Excelsior (4 page)

Chapter 2

Alexander rode the elevator down through Orbital One to the end of the station’s space-facing docking arm on Deck One. As the elevator raced down, he hurried to put on one of the emergency combat suits stored inside the elevator. He skipped the helmet, since a more sophisticated version would be waiting for him on the bridge of the Lincoln. When the elevator stopped, the floor opened up, revealing a ladder leading down into his ship’s airlock. Inside that airlock was another elevator that ran all the way down the central shaft of the W.A.S. Lincoln from the forward airlock to the engines in order to allow rapid transfer of crew between decks.

Alexander climbed down the ladder into the Lincoln’s elevator and selected the glowing white button labeled ‘Bridge (10)’ from the color-coded control panel. The airlock cycled shut overhead, and the elevator raced down. When it opened again, he walked out onto the bridge just as normally as if the Lincoln were sitting on Earth with her engines on the ground and her bow facing the sky. The reverse was actually true.

Despite the artificial gravity, Alexander’s perspective changed as soon as he walked onto the bridge. Dead ahead, the bridge control stations were mounted at varying heights along the far wall, all of them facing the ceiling. Ladders crawled up the wall, allowing the crew to access their control stations while the ship was simulating normal gravity.

The ship’s acceleration couches all faced the bow, while the backs of the couches faced the engines, so that any excess g-forces generated by active thrust would pin the crew against their couches.

“Sensors, report!” Alexander called out as he stopped in front of the captain’s and executive officer’s couches. He took a moment to still his racing heart, leaning on his couch as he did so. His station was located in the rearmost position, so there was no need for him to climb up a ladder to get there. The perks of being the Captain.

“Sensors show forty-seven Confederate warships leaving orbit, sir!” Lieutenant Williams reported from the sensors station. “Their trajectory lines up with our own mission destination.”

Alexander grabbed the rails along the front of his couch’s armrests to lower himself into his seat. He let go of the rails and dropped the last few centimeters into his chair, provoking a whuff of air escaping from the cushion. His XO, Commander Korbin, was already seated beside him. He nodded to her and she flashed a thin, tight-lipped smile.

Now he felt like he was lying down on the floor, gazing up at the ceiling, but the bridge’s layout managed to convince him that he was actually sitting on the floor at zero-g inside a ship that was being accelerated at just over one G through space.

Alexander shook his head to clear away his growing disorientation and fumbled with the buckles of his safety harness. Relief tubes snaked out from his couch and attached themselves to the front and back of his suit. Both tubes would transmit waste away from his body as needed without him ever having to get up. Food and hydration were handled by a nutrient line, which he had to manually attach to the catheter implanted in his left wrist. Combat could last a long time in space, and the need to maneuver could be unpredictable, so crew had to be able to remain seated and strapped in for extended periods of time.

Reaching up, Alexander found the helmet strapped on top of the headrest of his couch. He pulled it down and slipped it over his head. A moment later there came a hiss as the helmet formed an airtight seal with the collar of his combat suit. Alexander heard his breathing reverberate inside the helmet. The pace was too fast.

I’m anxious, he thought, trying to control his breathing. Slow, deep breaths. Being a soldier was one thing. Going to war was another.

A heads-up display flickered to life, projected on the inside of his visor in bright blues and greens. Alexander began making mental selections from the HUD in order to check the Lincoln’s readiness. Mental interaction with the HUD was the ship’s primary control interface, but there were also secondary, hands-on controls located in the armrests of each crewman’s couch.

Commander Korbin quieted the ship’s general quarters siren and killed the flashing red lights, bringing everything back to a calm, crisp whiteness. That bit of normalcy was deceptive, but necessary to keep the crew’s frayed nerves in check.

Dead ahead, the ship’s three main forward viewports glowed to life, relaying the view from the Lincoln’s bow cameras. Right now all they could see was a close-up of the dark, solar-energy-collecting underside of Orbital One.

“Captain! Admiral Flores is requesting to speak with you!” Lieutenant Hayes reported from the comm station.

“Put her through. Full screen.”

All three of the ship’s main holo displays faded from a black canvas of stars to a larger-than-life visual of the admiral herself. She appeared dead center of the main holo display, taking up almost the entire thing while the mad bustle of activity going on around her inside the command center of Orbital One appeared on the left and right holo displays.

“Your orders have changed, Captain.” The fire glinting in the admiral’s green eyes and the tightness of her cheeks spoke volumes. This could be it—the thawing out of a century-long cold war. “You are to act as a comm relay to help us communicate with the Confederate Fleet while we try to dissuade them from their current flight path. Meanwhile, you will fly with all possible speed direct to Lewis Station and prepare to hold off Confederate forces if it comes to that. The Third Fleet will meet you there as soon as they can.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Updated nav data is being downloaded to the Lincoln now. Please confirm.”

“Confirmed, Captain!” Lieutenant Davorian replied from the helm at the foremost/uppermost control station.

Alexander nodded. “We’re ready to go, Admiral.”

“Good luck, Captain. You are at T-minus ten minutes to launch. Flores out.”

The admiral’s face disappeared, and back was the underside of Orbital One. “Helm! Set the clock and alert the crew! T-minus ten.”

“Aye-aye, Captain!” Davorian replied.

A green launch timer appeared at the top of the ship’s main holo display, counting down from ten minutes.

Alexander turned to his XO. “Commander Korbin—” She turned to him, her pale blue eyes wide and unfocused. He frowned and snapped his fingers. “Wake up, Commander!”

Korbin shook herself, as if waking from a dream—More like a nightmare, he thought—and then she said, “Yes, sir!”

“Double-check everyone’s launch checklists. We can’t afford to have any mistakes.”

“Aye, sir,” Korbin said, already consulting her holo displays.

“Lieutenant Stone!” Alexander called out, keeping half an eye on the launch timer as he turned to the Lincoln’s starfighter and drone command station. “What’s the status of 61st Squadron?”

“They’re getting suited up, sir.”

“Tell them to pick up the pace! I don’t want anyone plastered to the bulkheads when we fire up the mains.”

“Yes, sir. They’ve drilled for this. Five minutes to suit, four more to hit their cockpits and strap in. That leaves one for margin of error.”

“I’m going to trust you on that, Stone.”

Due to comm latency (speed-of-light restricted), manned fighters still had their place. At a distance of just three hundred thousand klicks, a remote pilot would be reacting a full two seconds after everything had already happened (one second for information to reach the pilot, and another for him to send commands back to his remote vehicle). To get around that, manned fighters followed drones into combat and commanded them from behind.

“Gunnery! Engineering! What’s our status?”

“All gunners standing by, weapons hot,” Lieutenant Cardinal replied from the gunnery station.

“Good. Engineering?”

“All systems green, sir,” Junior Lieutenant McAdams replied.

“T-minus five!” Lieutenant Hayes called out from the comms.

Alexander nodded. “Safety harness check!”

Everyone tugged on their buckles and tightened their belts. Alexander pulled his own straps taut. When they reached T-minus zero, the Lincoln would detach from Orbital One, rotate to put her engines where her nose used to be, and then ignite her main thrusters and rocket away at a regulation three and a half Gs.

Alexander looked up at the main holo display, his eyes idly tracing constellations while he waited for the launch timer to run down. As the minutes slipped by, his thoughts turned to his wife. He hoped things would calm down and that she wouldn’t be affected by this latest power struggle. If open war broke out and something happened to her…

“61st Squadron is strapped in and waiting, Captain!” Stone reported from starfighter command.

Alexander noted the launch timer was down to fifteen seconds. That was close. “Good. Let’s hope they were the last ones. McAdams, crew safety check!”

“All hands securely strapped in and waiting for launch.”

“T-minus ten seconds!” Davorian called out from the helm. “Nine, eight… three, two, one, zero! Docking clamps detached!”

Suddenly Alexander was weightless and watching Orbital One drift away. It was an opaque black disc with weapon emplacements sprouting like barnacles from its outer hull. Within seconds Earth silhouetted the station with a dazzling white and blue halo.

The rest of the Alliance armada was nowhere to be seen, but Alexander knew they would still be at GEO and much too far away to see without magnification.

“Brace for maneuvering thrust,” Davorian reported from the helm.

Alexander felt the ship turn. His view panned away from Orbital One and Earth to face the vast starry darkness of outer space. G-force was minimal since the bridge was located at the Lincoln’s rotational center.

“Helm, what’s our ETA to reach Lewis Station?”

“Just under a week, Captain,” Davorian replied.

“And the Confederates?”

“They’ll be about six hours behind us, assuming regulation rates of acceleration and deceleration.”

“We may have to push past regulation limits on this one. Our orders are to beat the Confederates to Lewis Station.”

“Yes, sir… I don’t have Lewis Station marked on my star maps,” Davorian said.

“It’s at our final mission waypoint, and you can’t see it because the very existence of that station is classified. Head for the waypoint. You’ll find Lewis Station when we get close enough.”

“Yes, sir… thrusters going hot in five, four, three, two, one!”

Alexander braced himself. Then came a deafening roar, and the Lincoln shuddered all around them. A gut-wrenching boost shoved them against their couches, and the Lincoln shot away from Orbital One. Acceleration rose swiftly, pressing Alexander against the back of his couch with terrifying force. His cheeks threatened to peel back from his face, and he had to force himself to breathe. The combat suit helped to keep him breathing and to make sure blood didn’t pool where it shouldn’t, but it wasn’t nearly enough. Alexander felt like he weighed a thousand pounds. He clutched the armrests of his couch, knuckles turning white, elbows pinned to the padded backing. His heart labored in his chest. His vision dimmed and narrowed.

A blackout was coming.

Then, suddenly, the acceleration eased, and he gasped collectively with the crew. “Davorian! What the hell was that?” Alexander demanded, his voice hoarse from the strain of so many Gs. “That couldn’t have been regulation thrust.”

“Sorry, sir… That was 20 Gs. I don’t know what happened. We had a malfunction with the thruster controls, but I’m using the computer to compensate. Acceleration is set to a steady three point five Gs now, but we’ll be backing off to two in a moment.”

“McAdams, what caused that malfunction, and why didn’t you see it? Another few Gs and we’d all be unconscious right now.”

“I don’t know, sir…” McAdams replied. “I’m looking into it.”

Alexander grunted. Rookie.

“Time to reach cruising speed?”

“One hour fifty eight minutes,” Davorian replied. “Speed set to one hundred and sixty klicks per second.”

Alexander tried to nod, but he found his head was still pinned to his headrest. Likewise, his chest still felt heavy and his heartbeat was irregular. He struggled to imagine spending the next two hours like that. His stomach rolled just thinking about it.

“Acceleration dropping to two Gs,” Davorian reported.

Alexander felt the weight on his chest ease, and he took a deep breath. Now he weighed about 300 pounds.

“Sir!” Hayes called out from the comm station. “Admiral Flores is ordering us to relay her transmission to the Confederates.”

“Are we cleared to watch?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Put them on the secondary holo displays then, Hayes.”

The ship’s right and left holo displays faded from space to their respective video transmissions. Admiral Flores appeared on the right. Behind her, Alexander once again recognized the hectic bustle of Orbital One’s command center.

On the left, an unfamiliar man appeared. He was strapped into an acceleration couch. Above the holo display a bar of text identified him as Admiral Chiangul. He looked to be of Chinese descent, but there was no way of knowing with Confederates, who were all geners from birth. Chiangul’s tangerine eyes were a dead giveaway that he was not natural-born.