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“We can thank the Almighty our usual suspects didn’t try to light up the admiral with impertinent questions,” Chief Fast said as she sank into one of the chairs facing Jecks’ desk with a sigh of relief. Salmin and Sister Bree were already seated, having arrived a few minutes before the cox’n, who’d had a quick word with the divisional chiefs about Norum’s visit.
Jecks smiled. “He did mention our crew came across as the strong silent types compared to some he’d known in his time aboard starships. I think he suspects me of having ordered our people to stay quiet.”
“Just as well he pinned your new stripes on before his speech,” Fast said in a low growl. “But I’m happy with the visit and told the divisional chiefs so.”
“How about you, Yulia?”
“No complaints. Admiral Norum isn’t a high-maintenance CDS, so there’s that.”
“Sister?”
“The mood was positive and relaxed. I’d say our people are ready for the challenge.”
Jecks smiled at her. “Is that the Sister of the Void or the psychologist speaking?”
“A bit of both.”
“No doubt. I think it went well, so thank you for ensuring Serenity put her best foot forward. Now, we can turn our attention on high-tailing it out of here and into the unknown.”
“Not that we’ll reach the unknown for a while,” Salmin replied. “I assume we’re topping up antimatter fuel reservoirs in the Micarat system?”
“I was thinking Takeshi. That’ll give us more of a reserve once we leave the last outpost in that section of the network behind us. We’ll give Micarat a quick hello in passing. Rear Admiral Barca is one of my former skippers and an all-around good guy. He’ll welcome a brief chat and be saddened if I didn’t call.”
“Will you convene a captain’s conference in person before we sail?”
Jecks nodded. “As soon as Defiant joins us. I believe she’s due to lift off tomorrow after the admiral says his farewells.”
“Private supper in your quarters or a wardroom meal after?”
Jecks thought for a moment. “Let’s make it private. That way, the three wardroom presidents can discuss something for their members without us captains in the way.”
Salmin, the wardroom President because of her post as first officer, nodded. “Probably a good idea. I figure a get-together in one of the starbase wardroom’s private spaces will do. Cocktails and nibblies, a strictly informal getting-to-know-you.”
“Why do I think you already discussed this with Provider’s first officer?”
She gave him a friendly smirk.
“Because you know I’m always three steps ahead of the game, which is why you’ve kept me on as your number one.”
“All right. Anything else we should discuss right now, or can we go back to our regularly scheduled duties?” When none of them answered, Jecks said, “Thank you.”
***
“She looks almost brand new.” Commander Edith Leung looked around Serenity’s bridge with appreciative eyes as Jecks gave her and Petrov of Defiant a quick tour before heading to his day cabin, where they would discuss the proposed standard operating procedures and hash out anything else.
“The yard did a good cleaning job after digging out her worn innards. I’ll say that for them. But joking aside, she can still match the newest ship coming off the slipways even after almost fifteen years in space. That’s how well built she is. Yet she’s the last of the current Void Ship class. Once Gwenneth launches and sets the new standard in two years, Serenity’s generation will retire from service one after the other while you and I also retire, Edith. I daresay Yannick will enjoy what’s coming more than us.”
Leung snorted with derision. “I might retire, but if you don’t trip over your own toes during your tour at Navy HQ after this cruise, you’ll be wearing stars and bullying Yannick mercilessly.”
“Not even in my wildest dreams.” Jecks ushered them through the door connecting the bridge to his day cabin. “Yesterday was my last promotion ceremony, which is just as well. Once the Navy hands me retirement papers, I can move to an outpost and make myself useful helping the locals rejoin galactic civilization. Why don’t we sit around the table? Coffee, tea, or something else to sip on?”
Leung shook her head. “I’m already overdosing on caffeine. So long as you’re serving a decent wine with supper...”
“I am. How about you, Yannick?”
“I’m good too, sir.”
“Then let’s go over the proposed SOPs. As you might have noted, being smart naval persons, I adapted them from the standard task force protocols HQ likes its far-flung squadrons to use.”
Leung smirked. “The notion had crossed my mind, especially since we’ll be the furthest flung squadron in the entire fleet.”
“Comments?”
They worked their way through the SOPs over the course of two hours, during which Jecks formed his private opinion of Leung and Petrov’s thought processes. Both were, of course, highly competent. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be commanding starships. Most naval officers never earned that honor. But Jecks wasn’t under the illusion they, and he for that matter, were selected for this mission because they were the best of the best. No, Admiral Norum chose them because their ships were available, nothing more.
He knew Leung from way back and could remember her quirks as a midshipman and junior officer, but that was long ago. People changed as they came up the ranks. Most improved their positive traits and worked on the negative ones. Others let career aspirations get the better of them and turned into different people. So far, he could still recognize the quick-witted woman with an off-beat sense of humor he knew at the Academy. She was perfectly at ease with Jecks and Petrov and had no problems expressing her views, which were invariably insightful.
Petrov was an unknown quantity, however. Younger by a decade and the most junior in rank of the three captains, he was soft-spoken — when he spoke at all. Petrov let his seniors do most of the talking and debating. Jecks might have ascribed it to natural diffidence, but timid officers lacking self-confidence didn’t earn starship commands. No, Jecks figured the younger man was letting experienced captains take the lead while listening and absorbing as much of their hard-won knowledge as possible. Having met the sort who were overly self-confident, a few to the point of obnoxiousness, he was okay with Petrov not opening his mouth much.
Jecks glanced at the antique clock adorning the day cabin’s sole sideboard. It had been a gift from the crew of his first command, the corvette Prevail — third of its name — when he turned her over to his successor and took on the duties of commanding officer, Lyonesse Defense Force Basic Training School upon promotion to commander.
Besides the hours in ancient numerals he knew were referred to as Roman, the clock's face bore the stylized silhouette of an armored figure riding a four-legged beast of burden. He’d never investigated the clock’s provenance. Still, every time he held it in his hands and scrutinized every visible surface, he felt as if the precision instrument was ancient beyond anything he could imagine.
“How about we call it a day? I think we’re all on the same frequency and can test our procedures between here and Takeshi before heading into the Great Unknown. Or at least wormholes that haven’t been transited in over two centuries.”
“Considering my stomach is making insubordinate demands, and you’ve likely stocked up for the cruise, I’d say we repair to your quarters and sample your private provisions,” Leung said. She winked at Petrov. “Right, Yannick.”
The younger man allowed himself a slight grin. “No arguments here, sir.”
“So be it, but the meal will come from the ship’s galley. I don’t lay in special provisions since my logistics department head and Serenity’s chief cook are top-notch. Everyone here eats well.” Jecks grinned at Petrov. “You may wish to make a note of that.”
“No worries, sir. Defiant’s galley is the equal of any in the fleet. When I was a middie, one of the crusty old chiefs teaching basic told us a happy ship was a well-fed ship, and that stuck with me.”
“Good, because once we reach the limit of our survey trace, we’ll be on reconstituted rations until we dock at a Lyonesse starbase again. And it takes skill to make those taste like fresh.”
Petrov’s smile broadened. “Been there, ate that, sir. A corvette can patrol farther than its fresh food lasts on account of the antimatter fuel to stasis cargo ratio the naval architects somehow buggered up.”
A comical grimace twisted Jecks’ face. “Oh, don’t I know it. I had Prevail longer ago than I care to remember. We ate many a reconstituted meal.”
***
“Starbase Lyonesse Traffic Control, this is the Void Ship Serenity. Commander Task Force One-Oh-One speaking.”
“Traffic Control here. Good morning, sir,” a mellifluous female voice replied.
“Good morning. Task Force One-Oh-One will depart as per the sailing schedule, with Defiant undocking and breaking out of orbit first, followed by Serenity and then Provider. We will assume a course directly for the hyperlimit and jump to the wormhole terminus in synchro.”
“Yes, sir. That schedule is on the board. You are priority one for undocking and departure over a thirty-minute window beginning in five minutes and can proceed at your command.”
Jecks, seated in the bridge command chair, leaned back, smiling.
“Task Force One-Oh-One understands we are priority one beginning in five minutes and for the thirty minutes after that. Defiant will commence undocking procedures in five minutes.”
Almost immediately, Petrov’s voice sounded over the bridge speakers.
“Defiant acknowledges and has initiated countdown to undocking procedures.”
“Traffic Control understands Defiant has started the countdown to undocking procedures as number one on the departure schedule. From all of us in Starbase Lyonesse, Godspeed and good luck. We look forward to your safe return.”
“Thank you,” Jecks replied. “Task Force One-Oh-One, out.”
He knew every spare video pickup on the orbital station would transmit his ships’ departure for the benefit of Defense Force HQ on the surface and probably President Hecht’s office. They likely even listened in on his brief exchange with traffic control just now.
Which gave him an idea.
“Signals, can you patch us into the base’s open video feed? I wouldn’t mind seeing what we look like from a spectator’s point of view. They must have a composite stream for HQ going. See if you can find it and hook in.”
“Consider it done, sir,” the communications petty officer of the watch said.
The primary display lit up with four separate feeds just in time to see Defiant’s docking tube retract. Then, the large clamps holding her to the docking arm opened, and she began moving sideways under the pressure of tractor beams pushing her away to a safe distance. Though half Serenity’s size, the corvette still looked magnificent as she lit her thrusters and gracefully arced away from the station and Lyonesse. When her bow steadied on the planned course, Defiant’s sublight drives lit up, and she began accelerating toward the hyperlimit.
Jecks had chosen to observe the officer of the watch go through the undocking and departure evolutions rather than do it himself. He’d made it his policy long ago that the lieutenants and sub-lieutenants in Serenity would get all the practice they could overseeing maneuvers, both simple and complex. Instead, he focused on the video feed showing his ship as she left Starbase Lyonesse’s embrace, turned her bow toward deep space, and fired her sublight engines.
By the time Provider followed suit, the spectacle seemed almost anti-climatic, though the replenishment ship’s departure was as slick as Defiant’s. He half expected one last farewell from HQ, perhaps Admiral Norum himself, but the radio remained stubbornly silent. They were off and likely wouldn’t speak with Lyonesse again until they reached the first subspace relay on the return voyage. For some reason, he felt a sudden but mercifully brief pang of homesickness before the excitement of one last adventure aboard a Void Ship seized his imagination again. It left him with nothing more than keen anticipation at seeing what was out there.
***
“Would I be right in guessing you’d rather be aboard Serenity right now than here with me?”
President Aurelia Hecht turned her head and gave Admiral Farrin Norum a knowing smile. Both had been watching the broadcast from Starbase Lyonesse on the presidential office’s wall-sized primary display from the comfortable settee group around a low, marble coffee table.
“I’d take the most junior bosun’s mate billet to be heading out in her.” He glanced back at Hecht. “As would you.”
“True. There’s an atavistic urge to head into the unknown imprinted on our species’ genetic code. It’s how we created an interstellar empire with countless inhabited star systems after decoding most of our home world’s secrets.”
“And lost it in an orgy of killing unmatched in our history.” Norum let out a soft sigh. “Still, I’d rather be out there with Task Force One-Oh-One discovering what little is left than here.”
“Ditto. But our time in deep space has passed. To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven.”
Norum let out a soft grunt as his eyes tracked Serenity’s departure arc.
“Ecclesiastes was always my favorite chapter in the Almighty’s Book. If only for the wisdom hidden in its verses.” He paused, as if to gather his thoughts, then resumed in a solemn tone, “Or ever the silver cord be loosed, or the golden bowl be broken, or the pitcher be broken at the fountain, or the wheel broken at the cistern. Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it. Vanity of vanities, saith the preacher; all is vanity.”
“I never took you for that deep a religious thinker.”
Norum gave her a crooked smile.
“Something about us returning to Earth now, at this point in human history, rekindled my appreciation for beliefs ancient even before our forebears reached for the stars.
“All go unto one place; all are of the dust, and all turn to dust again,” Hecht quoted in a soft voice. “Don’t ask me where that came from. It simply did.”
“I see I’m not the only one whose imagination was captured by words recorded when no one could even conceive of humanity leaving Earth.” He chuckled softly. “Though perhaps right now, I can better understand the impulse that led us — citizens, government, Order of the Void, and Navy — to send Al Jecks and his crews back to the cradle of humanity.”
Hecht gave Norum a strange look. “Let’s hope the vanity that birthed this impulse to rediscover Earth will not doom their souls.”
“And now I definitely don’t want to ask where that came from.”
