HAWKING STATION
Domain Day 80, 2218
"You are always here.”
The voice seemed to come from inside Aiden Macallan’s head, but the words were not his own. The hair on his neck prickled and a reflexive shudder jolted up his spine. He took a deep breath to calm himself before realizing the voice had come from behind him. Turning from the observation window, he found Roseph Hand standing at the entrance of the dimly lit observation suite, his tall silhouette backlit by the outer corridor lighting. Ro held two mugs of steaming coffee, one in each hand. The rich aroma of ground beans freshly brewed filled the quiet chamber. As Ro stepped forward, faint starlight from the observation window brought into focus the mischievous smile on his face.
Aiden cocked his head and asked, “What did you say?”
“I said, ‘You are always here.’ That’s how I know where to find you, especially when you disconnect from the station’s comm-net.” Ro glanced at the deactivated p-comm on Aiden’s wrist, then shrugged. “You are always here, Aiden. In the observation bubble.”
Aiden leaned his back against the window and crossed his arms, feigning annoyance. “A bit of an exaggeration, don’t you think? I am not always here. Is one of those cups for me?”
“No. I’m drinking both.” Ro Hand, master of the straight face.
Aiden smiled and extended his hand. “Give.”
Had anyone else on Hawking Station other than Ro interrupted his contemplation, Aiden’s annoyance would not have been feigned. As it was, his mood lightened with the unexpected entrance of his closest friend. Since his return from Silvanus, Aiden’s moments of stillness had too often turned to melancholy, a deep blue current of loss he hadn’t been able to rise above since his departure from that extraordinary world.
Ro approached, his movements smooth, catlike, and handed the mug over. He stood next to Aiden but faced the observation window, staring out at the blackness of space, relaxed, quietly sipping his coffee. Aiden turned back to the window as well. “Okay, wise guy. How did you know I would be in this particular observation suite? There’re four of them here on the station.”
Ro stayed silent for a while, then, without moving his gaze from the stars, said, “Right now, it’s the only one on Hawking Station facing in the direction of the Chara system. And Silvanus.”
And in the direction of Skye Landen, who was currently stationed there, over 27 light-years away, heading up the Silvanus Project. Doctor Skye Landen, Aiden’s mate, his other half. He missed her now more than he could admit, even to Ro.
But Ro knew already. He squinted and pointed to a spot outside the window. “That star right there. Chara. In the constellation Canes Venatici. It’s always in your window, Aiden. Right along with your planet, Silvanus.”
Ro was playing him again, trying to lighten him up. Aiden shook his head slowly, playing along. “Sure, I can see Chara from here, if I wanted to. But Silvanus? Totally invisible.”
“Absolutely right. Totally invisible . . . to anyone who’s never been there.” As usual, it was impossible to decipher precise connotations in many of Ro Hand’s pronouncements.
Aiden glanced at Ro’s serene profile—at the Canadian’s square jaw, clean-shaven, and his close-cropped sandy hair—and heard the rest of what his friend left unspoken: invisible to anyone except the only person alive to have experienced a soul-altering neurolinkage with an entire living planet.
Ro always had his number. Was that a comforting thought or a disturbing one? Aiden had never decided for sure. “So, why were you looking for me?”
Like flipping a switch, Ro was all business. He looked directly at Aiden for the first time since entering the room, his pale blue eyes unblinking, intelligent, unreadable. “Your mission briefing has been moved up, Commander. Vice Admiral Stegman just got in from Luna aboard the Argo, and he wants to get down to it now. Sounds like some serious business.”
It had been over 10 months since Aiden was promoted and given command of the Sun Wolf, the Science and Survey Division’s new flagship, and being addressed as “Commander” almost sounded natural now. Almost.
He warmed his hands around the mug of coffee, realizing how chilled he’d become in the darkened observation bubble. “And Stegman enlisted you to track me down?”
Ro nodded. “Correct. And he wants me to join the briefing.”
Aiden smiled. “Good. I was hoping you’d be included. Maybe now we’ll find out what the Sun Wolf’s first real mission is all about.”
After one last shakedown cruise out in the vicinity of Jupiter, Aiden and his new crew—including his acting Science Officer, Roseph Hand—had retuned the Sun Wolf to Hawking Station for the ship’s final fitting and to “await further orders.” That was 10 days ago. For Aiden, whose natural response to idle time was dark introspection, 10 days of waiting was far too long.
He took his first sip of coffee, tasting the subtle harmony of organic bitterness played against floral sweetness. “Hmm. Tasty. African?”
“Ethiopian.”
Aiden wanted to ask Ro how he’d scored such an exotic commodity, just to see how artfully elliptical the answer would be, but said nothing and returned his attention to the star-studded blackness outside. Hawking Station’s slow spin had brought Earth’s luminous orb into view. The oceans of humankind’s home planet shone dull blue, filtered through a persistent global haze. Its land masses still looked faded brown and scarred, the devastating, long-term effects of the Die Back. He knew enough about himself now, after Silvanus, to recognize how his recurrent melancholies were fed by contrasts. Like the contrast between the world he could see very well from here but whose life he could not feel inside, and the other world he could not see but that lived inside him. Silvanus, forever blossoming. A contrast between the dying world where he’d been born and the vibrantly living one where he’d been reborn.
Aiden sensed the other man reading his thoughts. Ro pointed to the globe of Earth moving slowly across the upper half of the observation window and said, “Have you checked out the South American subcontinent lately?” He spoke as if they were standing together in an art museum, musing over some subtle nuance of a painter’s brushstroke. “Look closely around where Old Brazil used to be. See those little green smudges? Areas of hyperaccelerated reforestation in the Amazon Basin. All because of that crazy fungus you brought back from Silvanus. The mystery mycorrhizae. Amazing, eh?”
Aiden nodded but did not look where Ro pointed. Of course, he had heard all about it, how the fungal samples he’d brought back from Silvanus, living pieces of the Rete’s own body, had been applied to the nascent reforestation projects on Earth with startling results in remarkably little time. And he’d heard more than enough about how he, Aiden Macallan, was the hero of the story, a savior even, for bringing to Earth the gift of renewed life. A gift given to him by the Rete.
When he finally did look up, he saw only his own reflection in the observation window lit by Earth’s shining orb. He saw a pale, lean figure and a face dominated by dark eyes that burned a little too intensely and underlined by faint semicircles, remnants of his past struggles to kick the Continuum habit. The effect would have added years to his face had it not been for the mane of black hair, overly long by spacer’s standards, hanging lank to his shoulders. Its length had once been useful in obscuring the letter T laser branded on his neck, just as the dark beard, also unconventional but now closely trimmed, had once hidden the long scar below his right cheekbone. Both marks had been painful souvenirs of his nightmare incarceration at Hades nearly two decades ago. Both marks had been erased by the Rete on Silvanus, but they were gone from the surface only.
Aiden spoke to Ro’s reflection in the window. “I get it, Ro. You can back off now.”
Ro’s pale eyes softened, but he said nothing. Aiden took a deep breath and straightened his back. “So, what’s the new start time for this briefing?”
Ro made a show of looking at his chronometer. “At 20:00.”
Alarmed, Aiden looked at his own chrono. “That was 10 minutes ago!”
Ro smiled again in silence.
“What the hell! Why didn’t you say . . .?” But he knew the answer before finishing the question. Ro had his own priorities, mostly obscure but always for a greater good.
Not bothering to wait for a response he knew wasn’t coming, Aiden clapped Ro on the shoulder and said, “Well, great gods, man. Let’s get going.”
They set their coffee mugs on a nearby service tray and headed for the door.
“There’s something else you might want to know before this meeting,” Ro said. “I got this straight from Stegman. He’s received word from Dr. Maryam Ebadi. The Sun Wolf’s first stop from here will be to pick her up at Luna.”
“Maryam Ebadi. Elgin Woo’s codirector of the Cauldron.”
“That would be her, now the acting director in Dr. Woo’s absence.”
Aiden paused at the corridor entrance, his interest piqued. Dr. Ebadi and Elgin Woo were close associates at the Cauldron, both specializing in zero-point energy and quantum gravity theory. He looked at Ro. “If anyone in the System has a clue to Elgin’s whereabouts, it would be Maryam Ebadi.”
No one had heard from Elgin Woo in the 10 months since his brash attempt to voidjump beyond Bound Space, from the Chara system toward a certain star 127 light-years from Sol. Aiden feared the worst, but less so than most others familiar with the circumstances.
Ro nodded. “I’m guessing she’ll also have information extracted from the top-secret cryptochip Woo gave you to deliver before his vanishing act. Dr. Ebadi was his intended recipient, right?”
“Yes, she was.” As requested, Aiden had hand-delivered Woo’s cryptochip to Ebadi the day after his return from the Chara system. “Let’s get going, Ro.”
They strode out of the observation bubble into Corridor A3 to find the quickest way to the station’s conference suite. Hawking Station operated under the jurisdiction of the UED, United Earth Domain, and was the largest combined docking and construction shipyard in all of Bound Space. It was located at the Earth-Moon Lagrange point L5, a stable position about 384,400 kilometers from Earth. Composed of four massive U-shaped structures joined at their apexes, their open arms facing outward, Hawking Station offered external docking for spacefaring vessels of every known size and configuration. This was where virtually all Domain voidships were constructed, repaired, or refitted. Hawking also provided internal docking facilities for freighters, personnel transport vessels, and military fighters assigned to enforce station security.
Perpendicular to the docking arms, the station’s central hub supported a huge, city-sized cylindrical assembly that housed smelters, fabrication factories, hydroponic farms, personnel habitats and research facilities, and was topped by an armored control/command pod. The station’s powerful gravity transducers conferred a steady 1 G to all habitable sections, allowing its designers to depart from the cumbersome rotating-ring structures of the past. The slow spin of the central cylinder was maintained now only to enhance the viewing enjoyment of its inhabitants.
Aiden and Ro decide to take a short cut and caught a freight elevator that tracked down the station’s outer hull. Noisy, hot, and smelling of oil and raw metal, the lift was not intended for personnel movement, but it was the fastest way down to Level 7 where the conference rooms were located. Aiden had to yell to be heard over the clanging of the track rollers.
“Ro,” he shouted over the racket. “Now that Stegman brought the Argo back with him, I expect you’ll want to take command of her as soon as possible.”
It was more a loaded question than a simple statement, and they both knew it. After the smoke cleared from the Chara crisis, Ro had been awarded command of the survey vessel SS Argo at the same time as Aiden’s promotion to command the Sun Wolf. They had served together as crewmates on the Argo under Ben Stegman’s command, leading up to the discovery of Silvanus. After Stegman had been promoted to vice admiral and given leadership of the Service’s new Science and Survey Division, the Argo was left without a captain. Aiden had been the expected choice for the position, but he’d been moved up to command the Sun Wolf, and Roseph Hand got command of the Argo.
But the Argo had remained in the Chara system, tasked with overseeing the foundation of the Silvanus Project, leaving Ro in limbo awaiting Argo’s return. Aiden had seized upon Ro’s idle time to sign him on as temporary Science Officer aboard the Sun Wolf for its shakedown cruises. During that time, Aiden kept up his campaign to persuade Ro into postponing his command of the Argo to sign on as Executive Officer of the Sun Wolf.
Aiden had a strong argument for it too. Things would be a lot more interesting on the SSD’s newest flagship, especially under what many in the Service considered the hot-shot rookie command of Aiden Macallan. The lure was set even deeper when, just before his audacious jump into the unknown, Elgin Woo had reaffirmed his offer to have the Cauldron’s zero-point drive installed aboard the Sun Wolf. If that happened, things would be a lot more interesting aboard the Sun Wolf than any other ship in the System. Aiden believed it would be the final factor in swaying Ro to ship with him as XO. But now, in Woo’s absence, the zero-point drive proposal remained on hold, and Ro continued to put off his decision.
It was no different now. In response to Aiden’s question, Ro nodded thoughtfully and remained silent. Aiden shrugged it off. Impatience was the wrong approach with Ro.
As the elevator continued tracking downward, its full-length viewport afforded them a vista of the station’s docking arms below and the surrounding star-studded blackness of space. Luna’s iridescent orb had just slipped past the left margin of the viewport when, halfway down the track, Dock Arm 2 came into view. The Sun Wolf sat there, poised for flight.
Even after his many months aboard the Sun Wolf, Aiden’s initial wonderment over her elegantly powerful design had not abated in the least. He and Ro stopped for a moment and gazed at her in silence. Ro was the first to speak. He nodded in the ship’s direction and said, “Nice ride.”
Aiden grinned back at him. “No shit.”
The Sun Wolf was similar in size to Science and Survey vessels like the Argo and smaller than a Military Division’s standard battle cruiser. But functionally it was designed to operate equally well as both. At 210 meters in length and 26 meters at its widest cross section, it was constructed with super-light, super-strong materials, weighing in at 8.7 kilotons. Its sleek design presented a less aggressive appearance than a battle cruiser. But looks could be deceiving; it was equipped with the most up-to-date weapons systems, artfully concealed, and its shielding capabilities were superior to those of most military ships.
Lacking the ungainly central ring structure of survey vessels, its slender fuselage had a slightly hexagonal cross-section and tapered forward to a narrow point. The design had nothing to do with aerodynamics and everything to do with battle defense, offering minimal targeting profiles and only beam-deflecting angles. The aft section bulged with a protective cowling that encircled the beamed core matter/antimatter engines. And unlike in popular sci-fi dramas, its command bridge was buried deep inside, heavily shielded against both enemy weaponry and the intense gamma radiation yield of its beefed-up propulsion system.
Matter/antimatter engines—M/AM for short—had been around for a long time, but in the beginning they were fuel-hungry systems, and early technologies for producing and storing antimatter had limited their power. All that changed with the advent of the Bickford Process for harvesting large quantities of antihydrogen from the magnetospheres of Jupiter and Saturn. That, along with vast improvements in Penning trap technology for antimatter containment, allowed the development of immensely powerful beamed core M/AM drives. They utilized antiproton annihilation to directly generate thrust after deflection by electromagnetic nozzles, making them ideal powerhouses for a torch ship. The newest and most powerful generation of the drive had just been perfected and the Sun Wolf had four of them. Mounted astern on stout heat-radiating blades inside the cowling, only their magnetic nozzles protruded beyond to protect the ship’s superstructure from their star-hot exhaust plumes.
As the elevator shook and groaned to a halt at Level 7, Aiden glanced at Ro for a long moment, wondering if the Sun Wolf’s impressive visage would finally have a positive effect on his friend’s decision to sign on. The heavy metal doors slid open with the invisible question mark still hanging in the air between them. The two men emerged into the relative quietness of the circular lobby at the hub of the conference suites. Now that Aiden could lower his voice to conversational levels, he stopped in front of Ro and faced him.
“Look, you know I want you as my Executive Officer on the Sun Wolf. Once this briefing is over and the mission gets launched, things are going to move fast. I’ll need to complete my crew roster and XO is the last position up in the air. You’ve got to make a decision.”
Without hesitation, or a hint of annoyance, Ro said what he always said when the issue came up. “We’ll see.”
Aiden nodded as he started toward the door marked Conference Room Four. Without looking back, he said, “Right. And I think we are about to see.”
