The Valiant, Sol system
8 years 2 months 3 days after Eridani landing
Stepping out of the shower Allen spotted the stack of clothes that had been left out, they were dark grey and brown like what he had seen the Vakurians wearing. It was a little disconcerting that they didn’t apparently feel the need to wear emergency MCP suits underneath their normal clothing. Breeches of the atmosphere were apparently infrequent enough to not be an issue?
Glancing down at his feet as he dried off Allen considered everything, given that they could duplicate gravity they probably had something like force fields to hold in an atmosphere. The alien ship that attacked nearly a decade ago had some sort of invisible protection around it, so it made sense if they were using similar tech.
Shaking his head and raising the towel to his head drying himself off Allen dropped it on the floor and picking up the clothes slipped them on. They were not new, the fraying around the wrists and the general wear on them were evidence of that but they were clean at least. He doubted Ranlin had been impressed by his chemical and vomit smell.
Allen blinked at the thought, the pheromones influence was something he could be spot but mostly in retrospect to his normal behavior.
There was a knock on the outside of the bathroom door.
“Yes?” asked Allen.
The door opened a fraction and a hand with a small vial came into view.
“Drink this!” said Ranlin her voice muffled slightly by the hatch.
“I’m dressed.” Said Allen as he walked forwards.
“Your scent is all over the bathroom though.” Grumbled Ranlin.
Allen didn’t say anything to that and reaching out took the vial from her. “And this is?” asked Allen looking at the small amount of the clear liquid inside of it.
“A synthesized version of the pheromone inhibitor, like I said the human lover was a biochemist. This should restore your brain to regular working order.”
“Right, don’t want to not be operating normally on an alien ship.” joked Allen.
Looking at it for a moment Allen quickly drank. “Oh god!” he gasped as he chocked.
The door opened further and Ranlin looked in alarmed, both of her ears up.
“What! Are you alright?!”
Allen coughed and held the empty vial out to her.
“That tastes horrible.” He wheezed.
“Ah, sorry. We can add flavoring to it next time you need it.”
“Which will be how often?” asked Allen still trying to get his voice back.
“Well, you could skip it when no females are in heat. Realistically though it’s rude to ask when that would be and with so many on the ship it would be hard to keep track,” she considered the problem for a moment, “Every three days or so should do though.”
Allen nodded and shook his head trying to clear it. “Fantastic.”
“Would you like to tour the ship? We need those codes to transmit towards the other base as we approach so we can do that when we get to the bridge.” Said Ranlin trying to distract herself from the scent that was still permeating the room.
“How long until we get there?” asked Allen.
“We’re going slowly at the moment, we don’t want to attract attention form the weapon you mentioned or empire patrols if they’re on the edge of the system,” she thought for a moment, “A day or two perhaps?”
“That’s fast as far I know, even the emergency ships launched from the largest magnetic rails of both planets wouldn’t be that quick. How fast could you get to Mars?” asked Allen.
“The fastest way would be to perform a short tachyon burst. The planet is close enough that we wouldn’t be that far off course performing a blind jump. That would take maybe half a day?”
“Tachyons?” asked Allen. “That’s how you guys do FTL?”
“That’s how everyone, except humans apparently does FTL.” Said Ranlin smiling and motioning for him to follower her out of the bathroom.
Allen absorbed that.
“Most people didn’t think that using what is perhaps the most dangerous substance in the universe as a fuel source is a good idea.” Said Ranlin keeping her face straight.
“Ah, probably a good idea to be honest.”
Ranlin rolled her eyes, “Come on time for the tour, and here.”
Reaching into a pocket she extracted a comm and handed it to Allen.
“I’ve loaded the translation software onto that. For now keep it, I can explain how to use it later but I think it’s similar to your own devices.”
Allen looked at the small piece of technology and taking it from her nodded in agreement, “Looks kind of that same yeah.”
Going over to where the suit was in the corner of the bathroom Allen pulled his Link out of the slot on the arm and showed it to Ranlin.
“Very similar.” She said.
Allen pocketed both pieces of technology and straightened back up.
“Where too first then?”
“Well, it’s about meal time. Someone on the shuttle communicated ahead saying we were bringing a human back with us and that information didn’t remain with the command staff. As a result there is something of an impromptu feast being thrown together.”
Allen’s eyes widened, “A feast? Why?”
Ranlin shrugged, “We’ve interacted with aliens before, and we’ve had too to survive. Humans though are the first species we’ve met where we don’t have to pretend to be class B. the fact that the lover’s shuttle data is now public is probably helping with that. So you’re getting the visiting captain treatment.”
Ranlin hesitated, “You’re not expected to make a speech or anything but their might still be questions. I will likely ask some of my own. Is there any topic we should avoid?”
“No, but one might be brought up that I might not want to go over.”
She frowned and her ears went down and then back up, “Got it. Still the first thing we need to do is set that friendly broadcast code. Doing it after the meal might not be advisable. I’m thinking there will be a lot of questions.”
Allen groaned at the prospect of being put in front of a table of people and interrogated over his first real meal in years but pushing those feelings aside nodded in agreement with Ranlin. “Lead the way.”
Ranlin turned and glancing back to make sure that he was indeed following her quickly exited the small room and stepped out into the main corridors of the Valiant. Allen in tow behind her tried to look at everything around him as they walked forward, up the length of the ship. He knew they were in the aft of the ship from when they had docked, and although it was difficult to gauge scales in space he knew this vessel had to be at least five or six times more massive than anything Earth or Mars had constructed.
Ranlin seeing his curiosity started to list off some of the general fact about the ship she had grown up on. “The Valiant was originally a Dancer class Imperial vessel, and she used to have the capacity to land on planets. That was how our ancestors hijacked her and the other ships of the fleet when the Empire landed them. At this point though she’s undergone so many modifications and retrofits that the Empire doesn’t even recognize it as being the ship we stole.”
“This thing landed on planets?” asked Allen looked around. The Valiant was easily five or six times larger than the ships Earth had used during the war, and although those vessels had the ability to land and takeoff it was only done by completely emptying them and installing heavy auxiliary boosters on the sides of the craft. He had actually seen one launch before, the Yamato when it had left dry-dock.
His father had insisted that they go and watch.
“They did, we haven’t used the system in nearly a century and only one ship in the fleet might be able to pull it off now. The Brave was a mason class ship originally and even now it’s the smallest ship in the fleet.”
Allen nodded, only half paying attention to her as he looked out of a window as they walked by. The thing stretched up from the floor to the ceiling of the corridor, and only a slight opaque tint to the star field said anything was in-between him and the vacuum of space. A human battleship wouldn’t have had a window a tenth the size if it even had one!
“So you can land and you have artificial gravity, anything else special about the Valiant?” asked Allen forcing himself to look away from the stars.”
Ranlin shrugged, “We’ve got one of the better meat growth facilities in the fleet?”
Allen’s stomach growled at the prospect. He had been living off military rations for so long that even alien meat sounded more appetising.
His stomach growled and he winced. “That’s good enough for me.”
Ranlin nodded and gesturing continued to walk down the corridor of the ship towards the bridge. The other members of the crew seeing seemed to only be slightly perturbed by Allen. Looking at all of them Allen had to adjust his self-image. In terms of humans he was average in stature and height, but compared to most of the Vakurian he was bigger and more heavily built. Only the guy in the shuttle had been about his size and Allen got the impression that he would have in human terms been a body builder.
Most of the aliens were lithe, none that he had seen seemed to have anything approaching natural layers of human fat or toning. The Vakurian in the halls all gave him a wide berth, but few seemed to be actually scared of him rather just wary.
“Ranlin!”
Allen turned just in time to see the other woman from the shuttle stalking towards them,
“I’m busy Drienil!” squeaked Ranlin as she turned her head and ears slightly now looking panicked.
“Not too busy to not file a mission report! You don’t get to push that off on me just because you’re escorting Mr. Alien around!”
She held up a data tablet and shoved it into Ranlin’s hands.
“The report has to be in by first shift tomorrow. All I did was fly the shuttle and have a brief conversation with our guest. You are the one who interacted with him the most!” said the woman.
Allen looked between the two trying to keep a smile from showing. Ranlin looked suitably miserable and her older friend looked positively peeved.
“Allen, Drienil.” Groaned Ranlin as she pointed at the woman.
“Should I write a report?” asked Allen joking.
The woman turned to him, “what? No.”
“Yes!” said Ranlin jumping at the suggestion, “Think about it! The first peaceful contact between our two species! It’s an event that will hopefully be engraved in Iron!”
“I’m assuming that’s like engraving in stone,” mumbled Allen, “Still I should probably write my own; I’m already going against so many orders as it is. Keeping up with my paperwork, can’t be the worst thing in the world.”
Drienil nodded in agreement, “See even your alien is doing paperwork!”
Ranlin muttered several things that the translator didn’t seem to convert. Allen glanced over at her smiling, figuring out rather quickly what the words had to have meant.
“Let’s go,” muttered Ranlin grabbing Allen’s hand she started to drag him down the corridor.
Allen smiled and let her do so, although he was fairly certain that the pheromone was still affecting him given how happy that single act made him.
“This is the midsection,” Said Ranlin gesturing at a hatch as they stepped through.
Allen blinked as she dragged him through the section of the ship was unlike anything else he had seen, spanning what had to be almost the entire width of the ship and twice as tall as most of the other compartments it would have been the largest empty section of the ship were it not for the Vakurians and other constructions inside of it. The closest comparison that Allen could make was the internal structure of the Station that he had only seen in pictures. This was thankfully a little more organized and somewhat less threatening.
Tents, shacks, and other small constructions dominated the space, organized in semi-neat rows it looked for all the world like a primitive market place.
“What is all of this?” asked Allen as he pulled his hand from her grip pausing to look at the confusing array of stalls.
The hundreds of Vakurians inside the compartment continued to go about their business, the few that spotted him quickly turned to poke companions before unabashedly staring at him.
In general the Vakurian looked like very pale Caucasian humans. Allen was having difficulty spotting any that were obviously older, the children were about the only ones different in stature. The aliens were even similar in basic body structure and dimensions with very few outliers.
The main difference between any of them was the hair color and style, red, black, blond, were common enough but unlike with humans some of the colors were combined. Some Vakurian had red hair on half of their heads and blonde on the other side. Others still had the different colored strands intermixed. Then there were also whom sported what in humans at least were unconventional hair colorings. Light greens, blues, dull greys but nothing approaching white.
Ears on almost every Vakurian turned in unison to look at him as the whispers of his presence spread through the compartment. Only a few small children who sported ears the same size of the adults were still focused on whatever it was they had been entertained by before he entered the compartment.
Ranlin groaned, “We’ll be back here for the meal. This is the one section of the ship where military discipline is dropped, everyone here has jobs running the ship or raising the children. Everyone has a rank, here though none of that matters. In here we can at least feel as if we are not on a ship in the middle of space. That’s what this section is for.”
Allen nodded and followed Ranlin as she continued through the compartment. By the time he and Ranlin made it to the opposite side of the large compartment the only sounds were coming from machinery and equipment.
Silently weaving in and around the different stalls Allen looked at the aliens. All of them looked as if they were silently judging him. Noses twitched and ears moved slightly as he passed, but otherwise they remained still.
Stepping out of the compartment back into the normal corridors of the ship Allen sighed and glanced over at Ranlin.
“What the hell.”
She glanced back at him recognizing the phrase.
“What are all of them expecting from me?”
“That I don’t really know. You’re new if only for that you’re the buzz of the ship.”
“Gossip?” groaned Allen.
“Gossip! Not to mention all of the data and media from the lover’s shuttle was released to the public so everyone is going through that stuff. I think a lot of people will have questions.”
“The shuttle was from the early 2000’s, I don’t know anything about stuff from back them except some old music or something.”
“That’s fine,” Ranlin hesitated, “The biggest thing is that Humans are so similar, so very similar to what we were before we destroyed ourselves. Only you didn’t destroy yourselves.”
Allen mulled that over as she led him past several more section of the ship, a fully functional hospital, a food growth lab, and several other compartments that on cursory examination he couldn’t identify the function of. The vessel was long, as long or perhaps a little longer than the ancient aircraft carriers that the United States had used before air superiority was supplanted by orbital superiority.
“Here we are,” said Ranlin. She motioned at the large sealed hatch in front of them.
Unlike most other compartments on the ship this one was actively closed, most had just been left open.
As Ranlin approached it opened for her and she quickly slipped inside. Allen hesitating for only a moment followed after her.
The bridge of the Valiant was similar to the command decks that he had seen on Terran vessels, a Captain’s chair in the center with individuals at workstations surrounding the walls. Unlike a Terran vessel though everyone was planted firmly on the ‘ground’ and the forward wall was dominated by a large array of windows showing the space outside.
The current shift on the bridge glanced up at Ranlin as she entered.
“We need to start transmitting a beacon signal, on radio waves. What frequency?” asked Ranlin turning to Allen.
Allen still looking around at the bridge and the display stations the aliens were working at turned to her.
“2.2 GHz, the S band radio standard is old but the most common for recognition.”
Ranlin frowned and pulled out her own Comm, “Their was data about your measurements in the shuttle data,”
Still staring at the Comm Ranlin slowly walked over to a bemused looking officer, an older man from what Allen could tell sitting at the communication console.
“I think this is it,” Ranlin looked up, “Hanil!”
The man smiled, “Ranlin.”
She blinked, “Uh, sorry I didn’t think you were on duty right now. What time is it?” she glanced over his shoulder at his screen and her ears went up slightly. “No wonder I’m hungry.”
“My mate had to go down to the moon with you, I switched shifts so I could meet her afterwards.” Said the man.
“Your mate? Like a wife?” asked Allen looking at Ranlin.
“Like a wife yes, he,” she pointed at Hanil. “It mated with Drienil.”
Allen smiled, “Met her, nice lady.”
Hanil chuckled, “I am glad that it is not only the females of my species that are difficult then.”
Ranlin looked between the two.
Hanil stood and after a moment extended his arm straight out towards Allen keeping it level with his shoulder.
“A handshake it is called correct?” he asked.
Allen put his own hand out, elbow bent and hand lower to his waist. Hanil quickly lowered his own and the two shook.
“How did you know about it?” asked Allen.
“As much as my wife does not want to seem like she is excited like Ran here she has been doing nothing but reading data from the shuttle since she was tasked with helping to decrypt it.”
Allen’s eye’s widened slightly, “Ran?” he asked.
Ranlin slowly turned to glare at Hanil, her ears straight up pointedly looked at him for a moment.
“Sorry.” Said Hanil grinning.
“The message, what should we transmit?” asked Ranlin, “I’ve got the transmission frequency 58.36 milhits Hanil. We can do that right?” she asked.
“We can, what type of data encoding should we use?” he asked.
“Whatever it is you have on file form the shuttle should work. The recognition computers on Phobos should be able to pick up encoding standards from the very beginning of our space programs.”
Hanil sat down at his station and quickly called up the appropriate data and conversion programs that his wife had built.
“I’ve got it. Will audio work?” he asked.
“It will, ready for the message?”
Hanil held up a hand and typed at his keyboard for another few moments, and then nodded.
“Ready, speak to the console.” He waved his hand at it.
Allen leaned down and cleared his throat, “Edie, I’m on the giant ship that’s bearing down on you. Long story, they’re friendly. Eden-Terra-7-2-0-6-9.”
Hanil blinked and stopped the recording as Allen stepped back.
“That’s it?” he asked.
“I’d rather explain the rest without a light speed delay. That much is enough to stop her from ordering shooting us on sight.”
“The code you used?” asked Ranlin.
Allen rubbed at the back of his neck, “Yeah, technically I’m not supposed to say what any of them mean. Theirs’s really no one left to get mad at me but.” He shrugged.
“Understandable. You hungry?”
“I could eat yeah, we are sure nothing here will kill me though right?”
“Shouldn’t” said Ranlin.
Allen looked at her for a moment, “Nothing on earth hurt the Vakurians we’re assuming it goes both ways.”
“Here’s hoping.”
“What the hell?” breathed Allen leaning in next to Ranlin’s ears. They twitched as did the ears of several other Vakurians standing around the table.
They had better hearing. By a large amount apparently.
“I told you everyone wanted to see you.” murmured Ranlin matching his volume.
“You have a talent for understatement then.”
The midsection of the ship had been cleared out for the most part, the shoddy collection of tents and other stalls had been pushed to the sides of the hull. Tables, blankets and mountains of food had been hauled out and spaced around the room. In the center was Maunt and an unwilling Allen and Ranlin around a large circular table. Which also happened to look like the most solid piece of furniture in the room.
“What’s wrong?” asked Hanil leaning over to look at Allen, “Your heart rate is going crazy.”
“You can hear that?” asked Allen.
“Half the people in the room can hear it, it seems that a human pumps far more blood than we do when stressed.” Said Drienil. She was standing next to her mate and eyeing the food in the carts.
“What am I supposed to do?” asked Allen not bothering to lean over and try to whisper to Ranlin.
“Nothing, you’re getting the visiting Captain treatment like I said.” Said Ranlin.
“I don’t know what that means!” hissed Allen.
Ranlin shook her head and pointed at Maunt.
The captain raised his hands and the sounds of the crowd slowly died.
Allen swallowed nervously and looked around the room.
“I’m not much for fancy speeches!” shouted Maunt.
A ripple of laughter ran through the collected Vakurians.
“We know that!” shouted someone near the back.
Maunt chuckled and turned to look at Allen.
“We have a friend from the stars!”
The collected Vakurian all stomped their feet several times, and apparently the greetings over sat down either at the tables or on the blankets spread over the metal. It seemed that when he said he wasn’t much of one for speeches Maunt meant it.
Children, most of them with small strips of cloth tied around their heads to keep their hair out of the food quickly manned the carts of food and began to push them around to each table or blanket and collection of Vakurian, each person taking what looked to Allen to be an enormous portion of food.
“Sit,” said Ranlin.
Allen blinked and sat down in the chair next to her.
A child barely more than seven or eight if human judgements could be applied to the species carefully approached. Her hair was red, her eyes were wide and her ears were flat against her head. Ranlin leaned over slightly and beckoned at the child.
Slowly moving forwards the cart trundling on the smoothed metal floor she approached her eyes locked on Allen. He remained still and occasionally moved his eyes from her but everyone else was staring at her as she approached.
“Food!” she squawked as she stopped in front of him, her voice breaking slightly.
“Thank you,” said Allen and reaching out like he had seen the Vakurian doing he grabbed several of the smaller plates off of the cart and sat them in front of himself.
The girl’s ears went up and Allen looking back down at her and smiled. The girl let out another squeak and her face turned slightly green, her ears went up and she happily served the rest of the table.
Looking down at the food Allen identified most of it as lab grown meat, not unlike what he had been eating in prepackaged containers for the past eight years. Still this was fresh, if somewhat more on the raw side.
Something that looked like ribs with an odd green sauce on it, a paste he was fairly sure humans would have put inside of a sausage, a smoked looking thing that had a red and blue sprinkling over it.
“I’m not sure what you’ll like.” Said Ranlin considering the dishes in front of him.
“I’ll try them all I guess. At this point I just want something different. All we had in the bunker was prepackaged food.”
Ranlin nodded and jumped on her own food, almost literally. She began to shovel the food in front of her into her mouth forgoing all semblances of table manners. Looking around Allen saw that everyone else was doing the same, conversation was non-existent and it looked as if everyone was literally starving. The only noise in the large room was the tearing of bones and sinew, and the clink of plates and the chewing of a thousand or so people.
Allen shrugged to himself and looked down at his own plates of food.
“When in Rome.” He muttered and picking up what looked like ribs dug in.
The meal continued apace, the food was undercooked to Allen’s taste buds and the taste pallet leaned more towards the sour and spicy then the human preference of sweet. The meat was tougher than a human prepared animal, less lean meat and more thick muscle.
The Vakurians around him made no effort to keep their mouths closed as they ate, and although they didn’t stuff their mouths they weren’t averse to letting some piece of meat stick out of their mouths as they chewed.
It was an odd disconnect, up to this point they had been cordial, and friendly. Looking at them now Allen couldn’t help but think of a dog. As loyal as one of the four legged companions of man might be, and as much as you might trust one getting in between a dog and its meal was never advisable. It was similar with the Vakurian, their teeth flashed as they ate, and they looked predatory.
After ten minutes the initial frenzy slowed, Vakurians leaned back in their chairs the ones sitting on the blankets leaned back and relaxed. Allen groaned and did the same. All of the Vakurian around him had cleared their plates while his were still half full.
The children returned with the carts and quickly taking the plates replaced them with small mugs.
Ranlin’s eyes widened at this, “Maunt’s pulling out all the stocks.” She whispered.
Allen considered the spicy smelling coffee looking liquid in front of him.
“What is it?” he asked.
“Spiced tea! It takes forever for the plants to grow!” taking the mug from in front of her Ranlin smelled it and took a careful small sip. She shivered and smiled at Allen.
Sipping at his own Allen found it to be similar to mint tea, although a little more earthy in tone. With what tasted oddly like peppers. An odd but not unpleasant combo.
Unlike with the meal the Vakurian were all very slowly consuming the drink.
After several minutes the children whom had been serving had returned to their groups although a rather large group of them were crowding around the central table where Allen was sitting.
Allen looked at them and then stared back at his tea.
The crowd continued to grow, with even some of the older Vakurian joining in the furtive looks of the youngsters.
“Did your species really have two planets?”
The large space fell silent, and Allen turned towards the source of the voice. The small redhead who had served their table was now flushed green, and her ears were once again pressed down to her skull.
“We still do, yeah.”
“We’ve only ever heard of the Empire having more than one planet.” Said Ranlin as she sipped at her tea again.
“We had Earth and Mars, as well as a few moons like the one I was on, and Phobos a moon around Mars.” Said Allen looking over at the child.
“Wow! Both planets fought the Empire when they attacked right?” she asked, sounding eager now.
The room had been silent before and was now deathly quiet.
Allen swallowed and nodded, “Both did yes.” He paused for a moment, “We had just finished fighting ourselves, we had more weapons than we ever had in history. More ships, more bombs, more everything than we had ever had and still a single ship beat us.”
“You damaged the ship though!” said another voice in the crowd of children.
Allen hesitated, “The Yamato and her crew did, and they had to sacrifice themselves and their ships though.”
“Our own people have done that on occasion, when needed.” Said Maunt from across the table.
Allen nodded, “It wasn’t just the Yamoto though. Dozens of ships ran had to perform suicide runs, the Station historically the place where the less reputable Martians did business was even sacrificed. The largest gun, the Phobos cannon almost destroyed itself firing at the thing nonstop. Men attacked the Empire ship with nothing but handheld weapons. All of what was left fought so a small contingent could escape.”
Allen paused.
“At least I hope they did. I still don’t know if they ever made it. No one in the Sol system does.”
Tertiary Complex, Phobos
Stickney Crater
“What the hell are the eggheads up to now?” growled Edie as she looked down the bore of the giant weapon examining it for what had to literally be the millionth time by this point.
“They’re debating about how we need to divvy up the rest of the food.” Said Chang as he plugged an analysis computer into an access console on the side of the barrel.
“Again?” groaned Edie.
“Again,” said Chang sounding resigned.
“Have they even got the analysis done for those reactors cycling up to full?”
“They’re complaining that they don’t have enough data to work with, they can’t do an accurate simulation without that.”
“All we need to know is if it will blow up in our faces not if it will be perfect!”
The subordinate shrugged and continued his analysis.
“Anything on the communication array then?” she asked annoyed.
“Nope. I looked at as well, I’m guessing the guys on the moon broke something.”
Edie grunted in agreement, “I’m frankly surprised they haven’t killed one another yet, they’re a rookie squad and they’ve managed to hold it together this long?”
“With Pastore for a commander? I’m wouldn’t be surprised if they didn’t detonate the reactor. I would.” Said Chang
“Still only one civilian to deal with? And a useful one at that?” said Edie.
“Not mention food.” Said Chang.
Edie smiled and drifting down to the technician slapped the larger man on the shoulder, “I think you’ll live.”
“For another week or so.”
Edie didn’t say anything and drifted around to the other side of the weapon.
The Phobos cannon was a modified Frigate class weapon, and a technological marvel outclassed only by the Station and elevator. Set on rails, the entire firing assembly could move along the surface of Phobos to aim at almost any target. The fusion reactors, three of them which would have been normally used to power ships were interspaced over the moon and all fed into the single gun.
The movement and the power balancing systems had been trashed by the alien ship nearly a decade ago, and with only thirty or so Martian civilians and a small Terran strike team on the moon whom had been helping to operate the thing it had taken years to perform repairs. The actual operating crew had been killed when they disabled the heat distribution systems to continue firing far past tolerances at the alien ship.
None of the current residents of the moon were certified engineers, the most qualified had been a member of her strike team who knew advanced emergency repair techniques and a Martian scientist by the name of Leon who was an metallurgist.
The two had tentatively directed the repairs to the cannons that should have required the expertise of a professionally trained engineering team.
The eggheads were fairly certain the weapon would work, at least if it was used with the expectation that it would never fire again. So they hadn’t been able to test it, but instead modify the weapon so that when they did fire it for the final time it would be pushing its projectile of ten kilograms to nearly 4% the speed of light.
Unless the aliens shields were drawing on petawatt power reactors the slug would punch through. In theory.
The Link in Edie’s and everyone else’s ears crackled.
“Commander, I think we need you down here.” Said Peter.
“What is it?” growled Edie as she continued to work.
“One of the scientists found a food cache in a vent, someone has been squirreling rations away from the main supplies. I’ve got half of them wanting to eat them all now and the other half accusing someone of hiding them.”
Edie groaned, “I’m on my way.”
“Might want a stun baton!”
“I’m not stunning any of them Peter!”
“I want too then!” said Carol over the Link. “I just got to sleep Peter! Did you have to broadcast this to every channel!?”
Edie and Peter both ignored the woman.
“I’m sorry, next time a full scale riot is about to break out I’ll isolate the channels!” shot back Peter.
Reaching up Edie turned the volume down.
“Close it up Chang.”
The man nodded and pulled his analysis computer from the barrel of the Phobos cannon slammed the panel closed.
“Yep.” Both pushing off from the barrel they drifted down in the miniscule gravity of the moon, their lines attaching them to it sliding down along with them. The lines weren’t for falling, a good kick in the wrong direction could potentially send a person into orbit. A typical ground vehicle could even reach escape velocity if you managed to keep it on the ground long enough to hit a ramp.
Sliding into the airlock Chang hit the pressurization cycle.
Pulling of the helmet and grumbling to herself Edie pushed off into the main section of the base that was embedded further inside the asteroid of a moon. Chang continued to stow the equipment somewhat relived that he didn’t have to deal with the scientists.
Moving far faster than was advised down the narrow corridor that was essentially an access shaft Edie flew, the stale air of the base wasn’t refreshing even at the speeds she was moving and the same dull smells of the place went through her nose.
Within a minute she was at the second hatch, kicking it open and now almost a kilometer beneath the surface of the asteroid Edie drifted into the base and in the low gravity began to slowly drift towards the floor.
“Everyone just calm down!” shouted Peter.
Pushing off of the nearest wall and seeing Carol already coming out of the sleeping quarters the Commander drifted towards the source of Peter’s voice. The labs where the scientists occupied themselves with attempting to grow enough food to keep all of them alive and do repairs to the weapon.
Drifting into the first hydroponics compartment Edie sighed.
“See, she’s here!” said Peter pointing at her.
The dozen or so men and women in the civilian clothes turned.
“He’s hoarding food!” shouted Dr. Levos pointing at Dr. Mal.
“I am not!” said the man indignant.
Edie raised her hand, “I don’t care who it was. All of the food needs to be rationed. Particularly the stuff that is still sealed and preserved. Put it back in the lot.” Said Edie directing the order to Peter.
“Yes Ma’am.” Said Peter.
She turned to look at the men and women.
“Anything else?” she asked.
Dr. Mal rolled his eyes and pushed out of the room bouncing on the floor and wall.
Edie resisted saying anything. As the rest of the men and women filtered out.
Soon only Dr. Leon and Peter were left.
Edie sighed. Peter reaching into the lower drawer he was standing next to drew out a box of small meal bars. Ten of them in total.
“That’s it?” asked Edie annoyed.
“Yep.” Said Peter.
Dr. Leon scoffed, “It’s only going to get worse. In a month those ten meal bars would be critical.”
“How much longer can you ration food?” asked Edie as she took her feet off of the floor and let herself slowly drift down to the floor.
“I’ve already halved it twice. No one has any fat reserves at this point, maybe another two months stringing calories along from meal to meal.”
He hesitated, “Once someone dies not even that will help much. They won’t have much meat on them to being with.”
Edie looked up at the older man, “You talk about cannibalism as if it’s an option.”
He shrugged. “I’m factoring it in. I’m not thrilled with the concept.”
“Neither am I.”