Starship Eternal (War Eternal Book 1) (15 page)

A starship. An honest to god, made in the U.S.A starship.
 

And she was one of the pilots.

It was a dream she had known since she was able to recall dreaming about anything. A path she had been so sure of since the day that XENO-1 had plummeted from the sky. A future that had been so clear, so straight, that in the back of her mind she had somehow always known that this day would come. Somehow.

There were thousands of people lining the viewing area out on the plains, the dignitaries from nearly every nation in the world getting the front row seat to the event. The ship had been built here on the New Mexico flats, but the workers had arrived from dozens of countries to add their own skill and expertise to the design and construction. It truly was the work of an allied world, one that had overcome so many of the past squabbles over the last few years in exchange for a piece of this history.

And she was going up in it.

"One more."

The cameras didn't flash. Not in this light. There were so many of them.

A roar of engines, and a squadron of F-70s split the sky, trailing colored smoke as they cut overhead and away. Kathy looked up at them, watching them until they vanished into the skyline.

"Major Asher," Bonnie said. "Smile."

Kathy put her eyes straight again and smiled. Bonnie was the ship's navigator, an Irish woman with a round face and a great singing voice. The ship's computer would be handling the course for this test run, but she still needed to be there - just in case.

One hour to liftoff. She'd survived the two years of training, the black tie gala two nights ago, and a dozen speeches from a dozen heads of state today. Now she just wanted to get on board the Dove, to get up there and out among the stars. She wanted to get on with her mission, a mission that was more important than any of them may have realized.

"Time to go," Rear Admiral Yousefi said. He was the CO of this mission, and of the Dove - a position that had been more highly sought after than any that had ever come before. That he was a former member of the Federation, a former enemy, had been forgotten over the last few years. They were all in this together, now, regardless of country or branch of the military.

"Yes, sir," Kathy said, along with the others. They broke their photo formation and lined up behind him, facing the Dove, more affectionately known to them, and the media, as Goliath. The whole thing had been orchestrated ahead of time, every detail given the suitable pomp. A live band started playing over nearby loudspeakers, and the crowd began to cheer.
 

They weren't going to walk the kilometer to the ship. Instead, they walked a few hundred meters to a waiting transport, itself a sample of their newfound technology. It floated a few inches from the ground, the repulsers keeping it steady, the engine nearly silent. A platform telescoped out from the rear, allowing them to climb up onto it, remaining in the open air so that the bystanders could see them.

"I feel like a sheep in the summer," Bonnie said.

The transport accelerated steadily, lifting further into the air, six feet or more to show that it could. The repulser technology was almost as impressive as the FTL engines that had been reverse-engineered from what the scientists had discovered on XENO-1. She didn't understand much of the math, but she knew it had something to do with harnessing dark matter to fight the pull of gravity.

The crowd cheered louder. The transport moved steadily towards the Goliath, which rose higher and higher above them until it blocked the sun behind it. Kathy had been in it over a hundred times already, and even now she gasped at the sheer immensity of the ship, her mind boggled by the impressiveness of humanity's undertaking. That they had been able to work together to build such a thing was unbelievable.

Soon enough, there was nothing to see but the cold alloy sides of the ship. A hatch opened in front of them, leading into what was intended as a hanger. Assuming the FTL engine tests were successful, they would stock the ship with smaller ships that could spread out and search for E-type planets, other signs of life, or other valuable resources before returning to the Goliath. Their primitive application of the alien technology wasn't the only reason the ship was so large.

For now, the hanger was empty, except for the transport. It landed smoothly and they disembarked, heading out a side hatch and moving down an open corridor.
 

"Welcome home," Yousefi said.
 

Even after the FTL test, they were to be the first crew of the Dove, and would spend two years aboard her. Thankfully, however the engines worked they didn't affect relativity the way Einstein had predicted. Time in what they had decided to call hyperspace, in honor of the science fiction that had coined it, passed the same as time on Earth. They called the travel faster-than-light, but it wasn't technically accurate. Kathy didn't understand exactly how it worked, and she didn't really need to. FTL was good enough to describe that they were traveling maximal space in minimal time.

"Dove, we are at T-minus forty-five minutes," the voice said through the ship's comm system.

"Roger, Command," Yousefi said.

They continued to walk, reaching the central hub of the ship. It was a small, round space, with a lift in the center and four hatches that branched out around it, a setup that was repeated across all of the Goliath's decks. The crew paused for a moment while the lift hatch opened, and they all climbed in.

"I'm so excited, I think I'm going to pee in my flight suit," Bonnie said.

"I already did," Kathy joked.

"Let's save the urine for the recycling system," Yousefi said.

The lift carried them up to the center of the ship, a hatch on the opposite side sliding open and leading them to the control room. They walked towards it in anxious silence. It slid open as they neared, revealing a design that looked like it could have come from a sci-fi movie and had certainly been at least partially inspired by one. A central command station with a large captain's chair was positioned near the center while other stations circled it, each surrounded by its own set of semi-transparent screens.
 

It all seemed to float in the middle of the open New Mexico air. The entire room was a massive projection system, capturing data from hundreds of cameras mounted around the Goliath's hull and merging them together into a nearly seamless three hundred sixty-degree view of the ship's surroundings. It was impressive to see, and to experience, and every time Kathy entered the room she felt like she was taking a giant leap of faith that the floor was really there, and she wouldn't go tumbling down into the dirt below them.
 

The designers had originally wanted to install a bridge at the top of the Goliath, with a clear carbonate bubble through which they could observe space directly. They hadn't perfected the process yet, and efforts to produce something of that size had all ended in failure during stress testing. There were smaller viewports in different areas of the ship, but most were head-sized at best. It was a little disappointing that they had to rely on mechanical eyes, but at least they were ultra-sharp mechanical eyes.

They took their seats, strapping themselves in. The ship was equipped with "repulser repulsers," an engineering joke term for artificial gravity, which was essentially the reverse polarity of the repulser technology. The straps were there just in case that tech failed.

"Nothing to do now but wait," Captain Pathi said. He was one of the five engineers on the crew, who were in charge of trying to fix anything that went wrong in-flight, including the artificial gravity.

Kathy stared out through the view feed. She was leaving her planet behind. She wished her parents were alive to see it.

The minutes seemed to pass so slowly. They all sat on the bridge together in tense silence. Maybe some were praying, maybe some were running through their own duties over and over in their mind. Kathy sat in silent contentment. This was what she was born to do.
 

"T-minus one minute," Command said.

That brought her back to attention. The computer was supposed handle the liftoff, but she had a stick in front of her, just in case something went wrong. If it did, it was her job to keep them going up and out, to get them into orbit. She put her hand on it. The feel of the familiar shape was comforting.

"Twenty seconds," Command said.

"All systems are operational," Pathi said. "Generators are purring like happy cats."

"Ten seconds."

"Nine."

"Eight."

Kathy took a deep breath, letting it out slowly, feeling the tingling in her nerves, the butterflies in her stomach.

"Four."

"Three."

"Two."

"One."

"Flipping the switch," Yousefi said. In truth, he pressed the enter key and initiated the launch sequence.

 
The ship began to rise.

"Not as impressive as the old way," Bonnie said with a nervous laugh.
 

The repulser sled beneath them wouldn't make much noise at all, unlike the rockets that used to get things into space. Instead, they floated upwards almost silently, the massive sled bringing the even more massive starship up into the sky.

"Command, we have liftoff," Yousefi said with a satisfied smile.

Command cheered over the comm channel. Kathy could picture the thousands gathered to watch the moment cheering, along with the billions who were seeing it on screens around the globe.

They rose ever higher, the sled gaining momentum over time. By the third minute, they were approaching the atmosphere.

"All systems optimal," Captain Pathi reported.

"Kind of boring, really," Bonnie said, though her face betrayed her. She was wearing a huge smile, her eyes like saucers.

And then they were out into space.

Kathy watched her screen and waited for confirmation that the sequence had gone as programmed. "Sled released, Admiral. Standard thrusters firing." The thrusters would pull them out of orbit.

"Congratulations, team. We're in space," Yousefi said.

Kathy stared out the view screen. They were facing away from Earth, but it was true. There was nothing in front of them but stars - open space that was a whole new frontier for them to explore. A tear of joy made its way to her eye, and she left it to run down her cheek while she said a prayer of thanks.

"FTL engine is coming online," Captain Pathi said. "Two minutes to FTL test."

It was the moment of truth. All of the simulations had been successful, but the nature of FTL meant that it couldn't be tested without sending something up to actually do it. They had wanted to use a non-piloted ship, but the countries in the Alliance complained. They all wanted to send a crew member of their own up in the inaugural voyage, and there was certainly no shortage of volunteers willing to risk their lives on the missions. Since the ship had to be large to house the engine anyway, the Alliance had decided to go all-in and build something reusable, and trust the scientists that were certain the technology was viable and functional.

They were about to find out.

"One minute," Pathi said.

The ship began to vibrate slightly, a pressure building around them.
 

"Is this normal?" Yousefi asked.

"Nobody knows what normal is." Pathi sounded nervous.

The ship's vibration grew.
 

"Thirty seconds," Pathi announced.

Kathy closed her eyes, absorbing the feel of the vibrations. She was accustomed to the shaking, it had always happened to the F-70 when she swooped in on a target, the force threatening to tear the fighter apart and leave her to fall to her death. She had never worried that it would happen. She had never worried that she might die.
 

She wasn't worried now.

The shaking increased, forceful enough that their bodies shifted in their harnesses. The stars began to blur in the viewscreen, coalescing together into a solid, blinding white light.
 

"Twenty seconds."

There was creaking from the joints, and red data flowed across the walls.

"Abort," Yousefi said. "Abort."

Pathi was at his keyboard. "It isn't responding, sir," he said. "Ten seconds."

Kathy looked around at the crew. They were scared. She glanced at the view screen. It was completely white, as if they had fallen out of space and into sheer nothing.

Or everything.

The view screen went out.

"Five seconds."

Yousefi leaned forward in the command chair, his eyes wide and his mouth open in a silent scream. His knuckles were white against the armrests.

"Two... One..."

To the people on the ground, the Goliath was a dark speck that was there one moment, and gone the next.
 

They would wait for it, a countdown timer showing them the five minutes that the ship was supposed to be gone.
 

They would wait, silent and anxious, as that clock ran down to zero.
 

Then they would wait, silent and fearful, to see if the ship would ever return.
 

Then they would go home, in small groups at first, and then a flood, witness not to mankind's greatest success, but its most visible failure.