Starborn Odyssey (The Starborn Odyssey Trilogy Book 1) Read online

  “Anyway, sorry,” I said to Nettie, feeling bad about what I’d said.

  She shrugged. “It’s okay. Thank you for the flowers, anyway. Even if I didn’t see them.”

  I smiled, and all was right with the world.

  Looking back now, I can see that Roger was jealous of my friendship with Nettie, and that at least to some extent explained why he expended such efforts to make my life miserable.

  My mother made me take piano lesson when I was six years old. I switched to guitar when I was nine, and it was more fun to me because I could take it with me to social events. I became a bit of a legend among my classmates for a time, but there were so many things to learn for future use when we would reach our colonial world that I eventually had to switch my focus from music to more productive ventures. I could still play on the right occasions, and it was a great form of stress relief as I got older, but I never got as good as I thought I could have been.

  One night, when I was eight years old, we awoke to an alarm and everyone had to get into their pressure suits before the entire ship dropped to a vacuum. It was only a drill, as it turned out, but we didn’t know that at the time. It was the scariest thing I’d ever experienced and I lost sleep for quite a few nights afterward. It was the first time in my life I had ever been aware of how vulnerable we really were. It was surprising how many of the children didn’t have spacesuits that still fit them and it was a wakeup call for all of us who’d become complacent. Though we were all trained from our earliest memory how to work our suits and how to don them, doing so when you think you’re going to die is quite another story.

  One of my best memories of my father was the day he took Angie and I up to the port side control room, where we were so close to the shell of the asteroid that we could look out into space through a thick, rectangular window box, above the control panels. I was about thirteen at the time, and had always viewed space on window screens, the image projected from one or more of the many sensors stationed all over the surface of the ship.

  Angie and I took turns pressing our faces against the glass, seeing the stars with our own eyes for the first time. Everything was less clear that it was on a window screen, and we couldn’t zoom in or demand identification of any star; but for all that, it was somehow more amazing. The window box was big enough for us to have a good view of the edges of the asteroid on either side of it. We could see the sensors that detected incoming debris, and the vaporizers that automatically eliminated any large threats heading toward the asteroid. The cameras that provided the window screen views were too small and protected to be seen, but we could almost see the edge of the ladder bolted into the side of the hull so our engineers could do external repair when needed. It was awesome.

  Dad laughed at us and made us sit back so he could wipe the prints from our faces off the glass. Angie had particularly made a mess. She was a sweet little girl, but still a toddler, and left drool and finger prints on the window.

  We had brought lunch with us, and after giving me a quick tour of the shuttle bays below the control room, carrying Angie, dad settled us back into the control room. We ate our sandwiches, talking about life and the future.

  Dad was interested in everything. He talked about terraforming and literature, leadership needs, and engineering feats, history and art, and ways to make space travel in a shuttle as safe as it was in an asteroid. He told me about his ship, the Intrepid, which I’d seen gleaming brightly in the bay lights, and which was prepared at a moment’s notice to launch into space to explore our new world.

  I loved to listen, and sometimes argue, with him. Periodically he would smile and adjust something on the control panels, but his attention was always ours if we wanted it.

  “Dad,” I asked, while helping Angie put her sandwich back together, “how do we know the place we’re going is going to be an okay place to live?”

  “Well,” dad answered honestly, “we don’t know completely for sure, but our scientists have calculated that this system will have at least one planet within the habitable range for humans. Do you remember what that is?”

  I scrunched up my face, trying to recall that old school lesson. “It’s where we get enough light and have enough atmosphere and heat to keep liquid water?”

  “Yes, very good,” dad smiled. “And that depends on . . .” he waited for me.

  “The size and strength of the star, the size of the planet, the angle of rotation and orbit, whether there are any other energy sources on the planet . . .” I trailed off, because I hadn’t paid as much attention to those details as I probably ought to have.

  Dad nodded warmly, however, and smiled at me. He pulled Angie up on his knee. Looking at me, he said, “I am very proud of the two of you. Whatever planet we end up on, we are going to be a lucky colony to have the two of you in it!” The praise, whether or not really earned, felt so wonderful. It made me immediately want to work harder, study more, become better. Angie was already showing signs of genius, even at that age, so I was sure she’d represent the family just fine in the years to come.

  We chatted for some time more, and then a young Ensign stepped into the control room.

  “Captain Duncan, pardon me sir,” he said, “but the council meeting is in an hour and they’ve just added a discussion topic that I thought you’d better be prepared for.”

  He handed my dad a slim console, which dad scrolled through briefly before looking up. “Thank you very much, Patrick, you were quite right. I’ll be able to get some numbers on this before the meeting. Thank you.”

  Patrick nodded, then glanced at us.

  Dad smiled at us. “Time for me to get back to work,” he said. “Patrick, would you mind walking them home?”

  “Can we go through the shuttle bay again?” I asked, jumping up. I loved seeing the ships.

  “No,” dad said, “that’s the long way, and Patrick has work to do. You’ll need to go the usual route. Thank you for a very nice lunch.”

  Angie hugged dad, who then handed her off to me. I put her on my shoulders, and freed my hand long enough to salute dad. He waved us off after Patrick.

  A few months after our visit to the control room, my father took me on an excursion outside the ship. Being outside for real is an eerie feeling; the gravity on the surface of Astro II was somewhat less than inside, and as kids we’d all been told that if we jumped as high as we could, it was possible to leave the gravitational field and float away. I believed that to be the truth for several years and was really embarrassed at having been so gullible. Even though I knew better during my first surface walk, however, the thought was still terrifying; I kept my feet on the surface. It was true that if I jumped up and landed wrong I could have ruptured my suit or broken my face plate; that would have been the end. I understood the reason my father had decided to tell me that as a child, since I was a bit of a daredevil by nature.

  Outside the ship there was absolutely no feeling of motion; it was hard to believe we were moving more than a million mile an hour. If there had been anything near us it would have been obvious we were moving, but there was absolutely nothing within a quarter of a light year.

  Dad just gazed into space, with a half-smile on his face. “I love it here,” he said, smiling down at me, and I just had to nod in agreement.

  Although he was only thirty-five, dad was well respected by our entire colony and the council actually listened to him on many matters that (according to mom, anyway) prior captains had little or no say in, such as policy decisions related to school curriculum or Hydrop planting. Everyone loved dad. Which made the disaster all the harder for everyone.

  When I was fifteen, the ship’s alarms jolted me awake from a deep sleep. I stumbled out of bed, jamming my toe against my trunk, and hit the light panel for the entire apartment. “Angie, get up!” I shouted; but she was already moving, small and speedy. We met mom in the main room, where she was already pulling our space suits out of the emergency cabinet. “Get them on quickly,” she said. “This i
sn’t a scheduled drill.”

  Our training kicked in and we were dressed and sealed in our space suits in just minutes’ time, mom securing Angie’s suit for her. Mom checked the atmosphere reader at the door to the apartment, which showed oxygen and pressure inside and outside of the unit.

  “It looks clear, thanks goodness,” she said, opening the door. That meant we probably didn’t need the space suits, but protocol was that we were always to be safe.

  Mom grabbed our small emergency bag, with light and some food and water, and inflatable blankets, and led us out into the tunnel, where other families were similarly moving toward the Hydrop, our central meeting place, as it was farthest from the hull and the safest place in the Astro II. I held Angie’s hand, following behind mom, and looked around. “Where’s dad?”

  Mom glanced back at me grimly. “Working,” she said, her voice tight. “But we’ll find him at the Hydrop.”

  We strode along purposefully and reached the Hydrop along with much of the rest of the colony. Then it was simply time to wait until someone told us what was going on. After a short time, we were authorized to take off our space suits.

  “There has been a breach,” announced the Mayor over the communications link; we could see him standing at the far edge of the Hydrop speaking into the mouthpiece. “But it has been fully contained, and the ship has full pressure and oxygen in all living areas. The matter compressor unit has not been compromised; everything is fine.”

  “Can we go home?” Someone called out; it sounded like Roger’s father, to me. “What happened?”

  The mayor was conferring frantically with someone in uniform beside him; both were gesturing but we couldn’t hear what they were saying. I realized suddenly that the man talking to the Mayor was Patrick, dad’s particular assistant. My stomach knotted. I looked up at my mom and could see she had also recognized Patrick. Her lips were pressed firmly together and she was completely still; I’m not even sure she was breathing. She stared so hard at the two men that I wondered if, by will alone, she’d be able to hear them. And then the Mayor spoke again.

  “My friends, Captain Byron Duncan is dead.”

  A gasp went through the entire crowd; a few people cried out in shock, or grief. I looked at my mother. She hadn’t moved. Not one muscle, not even to look at us. I heard Angie crying next to me; I’d hoped she wouldn’t understand, but she had, immediately. She squeezed my hand, but I couldn’t stop watching our mother. Time felt frozen, but it was only moments. I grabbed mom’s arm and shook her. “If you don’t breath, you’re going to die too!” I shouted at her; and she did. She took in a deep, deep breath, and then fainted.

  Angie shrieked and began sobbing even harder. I wrapped her up in my arms, crying now, too, as others picked my mother up and began to care for her. I realized the entire colony had made a circle around us, and was watching. I straightened, holding Angie close, and whispered in her ear, “be strong now; we’re representing dad now for everyone. We can cry later.”

  To her credit, tiny Angie took a rattling breath and pulled herself together, staring at me as if I was an anchor, her eyes red already and small hands clasped around my neck. I looked out at the crowd and said as solidly as I could muster, “We need to get home,” and then, carrying Angie, stumbled back to our apartment. I thought I saw Roger sneering as I passed, but it may not have been him; I am not even sure how I managed to get us back home since my legs didn’t feel like they were connected to my body. Commander Anton Pierce, dad’s best friend, had rushed to mom’s side and supported her as she followed behind us. I don’t remember ever seeing mom cry about dad, not that day or ever, but her face kept that cold stillness for many years after that.

  We found out, shortly after the shocking announcement in the Hydrop, what had happened. It was the worst disaster that we’d seen in over three generations, and encompassed several stunning equipment failures that had our engineers scrambling to repair sensors, and vaporizers, and ultimately closing off part of the ship.

  Aside from our main control room, we had auxiliary control rooms that had to be inspected at least twice per year to make certain that we would never be totally dependent on any one system on the ship. Redundancy is extremely important for security when you are living in an artificial environment such as ours. The portside control room, where we had once shared lunch, was one such auxiliary. Dad was on duty that night. He climbed the ladder to the port side control deck, and proceeded to test the controls. Three of his top technicians were with him.

  A meteorite hit the window and shattered it, sucking all four of them out into the vacuum of space. The breach triggered the alarms that woke us, and the emergency systems automatically sealed the control room, so the damage elsewhere was limited.

  Our gravity system held the bodies onto the asteroid, not far from the port control room view window, so Commander Pierce was able to climb out and hand the bodies in, one by one, to his crew. At least we had their bodies for cremation and a ceremony. The window box there was paneled over with metal, and that part of the ship closed off from any future use. Perhaps it was superstitious, but we had plenty of room on the asteroid, and a new auxiliary room, without any ghosts of terrible memories, was constructed.

  After that, Commander Anton Pierce was promoted to Captain, and assumed leadership of the ship’s crew. The non-military second in command was always elected by the people and held the title of Mayor. We had a new election shortly after that and the old Mayor stepped down, in a sign of respect for the lives lost under his watch. Mom said tersely that it was an unnecessary show of ego, but I just squeezed her hand, knowing the sentiment stemmed almost solely from hurt. Mom stayed strong, and was as efficient as ever, but she withdrew some, emotionally, and Angie and I had to rely more on each other. I also grew closer to Nettie, whose friendship filled, to some extent, the new gaping hole in my life.

  Leaving our physics class one day about a year after dad’s death, I heard Roger talking to some of his cronies. I missed the first part of his statement, but what I caught was this: “ . . . and I heard that Byron Duncan had switched off the sensor when running the tests and so he actually killed those men; that level of incompetence would have required him to be replaced anyway. . .” Roger’s tone was matter-of-fact and I don’t, even now, think that he realized I was listening. I barely remember how it happened but I do know that I dropped my console, filling with rage, and it cracked. I remember Nettie cried out and tried to grab my arm, but I had launched myself at Roger and tackled him from behind. I realized I was growling and Roger looked genuinely shocked; but not so shocked that he didn’t fight back. I got in two good punches, and then Roger managed to get the upper hand and hit me in the stomach, and then twice in the face, so that, ears ringing, I hit the ground, too addled to get up. I realized that tears were running from my eyes, and blood from my nose. I looked up at Roger and he didn’t look triumphant; he was frowning so deeply that I wondered if he was going to cry too, but then of course he didn’t. He was rubbing his hand as if he’d broken it, which he had, in fact. “Stay down,” he muttered at me, and then stalked away. I was humiliated, but Nettie, face flushed and anxious, helped me up and to the medical center. She talked quietly with her dad, who was working that day, and he glanced over at me. Then, without a word of reproach, he gestured for me to come in.

  He fixed me up and sent me on my way, looking sad but not at all mean. Mom didn’t even mention it when I showed up at home bandaged; everyone had already heard. Angie, who was growing up quickly, looked like she was going to go fight Roger herself, but I talked her down. The fight had taken all the anger out of me and I just felt tired. I didn’t want to fight, and didn’t want her to, either. Her spirit made me laugh though, and I gave her a big hug. Mom, although never saying a word, did make a big deal of fixing me dinner (something soft since chewing hurt my jaw). Over dinner, Angie jabbered on about the project she was working on in engineering class. It was advanced for her age, and mom and I couldn’t he
lp but grin proudly at her.

  Roger and I didn’t exchanged another word after that for several years. Once we were forced, by the arrangement of our training, to interact, we didn’t display open hostilities but ignored each other—with a few angry interludes here and there—as much as possible. We never got chummy, is what I’m trying to say.

  Nettie’s dad, Arthur Jordan, was elected Mayor in the election the following year. He was a good, if somewhat conventional, man, and did keep the colony focused for the upcoming colonization program. We were the first generation to face the daunting task of preparing for settling a new world and all of us had to be trained for the special tasks as they were being assigned. Although I was planning to be a teacher of Electro-technology, I was chosen, based on my exams and personality matrix, to be trained as a mission specialist in our Militia. I would be included in the initial landing and exploration of all worlds being considered for colonizing.

  Our technologies in terraforming were extremely good and could make a planet habitable in a very short span of time, considering that we took twelve generations to get here in the first place. Ten or twenty years of terraforming was nothing compared to that.

  We were being trained in how to make first contact with other cultures, if we were to run across any. My father had been fascinated with the idea, and had often mused about how to pursue cultural interactions while keeping our crew safe. His ideas, unfortunately, went with him to his grave. Most of us considered our “first contact” training largely a waste of time. Our own scientists considered the likelihood of intelligent life forms to be highly unlikely, so it wasn’t stressed too much. Most thought we’d probably find a few single-celled organisms as we did on Mars and a few of the moons of Jupiter and Saturn. The most important thing was to learn how to deal with the equipment meant to protect us from bacterial contamination on our target worlds.