Excelsior (14 page)

Chapter 10

“Good luck, Lincoln, and rest assured that your loved ones are all safe and well.” President Baker saluted the camera and smiled. “Alliance Command out.”

Ryan Baker watched the red recording light of the holo camera wink off, and the cameraman gave him a thumbs-up before carrying the camera and its attached tripod out of the office.

Fleet Admiral Wilson nodded to him from the far corner of the room. “That should satisfy their curiosity about Earth, sir. It should come as a relief.”

“Yes, that’s the good thing about lies. They can be a great comfort if you believe them. I’m just not sure they will.”

“We couldn’t tell them the truth without putting their mission in jeopardy, and their mission is more vital now than ever.”

Ryan frowned and glanced behind him in time to see the holoscreen behind his chair fade from a pre-recorded view of his office in the presidential palace to a blank screen with a concrete wall behind it. The presidential palace was long gone, a pile of rubble lying hundreds of feet above their heads. Ryan turned back to Wilson. “That all depends if the cease fire lasts long enough for them to return.”

“The Confederacy is hurting just as much as we are. Maybe more, and with dozens of cities all around the world turned to radioactive ash, I don’t think anyone would be stupid enough to launch a second strike.”

Ryan sighed and shook his head. “If we were stupid enough to launch the first, we could be stupid enough to launch the second, and now that the genie is out of the bottle, it’s a lot easier to contemplate a nuclear strike than it was before.”

“Then we’ll need somewhere to go after the dust settles,” Wilson replied. “Wonderland sounds like a good fit to me.”

Ryan blinked twice before he remembered to smile and nod. For a moment he’d forgotten that Admiral Wilson didn’t know. The truth about Operation Alice had died with Lewis Station’s crew when their lifeboat was taken out by shrapnel. That was probably for the best. The fewer people who knew about Operation Alice, the better.

“We should go. We’re late for a meeting with the Joint Chiefs of Staff.”

“After you, Mr. President,” Wilson said, gesturing to the door.

*

“Cutting things a bit fine, aren’t you, Commander?” Alexander asked as he sat down in the chair facing his XO.

Korbin shook her head and covered a yawn with one hand. “You’re my last interview before we hit the tanks, sir.”

“Good. Why don’t you give me the rundown.”

“Lots of fear and uncertainty over the situation back on Earth. Most people aren’t buying the President’s reassurances. Not a lot of signs of aggression directed at the Alliance, but plenty against the Confederacy. There’s also early signs of depression in at least half of the crew.”

Alexander nodded. “What did you think of McAdams?”

“Sad, angry—guilty for not noticing the engine malfunction.”

“You told her?”

“Not in a way that would make her think we know it’s sabotage, but of course she knows that it’s something she should have spotted before we launched from Orbital One.”

Alexander nodded. She was becoming less and less likely as a suspect. He and Davorian had already looked over McAdams’ proposed updates to shipboard systems after she and her engineers finished their shift, and there was nothing amiss this time around.

“She gave me no reason to suspect she knew about the bad code.”

“Well, let’s hope it was plain oversight on her part and not collusion.”

Korbin nodded. “She’s young and inexperienced, particularly to be a ship’s chief engineer, so oversight makes sense.”

“All right, then who was responsible for the faulty code?”

“The engineers were all equally aghast when I interviewed them. One of them admitted to being in charge of that section of the code, but he’s adamant that it wasn’t his fault.”

“So all signs point to Williams.”

“I do think he was lying about his involvement.”

“But you can’t be sure.”

“No, not without a confession.”

“You’re a deception expert.”

“It’s an art not a science. But speaking of that art, there was one other thing I noticed. You know that all of the meetings in my office are recorded.”

Alexander nodded.

“When I was going back over the recordings to see if the surveillance system picked up on anything that I’d missed, I noticed that the ambassador’s interview was flagged with multiple counts of possible deception and masking.”

“You think he sabotaged the ship?”

“No… not exactly. We were talking about Wonderland and the ambassador’s role with the mission when the cameras flagged his deceptive behavior.” Korbin looked down at a holopad she was holding. “Behaviors flagged were looking to the right—lying and fabricating; scratching his nose while talking—same thing; excessive eye contact—dishonesty or honesty, depending—but given the previous two cues I’d guess the former—there were also plenty of tight-lipped smiles, clenched teeth, crossed arms, hesitation when answering questions… it all agrees. He’s hiding something about his role with the mission, Captain.”

Alexander snorted. “That covers a lot of ground. He’s the president’s direct representative, and a politician, so I’m sure he has plenty to hide. As for his reasons for being here, I never bought that line about first contact. If aliens built the wormhole we’re busy traveling through, we wouldn’t be the ones making first contact—they would.”

Commander Korbin tilted her head to one side and raised her eyebrows. “Aliens? That’s the official reason he’s here?”

“He didn’t tell you?”

Korbin shook her head.

“Then maybe that’s what he was hiding. Admiral Flores discussed the possibility with me on Orbital One before I came aboard. That’s supposedly why he’s here. To represent our government in case we run into any intelligent lifeforms on the other side of the wormhole.”

“Interesting. He said he was about to retire and he requested this assignment so that he could observe and document the trip.”

“And you believed that?”

“There’s a lot of people back on Earth who would have jumped at the chance to document this trip, but none of them have the necessary security clearance. It seemed plausible.”

Alexander snorted. “More plausible than aliens, anyway.”

“Do you want me to speak with the ambassador again?”

Alexander stroked his chin as he thought about it. “There’s no time. We have to be in the G-tanks in less than an hour. And besides, my guess is Max didn’t become plenipotentiary to the Alliance by spilling state secrets right and left. You’re not going to get anything out of him besides what he’s willing to share. We’ll keep an eye on him just in case, and you can schedule another meeting with him when we get to Wonderland. Meanwhile, he can’t get into much trouble while he’s sleeping in a G-tank.”

“Yes, sir.” Korbin checked her comm band. “We have fifteen minutes left. You ready for your interview?”

Alexander shrugged. “Do we have to?”

“You’re the captain of the ship. Our lives are all in your hands more than anyone else’s. You need to watch your mental health—especially now, with everything that’s happened.”

“What about you?”

“Me, sir?”

“You’ve spent the past day listening to everyone unburden themselves on you. By now you must be ready to explode.”

Korbin folded her hands on top of her holopad, fingers steepled and pointed toward him. “I’m trained to deal with the burden, Captain.”

“That’s defensive body language,” Alexander said, nodding to her hands. “You’re creating a barrier.”

Korbin looked down at her hands and then relaxed her posture. “Your point?”

“You’re not the only one who can read people, and I know that you’ve been worried sick about your kids.”

“Everyone’s worried about their loved ones, Captain.”

“But they all have someone to talk to—you. So who do you talk to?”

Korbin started to say something but then stopped herself, as if there was nothing she could say.

“Exactly,” Alexander said. “You can talk to me, you know.”

“All right, then let’s interview each other. We’ll take turns.”

Alexander nodded. “Fair enough.”

Those fifteen minutes went by quickly. By the end of the meeting Korbin was crying and Alexander ended up giving her a hug. “Come talk to me any time you need to, Sirena, and don’t give up hope. Your kids are in a first-rate government institution. Even assuming the worst, that school will have one of the best-equipped shelters in the city.”

Korbin nodded against his shoulder. “Thank you, Alex.”

“Don’t mention it,” he said, smiling as they withdrew. “Go clean yourself up and meet the rest of us on Blue Deck. Doc Crespin must be waiting for us by now.”

“You think it’s safe? Putting us in a coma for seventy days?”

“I don’t think any of this is safe, but what choice do we have?”

“It’s strange,” Korbin said, brushing a stray lock of brown hair behind one ear. “In all those interviews, no one talked about how dangerous this mission is, about how we might all die or never come back. We’re all too busy worrying about the people back home.”

Alexander nodded. “Maybe that’s a good thing. See you on Blue Deck, Commander.”

“See you there, Captain.”

 

Chapter 11

Alexander stood on level nine in a circular chamber, surrounded by all 57 of his surviving crew. Running around the edges of the room were numbered doors leading to the ship’s G-tanks. The tanks had been installed specially for Operation Alice. The crew already had experience with using them from their mission training, but back then they hadn’t known what the tanks were for.

Now Doctor Crespin settled the mystery for them by going over the basic functions of the tanks. The doctor explained that the fluid inside the tanks was set to carefully mimic the density and temperature of their bodies. Their lungs would be flooded with an oxygen-rich perfluorocarbon and breathing handled by a liquid ventilator. There were relief tubes for waste handling, and a nutrient line for food and water. Doctor Crespin compared it to being a baby in its mother’s womb, the relief tubes and nutrient line made up the umbilical cord, and the tanks were the wombs—which makes the crew a bunch of big babies.

Alexander smiled.

Someone asked how the tanks worked, and Crespin explained that any extreme forces they would be subjected to while traveling through the wormhole would be evenly distributed as a pressure gradient inside the tank. Crespin went into some technical details about how liquids aren’t compressible so the water would push back and prevent blood from pooling. It all sounded reasonable enough, and Doctor Crespin assured them it was quite safe and really no different than deep sea diving.

“What about muscle atrophy?” someone asked. Alexander turned to see that the question had come from Lieutenant Ryder of 61st Squadron. He had plenty of muscles to worry about atrophying.

“Hormone regulation and involuntary stimulation will help to maintain the majority of muscle tone and strength, but without active loading, some atrophy is to be expected. Don’t worry, the gym will still be waiting for you when you get out.” A few of the crew snickered at that. “Any other questions?”

“What if something happens to the ship while we’re in the tanks?” Max Carter asked. “No one is going to be awake to keep an eye on things?”

Doctor Crespin shook his head. “If anyone could safely avoid using the tanks, then all of us could.”

“But what if there’s an emergency?”

“Such as?”

“Anything. Engine failure.”

“Then we’re going to be locked in the tanks a lot longer than we thought. The system is only set to wake us when it’s safe, and that will be when we’re almost already through the wormhole.”

“How long can our life support last?”

“The tanks can keep us going for decades, so even in the worst case, we should still make it to Wonderland.”

Alexander frowned. Worst case being we all lose a few extra decades of our lives?