Countryman settled into his command chair. The last of the Lunar evacuation had been completed. Not everyone was happy with what was going on, and he had already noted Willaims trying to gather allies. Already he was considering his options, but in the meantime, they had to get underway. They had afterall not only finished the Lunar evacuation but also the Earth orbit sweep. A final census revealed that between their three ships they had a little over fifty thousand people. That was all that remained of the human race, at least as far as they could confirm.
They were almost ready to leave orbit as well. The ships not able to make the journey had been stripped of anything they could use and scrapped. It was the best they could do with them. Star Tech One had been loaded down with everything useful that they could not take with them, and they were making ready to tow it. Something the Enterprise was perfectly capable of doing at sub-warp speeds. It was not something the ship could do at warp. A previous experiment had tested the possibility of FTL towing and found it not possible with current technology. FTL towing required the warp field to be expanded to encompass a second ship. That presented a whole slew of problems that with their rudimentary understanding of their own drive technology they could not even begin to solve. There were other problems with the idea as well, but the big one was expanding the warp field. If they could solve the numerous engineering challenges with expanding the warp field the other problems would be simple in comparison to solve.
The matter of warp towing was largely mute, however. The debris fields that were a testament of the ferocity of the war, also meant that warp travel was impossible in the inner system. It wasn’t until you got past the asteroid belt where the fields thinned considerably that warp speed was feasible. A journey of several weeks, and then crossing to the next system Proxima Centauri which was only a short hop from Alpha Centuari was a journey of a few short months. To be more accurate factoring both the sublight and FTL portions of this trip in they were talking about a trip that would take about five months. By which point they would have burned through most of their food supplies, but by then they should also already have their first yields from the Hydroponics bays. Speaking of the bays, they were now also home to some fish along with the surviving growth they had found in several of Luna’s surviving hydroponics farms. Finding those fish was nice, very nice as it gave them more variety than just vegetables. They were still lacking in meats, but there was little he could do about that.
So while supply wise he could say they will be fine for those five months. There was a great deal that could go wrong in those five months. The morale problems alone would be enough to deal with, but on top of that, he had a dissatisfied and emotional captain to deal with. He knew her type and had dealt with them before. Countryman was going to have to kill her, but he couldn’t do that now. Right now that would cause more problems than it solved. Politics, he hated that game, but it was the game being played now. Worse he also knew that sooner or later she was going to mutiny. He was already watching her, and she was already making moves to garner support. Naturally, he was also making moves. Better ones. The child she was hadn’t even noticed that he knew what she was doing. He already had an idea of what made her tick, and knew what best to do. At least in the short term, he was going to make moves to both placate and stymie her, while carefully gaining and positioning pieces to ensure her mutiny when it did happen failed with minimal damage. As he would not be able to kill her until after she made her power play.
Glancing at his display he figured it was about time. He wasn’t one for speeches, but it seemed appropriate that he say something. This was going to be the start of a journey that would either save the human race or if he makes the wrong move end it. In any case, it was a journey they had no choice but to make. If they stayed here they were vulnerable to future Cathamari attacks, and they no longer had the resources to withstand another attack. As he saw it, and anyone else with sense they had a better chance out among the stars. Somewhere out there they would find their Haven, their safe harbor where they may recover and rebuild. One day he promised to himself that they would come back. Even if he wasn’t here to see it he would make damn sure their descendants would be able to reclaim their ancestral homelands. It was their birthright afterall. He finally after hesitating long enough told Misaki, “Open a channel to all ships, all decks.”
“Aye, sir.” she paused to tap away at her console, “Channel open.”
He sighed, and after a moment he began to speak. Demanding the attention of all that heard his voice. “I am sure by now you all know what happened just a few days ago, and have heard the rumors. I am afraid some of them are true. Our ancestral home, the birthplace of our race, and civilization is gone reduced irradiated ruins. Shrouded in clouds of death, and surrounded by the wrecked hulks of our shattered fleets. I am sure many of you think this is the end the last page in our chapter of history.”
He paused but only for a moment before continuing, “I promise you this is not the end, but merely a new beginning. We will survive, we will adapt, we will thrive out there among the stars where will find our Haven, and rebuild. It will be our refuge our sanctuary and when we are ready we will return to reclaim our birthright. Even if we don’t live to see it, our children will reclaim our homes. I promise you that we will return even if it take a lifetime, even if takes a millinia, even if takes ten thousand years we will return to reclaim our home. I promise you that.
“As for the Cathamari they will rue the day they burned our worlds. I promise you that we will find their world out there among the stars and burn it to ashes. Even if it takes me a lifetime I will make sure their world burns for this vile act. But today a new dawn begins, a new chapter in the history of the peoples of Sol. Today we journey out into the stars to find a new home, and we shall not break, we will persevere and succeed. To new beginnings to a new dawn.”
He closed the channel. Countryman turned his attention to the helmsman a young woman of Japanese decent. Her name was Eri, and she had a promising record having piloted a few ships before. Countryman gave the order, “Engage towing beams, and bring us about to heading one-zero-four mark two-six. Ahead one-half engine power.”
She nodded, “Aye sir. Engaging towing beams. Bringing us about to heading one-zero-four mark two-six. Ahead one-half engine power.”
Her hands moved with grace over the controls of the helm, and the engines hummed under the young lady’s command. The ship eagerly responded to the command, and their journey began. As it did Countryman promised to himself that he would make sure they returned in ten thousand years no matter what. It was going to be centuries before the planet was habitable anyway. They were not going to return in his lifetime, but he knew things could be done to ensure that they would return when the planet was habitable again. In fact based on his math that would be in almost ten thousand years. In his mind there would be no better time to return then on the ten thousandth anniversary of the day Earth was lost to them, on the twenty third day of May. His other promise however, that one he already had ideas on how to achieve. First he would need the coordinates of their homeworld, which thanks to captured star charts should not be too hard. He may lack exact coordinates, but they had a rough idea of where the Cathamari bases were. Thankfully the maps indicated no presence in Alpha Centuari and her nearest stars like Proxima. That meant nothing, but hopefully they would be safe there for a while. They did need time to pick up the pieces, and work on improving their warp drive technology. Hopefully the system would be the safe harbor they needed for that.
Richards shifted, as she monitored the engines. The familiar hum of a working pulse wave engine filled her engine room. She was currently down in main engineering watching the monitors. It was her job to make sure everything was in working order. There was actually a lot of work involved but most of the time she had little to do. Like right now, where all she had to do was monitor the read outs. She only needed to act if something went wrong. The ship’s computers could solve most problems on their own though. Still it was always best to have a human eye on things.
The Enterprise actually had two engine rooms. This was one located in the bowels of the primary hull, which was the traditional engine room. This room was responsible for most of the primary systems including the main sublight drives. The other engine room was located in the secondary hull. That engine room housed the antimatter reactors, the drive core for the ship’s warp drive, and was designed to monitor and control the ship’s warp engines. Of which the ship had four. They were designed to operate in pairs, as the ship’s size meant no single engine could generate a field large enough to encompass the whole ship. The ship’s computers were responsible for controlling the field and ensuring the two engines operated in sync.
The ship only needed two of its four warp engines to achieve warp speed. While it is possible to use all four engines at once, in previous trials they found that there was no real benefit to doing so. As such the second pair of engines while identical to the primary set were backup drives. Installed for system redundancy. Although she recalled that Countryman had originally designed the ship to carry six of these engines, but that third set never made it into the final design. If they had those third-tier backup engines would have been mounted in the primary hull, at the widest point of the saucer.
Since they were not all four engines were located in the nacelles along with a number of secondary maneuvering engines. The nacelles were not a new feature to human ship design, previous generations of ships had used them to mount outboard maneuvering engines. It was found that the use of nacelles to mount these engines substantially boosted ship maneuverability. It had to do with exactly how the pulse wave engines they used worked.
During the warp project testing, they had found that placing the warp engines in these nacelles was actually ideal for the formation of a stable warp field. Since they were already going to be there for the sublight maneuvering engines it proved a simple change to ship design to make room for the warp engines. The nacelles did end up being larger relative to older designs, however, as the warp engines required a significantly more robust cooling system. As they produced a rather massive amount of heat during operation. Dealing with that heat had in fact been the largest engineering challenge they had to solve during the Warp Three project.
Her mind soon wandered from the ship’s many engines to that conversation she had not all that long ago with Countryman. Some of what he said made her wonder. He had known her mother, and knew who her father was. Yet she still didn’t know for sure who he was. Only that Countryman didn’t think now was the right time for that. She had a few ideas about what that meant. With everything she knew it was possible that he was her father. She just wasn’t sure if that was the case. It was certainly within the realm of possibility, but there were other possibilities as well.
Without more information, she could never be certain what theory was true. The real question was what would convince the captain to tell her. She was drawing a blank on that. The fact that she barely knew him made it hard to know what would convince him to tell her. Lacking such information she ultimately soon drifted from the topic.
She was a bit startled when a female voice spoke up behind her. It was Williams, who she had seen in the officer’s meeting. “So what do you think about that Cyborg?”
She gave the woman a look. This officer was rather lacking in respect. It made her wonder how this woman ever made captain. She certainly wouldn’t have made the rank in peacetime, she knew that for sure. “I think you need a refresher course on military discipline and the importance of respect. That is what I think. Now get out of my engine room before I call security!”
Williams huffed and was rather indigent but thankfully she did leave. Richards watched her go and turned back to her work. Not before noting the incident in her log. She also made a mental note to inquire about how such a disrespectful woman made it to captaincy. A part of her was glad she wasn’t the captain, as being under a woman who would behave like that would be intolerable.
