the
"straight-to-space" lane and directly out of the ring. Such clout could
only mean VIP, either an upper-echelon Defense Force officer or some sort of
high-up political player. David Yatsumi moved up to his father's side,
taking in the view with the same admiration as Mr. Yatsumi and young Kyoko.
This was David's last summer with his family for sometime; he had graduated
with the Class of '90 at the Annapolis Spacy Academy. Ensign (First-Class)
David Mikiyasu Yatsumi would return home with his family; his assignment, as
the tactical officer onboard the DG-4294 RSS Philomel--the second most
important vessel in Destroyer Squadron 74, homeported over Jarao IV. Hiro's
lips curled back into a grand smile, for he also started out in DesRon 74,
ten years ago.
That brings back memories, he thought, looking to the shipyard just
eighteen kilometers to his left. A single light carrier--probably under
refit--slid past his field of view, while two small, diamond-shaped tugs
tractored it across the maintenance-only lanes to the nearest available drydock.
"Can you tell which one that one is, son?" he decided to quiz the
unsuspecting 19-year old.
"Uh...warp pylons. That's...ah...four pylons, so it's either
a...er...definitely a battlecruiser."
The young man pressed up against he window, peering at the markings of
the ship. "Yeah, about the size of a battlecruiser..so it's got to be a
Monitor-class. Bravo-Charlie-One-Zero-Niner. All right, it's the Potomac.
The home of the VAQR-99 'Clone Strikers,' CCVRW-13, right?"
The "Clone Strikers," as Hiro remembered from the recent war, barely
survived the Battle of Yamin Maxia. They were one of the most elite
electronic warfare and recon squadrons in all of Carrier Recon Wing 13, if
not the entire Fourth Fleet.
"Good son," Hiro patted his head. "Captain Winsdale's ship. You
remember Tim Winsdale, right?"
"Yeah," David rolled his eyes. "Since I was seven, and you were still a
tac-jockey. And I know. You've got your own command, now."
"That's right. Eighteen years, and now she's all mine," Commander
Yatsumi snorted. "And if you work hard enough, you can do it in...well,
you'll do your best."
The older Yatsumi checked himself, putting his arm around his son's
shoulders. He had resolved to make sure he didn't push David's career or
obstrusively interfer. David would have to do this on his own with as
little cojoling or manipulation as possible. His father had helped him by
getting David ready to apply for the Academy and, as well by teaching him
showing the ropes of military life. Nothing could be achieved by pressuring
him and making David's career decisions for him. He would make sure David
would succeed by his own diligence and ingenuity, not by his connections.
The SDF-12 protfolio spaceship brought back memories of a friend who had
told him that once. More than a friend, long departed on a journey that
forever sundered their paths.
"I wanna see!" Kyoko shouted. She had a dire interest in everything
Daddy and Dave did, which often brought a sigh to her mother and a hurumph
and an eye roll from her sister. Hiro chuckled, lifting the young girl to
his chest. She quickly gaped as she saw the Potomac pass by in all of its
glory. Kyoko watched the entire interior of the Earthdock pass her by.
Something rounded the central rotunda to which the shuttle had docked.
Something massive and silver.
"My god," Linna gazed at the magnificent form as well; it had come
within three kilometers of the shuttle bay, and the view through the
transparent boarding tunnel was marvelous as the streamlined,
sterling-silver vessel streaked overhead at an impressive
acceleration--despite it's observance of Earthdock traffic regluations. The
arrow-shaped warship blazed towards the main space doors and out into space.
A Monitor-class warship, the Utopia was the flagship of the Fourth Fleet.
The last ship to hold that title was the Cheranko, she, like most of her
sisters, had long since departed to the cosmos. Both Linna and Kyoko were
captivated, even as Shelley coaxed them to move along as the boarding line
traffic finally picked-up.
"Good morning," the attendent took their personal belongings. The
computer next to the entrance registered the Yatsumi family's tickets and
verified the status of their luggage. "Seats 787-791, forward, second deck.
If you will follow me...?"
"...and thank you for flying British Spacelines," Captain Keiko Yamata,
or rather a computer controlled image of her, greeted the incoming traffic.
* * *
"Final seat preperations are set. Warp sled is fixed properly."
Keiko stared out onto the right wing of her red bird. The streamlined
nacelle affixed into the power source of the shuttle gleamed in the station
lights. She gave a thumbs up to the work pods that scurried away back to
their respective docks. Their approximate ETA over the fifteen lightyears
was about three days, at superluminal "velocity" equivalent to approximately
1825 times c, or about Threshold Factor-57.
"Let's blow this popsicle stand," she flipped the switches to various
systems as the hum of the engines revved through the ship. The low gentle
rumble vibrated for a second before dying out completely. "Engines are
online. Kingspin has been accuated. Field generation is nominal."
As smoothly as a blood cell in a healthy artery, the shuttle removed
itself from its gangplank, overtaken by its escort which took position just
to the forward left of it. Its wings retraced twenty degrees downward for
maximum mobility during dock procedures.
"Ahead, five-five-zero accel," Once clear the station, the shuttle
began to approach the maxim of a one-fourth light-speed; a velocity change
that no Newtonian propulsion system could ever hope to achieve. The gravity
sublight impellers within the nacelles came to life, instantly translating
the shuttle from a state of rest to an "unnatural" state of acceleration.
Only the inertial compensators spared the crew from a fate remarkably
similar to that of a bug quashed on the windshield of an aircar--only
infinitely more gruesome. The scarlet civilian liner quickly traversed the
fifty kilometer distance to the descent mark. From there, she dived into
the access corridor beneath her, manually flying the shuttle through the
access tubing of that lead to the shuttle entry/exit doors.
"This is Traffic Departure Control Five-Two-Four-Four-Groucho to
Rivendell One-Three-Three Juliet-Victor Eight-Oh-Five-Eight-Three. We've got
you on the visual 'Able Tango-Bravo Tango' at three zero eight; on the
scope. You're clear for fold at Sierra-Tango five-by-eight-mark
three-three, over." The radio blared as they exited the station. It quickly
decreased in size as the fusion engines pushed the ship away at a speed
toward the moonthat would be considered awesome by the old Apollo mission
standards.
"Acknowledged Departure Control 5244-Groucho," Keiko went into a mode of
speaking in the airline jargon that Mackie was learning to grasp. Instant
calculations of warp physics and travel time rushed through her head in
seconds, as he confirmed with his console. "We read you five-by-five.
Tachyon datalink is green. Heading to Lunar Orbit. San Fransisco, you
getting this?"
"Sorry, we had a bit of a coffee spill down here, Rivendell," San
Fransisco Dock Traffic Control came on air. A brief shuffle could be heard
over the speakers. "Final clearence from the Traffic office is go. You've
got clean skies ahead."
Mackie knew that if on the rare chance they had "rain," departure would
be delayed. Warp space was a delicate area, and launches were scheduled
usually to both the convenience of the passenger and the safety of the
weather. Considering these two factors usually didn't abode well together,
they "compromised" a bit in safety factors. However, today wasn't a day to
worry about flight plan ion storms.
He was dead wrong.
* * *
"This is Golf-Tango-Three-One-Niner," Major Cannady signed in. "Commencing
departure. Gravity locks on."
The traffic control broke into laughter. "We've got you, Major.
Golf-Tango-Four-Eight-Eight and Golf-Tango-Three-One-Niner to sector
Sierra-Tango--coordinates five-by-eight mark three-three, Luna departure."
"Copy that, commencing escort procedures," he responded, silence once
again reasserting its firm grip over the cockpit. Even the humming of the
ionic fusion generators his bird packed seemed to drown out as his focus
shifted to the task at hand.
* * *
"All right, old man," Keiko said. "You got the transactions completed?"
"And that's the way you talk to your old CAPTAIN, shame on you," the
balding commander replied. "Yeah. Zero-by-five-by-eight. They're in.
Hold on, clearing with San Fransisco final warp status. Diagnostics complete."
"Course projected, ETA three days at T-57; Final ETA, seven days,
six-point-three subjective--via Rommells Belt Gateway towards tachyon
markers at the General Sector Bravo 90.6. We're ready."
"Yes...uhm, that's about it," Keiko replied. She eased on the throttle
control as the drew farther from the monolithic station below.
"Cislunar orbit, hyperspace fold in T-minus five
seconds...four...three...two...one...MARK!" The peristalic fields enveloped
around the velocity shields that enveloped the Veritech Escort as well. As
the fields slowly built up on the sitrum scale, the ship seemed to pause
slightly, accelerating two zero-point-two-five c in what appeared to be (and
in actuality was) no time at all. Relativistic effects demonstrated
themselves only minutely, as the shuttle moved farther from the Common Frame
of Reference--what most civilizations considered to be associated with the
relatively slow velocities of the local galactic firmaments as compared to
their own suns. Finally, the millisitrums of focused gravitic-stress piled
onto every point of the artificially generated gravity field, slowly
bringing the grav-field to that critical stress unit of one full sitrum: the
gravity stress required to "translate" into the realm of hyperspace. The
shuttle and her escort jumped to practically beyond the barrier of light,
and stretched into the infinity of hyperspace. As realspace folded around
them and stars flew by with everdescent pastels, Keiko turned to her crew.
"Not bad. Anyone for Chinese?"
* * *
"Goddamn it!" David mutterred the curse low enough for no one to hear,
except Kyoko.
"He said a bad word, mommy!" David glared at her little sister, who has
pointing her index finger accusingly at her older brother.
"Sorry, Mom," he apologized civily. "Cut my finger on this...stupid
knife.":
"Go wash it out son," but David was already moving. Hiro smiled at his
young daughter. "You know, pilots don't have to tattle all the time, Ki."
"I want 'dani water!"
Catherine smiled at her daughter, who begged her father to take her to
the Eridani establishment down the food court. "Go on, Hiro. It can't be
that bad."
The defeated father moaned. His last experience with alien cuisine had
left a lasting impression on his taste buds, something no known mouth-wash
in the universe could wash out for nearly a week. Catherine smiled
knowingly at her husband and Linna just wolffed down her cheeseburger; she
was rather unimpressed by the whole situation.
"You know you guys spoil her," Linna sighed. Shelly just tapped her
hand sharply for the fresh rebuke and returned to her book. Hiro's eyes
diverted from his daughters momentarily and shifted to the nearest
viewshield. He watched as the stars streaked by through the gravitational
distortion, magnificent and brilliant. Only those with a grim familiarity
with the darker workings of hyperspace travel could understand the
consequences the field distortion exacted beyond its fatally beautiful
effect on illumination.
Commander Yatsumi's brow furrowed as he turned back to his meal.
* * *
Two days later, the shuttle dropped out of its personally sustained
hyperspace jump, and then submitted the entirety of its bulk to the
tractoring cul-de-sac of the Gateway. Located in the interstellar emptiness
that lied some fourteen thousand astronomical units from the last planetary
orbit of Ross 987--a planetless, M0-class star that--like many others--had
drifted aimlessly through the Core World sectors for aeons.
Captain Kyoko Yamata gazed out at the self-lit, free-floating edifice
that was the Gateway, the only noticable body besides the insignificant dots
that represented entire stellar systems. Indeed, the emptiness of
interstellar space had long haunted the nightmares of almost every
starfaring race in existence. The Terrans had succumbed to the unholy
darkness soon after the Great Severance--hyperspace fatigue had forced them
out of that mysterious realm of instant existence into the "warped" confines
of "inferior" hyperspace. Whereas the spacefold drives Terrans had
inherited from the Tirolians had distorted space so finely that distances in
what was called normal space could be covered in an immeasurably small unit
of time, the far inferior grades of drives mounted on Zentraedi ships--and
the even lower-grade gravity impellers humanity had finally constructed on
their own--instilled a measure of isolation within the Terran psyche. Now,
the depths of gloom and despair that accompanied every patch of "empty
vacuum" remained an everpresent imprint on the Terran spacefarer's soul, and
the desire to spend the least amount of time possible in such a void only
heightened the longer one dwelled within the blacknesss.
To call it a perfect vacuity, however, would only serve to diminish the
natural fear that deep space instilled in creatures raised in loyal devotion
to the light of suns, moons and stars. Instead, objects blacker than even
the emptiness punctuated the vast waste, and in what superficially seemed
like deep, empty space, dark--and deadly--surprises lay invisible since time
immemorial; concealing their fatal artifices in a cloak of natural darkness.
In deep space, gravity reigned not only as obviously as it did in the deep
wells of stars and giant planets, but in the deadly stealth of the
blackness. Here, objects many thousands of times more massive than any
visible star ate light as if it were the pit of hell itself; and mankind had
found a new reason to fear the eternal night.
Nevertheless, man's nature--the nature of all sentient life--sought to
turn a disadvantage into an advantage. With the understanding of gravity, a
culture progresses into a new enlightenment. Harnessing gravity, mankind
turned to tame the universe's natural pitfalls and twist them to his own
use; throughout the First Quadrant, humans and non-Terrans alike have
discovered the benefits of applied gravitics--hyperspace travel key among
them. For humanity, the answer came literally tumbling out of the sky;
hurtling Earthward ninety years ago in the form of an ancient, Tirolian
warship. In the Corron Empire, the painfully slow synthesis of knowledge
between heavily competitive families had forced the evolution of
gravitational physics to spread out across hundreds of thousands of years.
On Mutanak, the one-world and one-society mindset had often stifled ideas
for centuries at a time, putting the technology for the sub- and supralight
capable gravity impeller back nearly five millenia. Then, on Ca'poeoa, the
technology came in the form of a gift, delivered nearly twenty years ago by
the grace of the United Planetary Confederation. Hyperspace travel grew as
a natural outgrowth of these discoveries.
Gateways were massive, hexagonal structures--roughly one-hundred-fifty
kilometers in diameter--that allowed vessels to traverse the great distances
in a matter of days that their otherwise weak superimpeller drives demanded
months to match. However, the penalty the Great Severance had levied on
this revolutionary technology presented itself in the form of the Gateway's
limited range--roughly a few hundred lightyears. Relay stations permitted
the fine-tuning and boosting of gravitic pulses--"ripples" of force in
realspace that indicated hyperspace activity, such as a warp transit--that
passed through within the sensor net's proximity. By amplifying this
gravitic pulse, generally by making use of naturally occuring gravitational
phenomona, the Gateway network. Once in the hyperspatial "wake" of the
Gateway's artificial wormhole, the semi-megastructure focused its
gravitational energies towards one of many hundreds of beacons that reached
across the Confederation. Through an extensive network of these expensive,
synthetic "faster-than-light" conduits, the dream of a realtime civilian
interstellar community had finally been achieved. For this reason, most
civilians thought of distances between stars in the form of the number of
jumps--or transits--through these artificial (some were actually "tamed"
Class two gravitic anomalies) bridges through the emptiness of space.
A rapid series of exchanges between Gateway
Alpha-Tango-Five-Sierra-Niner Control and the navigation computers onboard
the shuttle craft. Currently, several hundred vessels were passing into the
eternal wake of the gravitic transit, their hyperspace signatures
catalogued, filed and cashiered as if they were time-slot cards punched into
a shift-clock. The technology behind this marvel--the multiple transit
"wormhole"--was breathtakingly fascinating, although it was equally
perplexing. The shuttle craft, one of fifteen queued for the next transit
through the "Rommells Belt"--a name selected for an arbitrarily-classified
"hyperspace lane,"--quickly assumed it's position near the mouth of the Gate.
Peering into it, many would have noticed the inutterable darkness of the
hexogonal ring's interior. For the most part, the Gateway produced--more
accurately, agitatingly conjured--a singularity-less black hole; a wormhole
for all intensive purposes. When activated, the gravitational wake tended
to curve light into a "spherical" gulf of darkness. The popular science
fiction notion of a pyrotechnic, spiraled sink-hole capping one end of a
three-dimensional tunnel proved wholly inaccurate. The mouth of a wormhole,
artificial or not, was the shape of a globe. At least as far as the grav-
and electromagnetic sensors were concerned.
A fold operation through a Gateway was not unlike that of a gravity
superluminal displacement drive--commonly known as the warpfold drive. The
crew followed the exact same procedures leading up to the transit as they
had before going to warp in Earth's orbit. Only now, the crew had to
reconfigure their gravitic stabilizers--or "grav-sails"--to navigate the
hyper-wake of the Gate's wormhole, which dwarfed that of a normal fold's
stress values by at least an order of a hundred mikes.
Cannady's Veritech maneuvered during the interim, carefully aligning
itself in relation to his escort assignment. Momentarily, they would enter
the darkness before them; finding themselves racing along at an apparant
velocity of fifty-thousand times the speed of light. Although an untamed
wormhole theoretically delivered a body "instantaneously" to its
destination, those forms of short cuts included a variety of astrophysical
realities to grim to think about.
A Marine aviator, Cannady felt no need to dwell on such subjects; he
tried, instead, to remind himself of the safety the shuttle's gravity sail
cul-de-sac would provide his fragile fighter.
The time passed slowly by as the shuttle drew to the fore of the line.
* * *
"Nearly a perfect one-point-oh p3Y-stress break. "You are good, Cap'n. We
barely made a dent in the Flyode Sheet."
Mackie said while wolfing down a healthy portion of the chicken chow
mein that Keiko had returned with. "Great food, by the way. New take-out
place?"
"A quaint little one on the C-Court," she announced proudly. "Best in
space-borne Hunan province cuisine."
"So when did you take a liking to Chinese food, Cap'n?" Fallenburg
asked, not even looking up from his sweet-and-sour pork.
"Right after eating that thing you call stroganoff," Yamata quipped.
Fallenburg feigned brokenheartedness, and then laughed. He was an
admittedly bad cook, he couldn't manage a replication fast food restaurant
without giving someone food poisoning.
"I wouldn't talk," Fallenburg snorted back jestfully. "At least I
don't cook out of a box." All three laughed. Keiko had absolutely no
cooking skills whatsoever her self. When she signed aboard the Fallsburg,
the main mess hall had been out of commission for a month and officers were
forced to fend for themselves with whatever rations the galley supplied--the
captain of the ship had decided that enlisted personnel should be the first
priority of the chief cook. She had spent the first eight months eating the
only thing she knew how to cook ever since she was a child--instant ramen.
"One point for the old guy," Keiko chuckled. Mackie started to look at
her unordinarily.
A pause, as Mackie gathered his thoughts together. Reclining back in
his chair, he decided to ask a question that had been egging him on all morning.
"So Cap'n," he said, starting up conversation. "What's the Defense
Force like?"
A pause, and a long one to. Mackie could literally feel the air being
cramped with nostalgia. "Uhh...guys."
"You've got to be in it, I guess," Fallenburg said first, leaving Keiko
some room to maneuver into the the conversation.
"Yeah, I was a Veritech pilot--U-Valks--back then," Keiko replied. It
had been slightly more than a year since she had left the fleet, her ten
years in the service completed. At 28, she had been one of the youngest
squadron commanders ever to grace the UN Spacy's aerospace contingent.
"I was detached to the Tenth Fleet, Reserve--well, back when there they
were still a reserve," Keiko had gotten in before the fleet--really an
over-glorified battlegroup--was attached to the Fourth and Third Active
Fleets and sent to what was then the Forward Front--the leading edge to one
of the Confederation's longstanding enemies, the Corron Empire. Before
that, the reservists she worked with were bloodied at the Battle of First
Yamin Maxia, during the Marduk War.
"Well anyway," she continued. "I did my six active--did a damn good job
flying Thunderchiefs in the last two--and cut out while I still had the time."
"Too top it all off, the then-Commander Fallenburg back there retired
with me," she pointed her thumb backwards. The old man grunted. "Anyway, I
didn't re-register with Selective Service--although that doesn't amount to a
hill of beans if we get into a war, especially after that nasty business
around Maxia. We had a fun time, though. Lost some friends, but got a lot
back in return."
She turned her head and gazed as the distant stars streaked by through
the forward transparency. Mackie blinked understandingly and looked back at
his controls.
"Looks like rough weather ahead," he mused.
* * *
The major shivered as he looked at his long-range sensor readings, which
employed tachyon particle beams from his TAC-CON fixture; allowing him scan
instanstaneously what it would take light months to years to reach. Like a
nervous mother, he kept quickly shifting glances from his console to the
shuttle he was escorting. The warp sled actually augmented his own added
warp boosters, built into his Ultra-Valkyries weapons-pod. Like the old
protoculture-powered ships, the relatively weak warpfold was moldable to be
able to fold objects from twenty meters to two kilometers from any point
relative to the vessel's surface. Once pass the Flyode's Sheet, the time
diliation and warpfold contigency shrunk to the normal levels, keeping the
transported material in a physically unimaginably small amount of
time-space. Unlike the spacefold apparatus, in which the protoculture
process actually eased into a completely different and much faster velocity
realm of hyperspace, warpfold demanded a cataclysmic leap into the lower
realms of hyperspace, the kinetic energy of the fields drained and lost with
the initial contact of the Warp (not transwarp) Transitional Threshold.
"Looks like some chop ahead," he took the liberty to say.
"Copy that, Golf," the shuttle commander replied. "Nothing we can't
handle. At four-eight Alpha Under, I've got ETA in one-zero hours.
Turbulence is on the increase. Are we clear for manuever?"
"Missed the passing lane," Keiko replied. "Three shuttle lanes west
destination-relative, and we can't budge and inch." It was true. United
Planetary Confederation Traffic Regulations stated even regulations for
Interfederation supralight traffic. However, abiding by these statues could
possibly prove more perilous than in their violation.
* * *
Two hours later, Mackie looked dangerously at the board below him. The
tri-dimensional chess set sat on the turned-off console between the
navigator and pilot's seat. After awhile, one of the charmingly beautiful
and dim-witted--in Keiko's opinion--stewardesses arrived with some
beverages; allowing Mackie to take a quick break from the intensity of the
game. The vice-captain of the British Spacelines Flight School chess team
was actually losing, heavily, and had been for the past three hours.
Fallenburg was watching one of the hyperspace transmultivision channels
forwarded to the shuttle by hyperspace transmitters graciously spread
throughout the sector, while wolffing down a club sandwich he had ordered
half-an-hour earlier.
"Mate in two," he said proudly, staring at the opening his rook had. A
mistake.
"Queen timed in to midlevel rank three, column two," The attack was
almost two swift. A recovered rook--one he had sacrificed both bishops and
countless pawns for, suddenly fell victim the black queen. The holographic
depiction was excellent--the warrior queen beheading Mackie's brilliantly
placed rook with an amazon's blade. Pinned in by a queen three ranks in
front and above of his king, a black rook two columns left and under, and
surrounded midlevel by his OWN pawns, Mackie--dumb-founded and humbled--was
forced to resign. Keiko folded her arms victoriously as the chess set
"disappeared" from view.
"Not bad," she looked at Mackie, who was obviously unhappy with the fact
that his defeat meant a month's worth of lunch on him. "But I have to
admit, I was captain of the Fallsburg's chess club--no one in three parsecs
of the Sol System came even close to my teacher."
"You played chess?" he turned, his scowl replaced with a mildly
sarcastic curiousity.
"Well, I wasn't one of those super jock recruiters you see in those
damned holo-commercials," she replied. "In fact, I weighed about ten pounds
more than I do now."
That wasn't saying much. Mackie had always had a teenage attraction, a
sort of private crush, for his captain. She was a formidably built woman,
whose Delta uniform emphasized her feature even more so--just thinking about
it prompted Mackie to cross his legs. Even at ten pounds more, it wouldn't
do much. Keiko was a strong six-foot, and just and inch shorter than he
was. Her auburn hair flowed beautifully in a ponytail as she gracefully
overlook the flight readouts.
"It's getting rougher," she said worriedly. Mackie reassessed his
priorities and immediatly turned back to his screen. Sure enough, the
disturbance had increased; at least fifteen kilositrums more than usual.
That meant a heavy ion storm, probably with stray tachyon residue. Already,
she was complying by safety regulation by setting a course around the flight-
Suddenly, the panel sparked as the console displayed a massive surge.
Before anyone could interpret this, the bridge crews eyes seared with white
light. Keiko screamed as Mackie heard someone hit the floor hard in the
rear. Finally, the light was replaced by a great shudder, and blackness.
* * *
+-----------------+-<The Badass Reverend of Funk Prez>---+
| Presley H. | Political Science / Computer Science |
| Cannady II | and Electrical Engineering Undergrad |
|<revprez@mit.edu>| at the Mass. Institute of Technology |
+-----------------+-<Anime Manga Development Group>------+
+ Author of Liars and Dreamers, a Robotech fanfic +
+-------<http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/1731/index.html>-+
| MIDN 4/c A-2-2 SQD, MIT-Harvard-Tufts NROTC Battalion |
|_|"The art of war is of vital importance to the state"|_|