01:25 (Kyoto Alpha Time)
Tuesday, October 19, 4021
Command bridge of the H.S.S. MARCO POLO
The blue flash from the enemy energy discharge dissipated in seconds on the holographic screens. While the shock that had come with it had been pretty insignificant, Henry Ferguson didn’t take any chances and ordered immediately a complete status check on all the ship’s systems. Only after having given his orders did he look back out at the space around the MARCO POLO. He was reassured to see that all the ships of its escort force and of the support group were there, loosely surrounding the exploration cruiser. Then, his heart skipped a beat: the triple stars of the Alpha Centauri System were not visible anymore! His navigator nearly shouted out in dismay before he could say something.
‘’COMMODORE! ALPHA CENTAURI IS NOW OVER ONE LIGHT YEAR AWAY FROM US!’’
‘’BUT, THAT’S IMPOSSIBLE! CONFIRM OUR CURRENT POSITION AT ONCE!’’
While the navigator and his assistant worked on that, the reports from the various section heads of the ship started coming in on the bridge, all reporting that no damages or breakdowns had been found. The other ships of the flotilla also started to report to the MARCO POLO. Three minutes later, Henry Ferguson was informed that all the ships were intact and operating normally but that they also all had reported the anomalous position of Alpha Centauri. He looked down severely at the poor navigator, who didn’t seem to fare very well.
‘’So, Commander Rollings, where are we?’’
Rollings hesitated before answering him, apparently unable to believe his instruments.
‘’Commodore, our optical instruments all confirm that Alpha Centauri A is now 1.3 light years away from us. Also, we seem to have seriously deviated from our planned trajectory: all the stars around us are in the wrong places and the navigation computer is having a hell of a tough time to figure out what is going on. The Solar System is however easily identifiable on our screens and is three light years away from us.’’
Ferguson took a few seconds to digest that information before giving an order.
‘’Very well! Recalculate a new trajectory towards Earth and transmit it to the other ships. Then, proceed at maximum speed.’’
‘’Yes sir!’’
He next turned to look at his second in command.
‘’Captain Montoya, it seems that the enemy weapon discharge did nothing more to us than to give us one hell of a kick in the ass and to propel us away from Alpha Centauri. Do you see any other possibility or explanation?’’
‘’None for the moment, Commodore. That Morg weapon apparently acts on the fabric of space itself, which would explain our unexplained travel away from Alpha Centauri. Maybe it is a variant of their inter-dimensional tunnel.’’
‘’Hum, that is one possibility indeed. If that was the only effect it had on us, then I won’t complain about it. We will study that case later, however. For the moment, we still have millions of refugees to bring safely to Earth. Since the enemy is now over one light year away from us, I believe that we are out of danger for the time being. I am thus cancelling the alert status. Have all ships go to reduced manning, so that our people can rest from the battle. I want everybody to be at full capacity by the time we arrive to Earth: we still don’t know if the Morgs attacked Sol or not. With their damn inter-dimensional tunnel, they could pop out in the Solar System at about any time of their choosing. We will hold a fleet-wide teleconference at 09:00, Universal Time, on October 22nd, before entering the Solar System. We will then reevaluate our situation. I am going to take some rest in my day cabin. Once my orders are passed, do the same and go to your cabin. Lieutenant Bosango will then take over the bridge for the rest of this shift.’’
‘’Lieutenant Bosango? But, she is our least experienced bridge officer.’’
Ferguson smiled at that remark.
‘’The more reason to give her a chance to gain more experience while we are in a routine flight status. Wake me up only if a true emergency pops up.’’
‘’Yes, Commodore!’’
Carla Montoya took a few minutes to pass around Ferguson’s directives after he left the bridge complex. She then called to her Lieutenant Winny Bosango. The young black woman was quite nervous as she presented herself to Montoya, who spoke to her in her usual dead serious tone.
‘’Lieutenant, you now have control of the ship for the next eight hours, or until when I return to the bridge. We are to continue towards Earth at maximum fleet speed. If some non-critical problem arises, use your common sense and my authority. Do you have any questions?’’
The young African beauty hesitated for a moment before saying no. Montoya then got up from the command chair and invited her to take her place.
‘’That chair is now all yours. Consider this as a foretaste of what you can expect as a future ship captain.’’
On those words, Montoya left the bridge complex at a tired pace, leaving a Lieutenant Bosango to worry nervously about what would be the first brick to drop on her head in the next few hours.
03:26 (Kyoto Alpha Time)
Command bridge of the H.S.S. MARCO POLO
Winny Bosango tensed up when the videophone attached to the left armrest of the command chair beeped, announcing an incoming call. Wondering what kind of possible problem this would announce, Winny activated the screen. She however relaxed at once on seeing the face of Ann Shelton, a long-time friend of hers.
‘’Ann, I am happy to see you. What can I do for you?’’
‘’Winny? They put you in charge of the whole circus?’’
‘’Yup! Thankfully, it has been very quiet up to now. So, what is your problem, if problem there is?’’
‘’I effectively have a problem, and a big one. I am in the auxiliary quarters section, where the Centaurian mothers and their babies are. Having a doctorate in sociology, I was bombarded ‘Coordinating Officer in Charge of Baby Services’ after our departure from Kyoto Alpha and my job is becoming nearly impossible. To resume the situation down here, the mothers are exhausted and on edge and we have half a million babies crying their lungs out in unison. You can imagine the picture!’’
‘’Ouch! I certainly don’t envy you. I suppose that you need some help?’’
‘’Yes, a lot of help! I want to organize a system of collective nurseries to give a chance to the mothers to sleep at least a bit, but that will take a lot of people. Unfortunately, most of the crew is on forced rest right now, on orders from Commodore Ferguson.’’
Winny was thoughtful for a moment. The normal crew of the MARCO POLO only counted a bit less than 4,000 members, supplemented by an army of maintenance and cargo handling robots of all kinds. However, a robot would definitely make a very poor babysitter, even in the best of cases, and to take care of half a million babies was a truly colossal job. An idea suddenly came to her mind, making Winny grin with expected amusement.
‘’I have an idea, Ann. The 12,000 commandos that came aboard in Kyoto Alpha have been idle since our departure. Would they do?’’
‘’Winny, you are a genius! Could you also add to them the ship’s security battalion?’’
‘’Why not? It won’t hurt all these big macho guys to see what babysitting implies. I will contact Brigadier Gungor and Major Arntern at once.’’
‘’Thank you so much, Winny! I owe you a big one.’’
‘’Glad to be of help.’’ Replied Winny, giggling to herself as she pictured commandos as babysitters.
06:57 (Kyoto Alpha Time)
Auxiliary quarters section of the MARCO POLO
Mark Dempster was starting to suffer from a persistent, heavy headache. The little three month-old girl he was trying to calm down for the last twenty minutes had just fallen asleep in his arms when one of the other fourteen babies occupying the cabin turned into an improvised nursery had started to cry loudly. The baby girl jerked awake, then started to cry as well. Swearing to himself, the tall and strong commando turned his head towards his partner, Tony Vinelli, who was busy throwing away a soiled diaper in a portable trash can, a disgusted expression on his face and his nose pinched.
‘’Eh, Toni! Could you throw me a milk bottle?’’
‘’Wait! I have to get rid of this pile of shit here first. What a disgusting job! And that little bugger even peed on me as I was changing his diaper.’’
‘’Cut the wining and just throw me a milk bottle, will you.’’
‘’Okay, okay!... Here you go!’’
Thrown like a primed grenade, the milk bottle was caught in mid-air by Dempster, who then quickly presented its plastic nipple to the baby girl he was holding. Djiri, as her exhausted mother had named her before going to catch some sleep, started sucking milk at once and soon went back to sleep, to Mark’s relief. As he contemplated the face of the baby girl, a tiny hand reflexively pressed itself around the little finger of his hand holding the bottle. That contact’s sensation made the commando smile down tenderly at the baby.
‘’Well, babysitting does have some ups, along with its downs.’’
09:00 (Universal Time)
Friday, October 22, 4021
Command conference room of the MARCO POLO
Henry Ferguson took his seat at the head of the long, oval conference table made of polished wood. Brigadier General Gungor, Commander of the 58th Assault Division, sat near him, as did Captain Montoya and a graying Centaurian woman named Lynn Tsu, who had been until recently the mayor of Kyoto Alpha and who now was the political representative of the Centaurian refugees. The holographic 3-D images of twenty ship captains surrounded the table, as if they actually were sitting at the table, while the head and torso of 45 other senior officers appeared on holographic screens suspended around the walls of the command conference room. At precisely nine o’clock, Ferguson called the meeting to order. He then turned his head towards Lynn Tsu to present her to his officers.
‘’Madam Lynn Tsu, to my left, represents the eighteen million Centaurian refugees aboard the MARCO POLO, ALTAFJORD and CONFUCIUS. I will now recapitulate for her benefit the composition of our fleet.’’
Activating a giant flat holographic screen situated on the wall behind his chair, Ferguson started projecting the images of the various ships of the fleet, shown to scale besides a picture of the MARCO POLO.
‘’Apart from the MARCO POLO, which is now acting as our fleet flagship, we have 123 ships of various sizes, split in an escort group and a support group. The escort group is composed of six battleships, six frigates and 88 interceptors, 54 of which are presently parked in our hangars. The support group comprises one heavy dry-dock ship, the NEWPORT NEWS, two repair ships, one hospital ship, the HUMANITY, six ammunition ships, four heavy fleet cargo ships, six fuel tanker ships and one fleet tug. Also flying with us are two civilian cargo ships, the ALTAFJORD and the CONFUCIUS, who are carrying over 1,8 million refugees in cryogenic sleep cells evacuated from Alpha Centauri B-III. To get back on our hospital ship, the HUMANITY is actually carrying 1,471 gravely wounded crewmembers of our combat fleet who were made casualties during the battle for Alpha Centauri.’’
The mention of the wounded made many lower their heads then. Over two billion Centaurians were now dead, along with nearly 180,000 men and women who had represented the best of the Human Expansion’s Navy. Ferguson continued after a short pause.
‘’Apart from our escort group and our support group, the MARCO POLO also owns its own embarked flotilla, which is made up of 110 exploration corvettes, 286 heavy passenger shuttles, fifteen heavy cargo shuttles, 24 heavy flying cranes and over 2,300 various minor flying vehicles. On top of all this, we have loaded in Kyoto Alpha the 58th Assault division, along with all its equipment. Brigadier Gungor?’’
Gungor, a severe-looking man in his fifties sporting a big moustache, spoke up at once in an impressive baritone voice.
‘’My 58th Assault Division counts 12,680 commandos, all equipped with force-multiplication exoskeleton armored suits, plus 16,000 combat robots, 163 assault barges and 800 battle tanks. We also loaded 36 mobile defense towers and hundreds of prefabricated fortification modules aboard the MARCO POLO before departing Kyoto Alpha. The original mission of my division was to defend Kyoto Alpha from a Morg ground attack, but Grand Administrator Anaker then tasked me with insuring the safety of our refugees once back on the ground, wherever that turns out to be.’’
‘’Which leads me to the main subject of this conference.’’ Said Henry Ferguson, taking back control of the conversation. ‘’Madam Tsu, my orders from Grand Administrator Anaker were clear and simple: to bring the refugees safely to Earth and to then help them resettle there. If for any reason the Solar System proves to be incapable of lodging our refugees, my task was then be to find an alternate star system that would be both habitable and away from the Morg menace. One of our options is Mirphak III, which already houses a new colony and is a full 633 light years away from Alpha Centauri. We however need a few more options as possible resettlement locations. I am thus awaiting your suggestions, ladies and gentlemen.’’
A few seconds passed before someone raised a hand to speak.
‘’Yes, Captain Montoya.’’
‘’Commodore, I believe that there are no real viable alternatives to Mirphak III if Earth proves to be impractical. All the other star systems known to have habitable planets are relatively close to the Solar System, thus are vulnerable to the Morgs. On the other hand, Mirphak III is far from any of our original systems and is in a direction opposite that of the quadrant from which the Morgs appeared. It also has exceptional living conditions and would be perfect to accommodate our refugees.’’
Ferguson looked around him to see if anyone had another suggestion. A soft chime then attracted his attention to one of the wall-mounted screens, on which appeared a beautiful young woman with long black hair and green eyes who wore the uniform of a scientist of the Exploration Fleet.
‘’Yes, miss? Remind me of your name and position.’’
‘’Doctor Ann Shelton, sociologist and historian, Commodore. I was part of the first trip to Mirphak III but am presently in charge of the babysitting services for our refugees. I am afraid that, even if we wanted to resettle our refugees on Mirphak III, we don’t have the supplies to safely get them there: we have only three weeks worth of baby food and milk aboard. Even those supplies were loaded aboard in Kyoto Alpha as an afterthought. If we travel to Mirphak, our babies will run out of food well before the eight month trip will be over. We always could try to supplement or replace those baby supplies with alternate products, but we would still be putting the health of half a million babies at serious risk, Commodore.’’
‘’Damn! She is right!’’ Swore Lynn Tsu, as Ferguson recognized as well that Ann Shelton’s argument was most valid.
‘’Well, you certainly have a point there, Doctor Shelton. Hopefully, even if we can’t resettle our people in the Solar System for some reason, then Earth could then provide us with extra baby supplies and food for a trip to Mirphak III. Your point is well noted and will be kept in mind, Doctor Shelton. Does anyone have another resettlement location to propose?’’
No one else had a suggestion then, but Lynn Tsu had a question for Ferguson.
‘’Commodore, could I have your frank opinion on the following question: do we have all that we would need to resettle eighteen million refugees on a virgin world?’’
Ferguson nodded his head at once, a firm expression on his face.
‘’Madam Tsu, with what I presently have at my disposal, I could colonize Hell itself!’’