Chapter 7: The Shuttle Trip

When we were all settled we looked around and gawked until we got our briefing.

"This is your captain speaking. I'd like all passengers to stay seated until we are clear of the Moon and are in free flight. Our flight to Jupiter is expected to take 22 hours. This flight is self-service; we have no customer support staff onboard. In case of accident, each of you is wearing a space-suit that will keep you alive for several hours. This is a good thing. Trust me, we only got the suits yesterday and we are really happy about them. We haven't been doing this very long and we haven't had any accidents yet, but it's best to be ready."

"With that said, this shuttle has inertial compensators so you will not feel acceleration as long as I keep us below 50 G's and there is no reason to insist upon seatbelts, upright seat-backs, or even staying in your seats once we are in flight. After we have taken off, please feel free to move about the cabin as you desire. I will let you know when we are ready for landing and at that time I will ask that you sit throughout that evolution also."

A few minutes after that announcement the shuttle took off. There was some vibration and acceleration but nothing too bad; we didn't get pressed into our seats like we would have on an airplane.

Once the sensation of moving faded, I asked the ceiling "AI, is this a good place for a private conversation that no one else can listen to?"

<The passenger cabin is now isolated from outside monitoring.>

I said "Thank you", and turned to my fellow passengers. "Okay, were any of you aware that there is a difference of opinion between NATO and the UN?"

I got two "No, sir"s and an "Isn't there always?" from our Canadian.

"Right. Well, there are two groups of aliens out there. That we know of, there are probably more. One group came to us for help winning a war with another. We don't know the morality of their differences yet, but they must be serious about needing help because, if we understand them, they are talking about giving us ships with guns and all, and letting us go out on our own to fight their enemies. Now, I have trouble trusting my own son with a .22-caliber rifle, and he's 19 and far more trustworthy than anyone in Congress." I got three nods. "So, since they are talking about giving us starships complete with weapons, it's safe to conclude that they are afraid of someone even more scary than a human with a gun."

"That implant problem we found? It wasn't a problem. It was working perfectly, the way it was designed. We accidentally found out that it included some remote-control stuff. Every one of us with that implant was a walking bomb, ready to be set off whenever the UN wanted."

"We confronted the AIs with what we had learned. They apologized and told us that they considered it wrong but the UN had insisted that it was the only way to control the soldiers and sailors they needed. We asked them to run an analysis of all the people they had monitored, and group them by competence, honesty, and profession. The political leaders were all closely grouped at the low end of competence and honesty whether they had an implant or not, and the military leaders who had not been turned into zombies yet were at the top end of competence and honesty."

"We convinced them -or so they said, how would we know?- that we were right and the politicians were wrong. They were aware that the NATO ship, the one we just left, was the only one actually working on what they needed, a fleet that could fight their enemies. The UN and the Chinese are only working towards better control of their parts of the world. We think that we, the supposedly untrustworthy soldiers, were the only ones making an honest effort at doing what they were asking of us and that's what convinced them to go with us."

"So, supposedly, the AIs will back us up with what we are doing out here, but we can't challenge the UN. They have most of the world's governments in their pockets. That means that they have all the nuclear weapons, all the biological weapons, and most of the chemical weapons, ships, aircraft, and troops. They would not hesitate to use them all on any group that threatens their control. They also control the media. We decided that we would work towards our freedom, but we cannot let them know that we are on to them. Am I making sense?"

I got three nods.

"Now we get to the three of you. While you were in medical getting those implants shut down, they gave you a test that measured your desirability from the alien's point of view. Part of it is honesty and integrity, part of it is open-mindedness, and part of it is military ability. Can you command men and women in combat? Not everyone can. Many good people just cannot take the responsibility of sending others to their deaths in a good cause. Of course, many others don't have a qualm about sending anyone to their deaths whether there's a reason or not, but those guys won't pass the integrity part of that test."

"You three passed their test, and we want you on the NATO side of this disagreement. Benefits include a free life to do what you think is right, at least after we win this war. The bad part is that you'll have to stay out here. We will have to tell the UN that you were damaged by the implant and not stable enough to return to Earth. Occasionally, we will say that you were killed when you went berserk and we were trying to restrain you. That happens enough with their zombie-slaves that they watch for it and won't ask any questions."

"We can't let you go home again, as that would risk the UN finding out that we are on to them. If they found out, the war they would start to end the threat to their control would probably destroy Earth, or at least make it uninhabitable. We thought about fighting the UN, but decided that we could not win and any attempt would destroy the human race anyway. So, instead, we are pretending to be good UN slaves while we fight an alien war on one hand and found colonies on other worlds on the other hand."

"The UN's objective is to control Earth and get rid of troublemakers. The aliens' objective is to win their war with their enemies, and they probably don't really care either way what happens to us. Our objective, we NATO sailors and soldiers, is to win our freedom out among the stars. In order to do that, we have to build a fleet to win the war. Everyone agrees on that. We will probably need bases in other star systems to feed and take care of all those ships and troops, so we need to found colonies out there and send colonists to build them and soldiers to defend them. We're pretty sure that everyone will accept that."

"What we are really doing, though, is evacuating everyone we trust and leaving all the liars, cheats, criminals, and politicians behind on Earth to squabble among themselves. The aliens and their AIs agree with our version of the plan, and we aren't telling the UN why we really want those colonies."

"As for me, I'm retired and my children are grown, so setting up an accident so that I was dead was easy. I was just rotting away at home with my wife, so when they recruited me we both jumped at it. As far as Earth is concerned I'm dead and I can't go home, but I'd rather be out here doing something useful anyway."

"The three of you, though, are all actively serving officers, correct?" More nods. "The UN has given us a good way to make you disappear, too. Enough of their zombies go crazy when the implant is activated that they watch for it and just kill them if they get violent. We can say that the same thing happened to you, that you went crazy and were killed while we were trying to restrain you."

"Still, the UN wants more reliable people for their goals, and we need thousands and tens of thousands for our goals. We'll both keep recruiting people and sending them up here. For each of you, someone went to all the trouble of deciding that YOU were just the right person to go assist the UN with their secret project to use alien technology to take over the world. The question is, were you sent up here by military leaders who wanted you up here because we need our best and brightest people, or were they political leaders who wanted to make sure you were reliable?"

The Dutchman, Commander Capel, said "I think that I was one of the political selections. I believe that I am a competent officer, but this post was political. I am being groomed for bigger things after I retire. My government will treat my family badly if I defect."

"Will they bother your family if you die out here, trying to faithfully serve the UN?"

He smiled. "How much will that hurt?"

"It didn't hurt me at all. My wife and I went out fishing and disappeared. When they find our boat, we will be reported as lost at sea and presumed drowned."

"How did you get your wife to come with you?"

"I think she was bored, too, and we still love each other. I think my recruiter was, um, under-briefed and didn't realize what I was doing. He told me to grab anything I couldn't live without, and I grabbed my wife. She's another one of the good people. She went right to work on manning estimates, figuring out how many cooks and gunners we need."

"Well, I want my wife also, but she is better off down there with the children. I think it would be best if I went crazy and was killed."

I stuck my hand out. "Okay, you're dead. Welcome to life after death, Commander. Please call me Roger."

Commander Capel took it and said "Glad to be here, sir. Please call me Matthew." I soon learned that he spelled it Mathiew, but that doesn't matter any more than George's 'Smythe' does.

The German Fregattenkapitan, who had 'O. Leipziger' on his suit, said "I'm here as a naval officer, but before I left Berlin I had an interview with a General in Army Intelligence. He gave me verbal orders to do whatever I can to find out what the UN is up to. On the other hand, he never ordered me to return and tell him; he may have thought I was loyal enough to understand that part. I think I have learned the secret that he was concerned about, but you aren't going to let me tell him, are you?"

"Absolutely not. The AIs will enforce that. You may have some kind of secret code worked out, so none of us are going to be allowed to return to Earth or even to communicate with Earth until this is all over. I cannot even tell my children that I'm still alive and fighting an alien war out in space."

"Well, I won't say I'm more loyal to NATO than I am to the German people, but I accept that saving the human race is a higher calling. Do I have to die, or am I assigned up here?"

"If there are personnel records saying you were seconded to NATO, we should leave you alive as long as we can. We may have to show a few faces sometime, so we can't all die."

"I'll do my best to stay alive, then, Captain. Please call me Otto."

"I'd be glad to. And, I'm still Roger."

We all turned to look at the Canadian with 'LtCdr Ian Wentworth' on his suit. "Don't look at me!" We all looked at him anyway. "I'm a nobody. We don't have enough ships to give everyone a floating billet. Somebody decided we had to send someone to a NATO mission and wouldn't give any details, and I was sent as the one who was least valuable. I wasn't going to complain, it's a job. Do you know how badly our budget has been butchered lately? The Army chaps are doing fine, but the Democratic Republic of the Congo doesn't HAVE a Navy, and our slice of the pie got chopped up to buy more tanks and choppers for the gropos."

The poor sod. ("AI? Can you verify that?") "Well, it should be a simple decision. Are you going to support NATO and the aliens and try to live free, or are you going to support the UN and spend the rest of your life as a remote-control zombie?"

(<Yes, the Canadian Defense Forces personnel records agree with his interpretation. He was the least-valuable officer of the requested rank and experience who was available for assignment when the request was posted.>)

"In all fairness, I should point out that we are sticking our noses into an interstellar war. This implies that both sides are probably far beyond our technology level. Worse, we are starting completely from scratch here. I don't think that our ICBMs and our three space stations are going to impress either side. We are probably going to take some losses before we learn what we are doing, and us early recruits are in the right place to be those losses."

"On the other hand, our aliens are adamant that their enemies consider this a fight to the finish. They eat everyone on any planet they conquer. If we are helping our aliens, they are also helping us arm so that we can, maybe, save Earth. It's for sure that we would not have a chance if they hadn't warned us. We will need every officer and man we can get before we are done, though. Please state for the AI's records that you will support NATO's attempts to build a fleet and win this war."

"Do I have a chance at command?"

"Son, we are starting with NOTHING here. We have to build a navy that can win an interstellar war. Right now you have experience and seniority on anyone we recruit tomorrow. You'll get your command. If we survive the next couple of years, we'll all be ADMIRALS directing FLEETS, but we will all have to demonstrate competence in 'command at sea' first."

My prediction didn't strictly come true. Otto was an Admiral, last I heard. And Matt is still an Admiral, but he is also a District Commander now. Ian never returned from his first patrol as skipper of a Castle. And, of course, I never made Admiral, either. I stepped on too many toes in CC.

"Have any of you ever held 'command at sea'?"

They could all hear my choked laugh of surprise. "You didn't know? I thought I was famous! I have exactly 27 minutes, plus a few seconds, of command of a front-line United States Navy warship." I waited a few seconds. "I'm an Engineering specialist. I was Chief Engineer of USS Blowfish when she went down. That mess was the only time I have held 'command at sea'."

Over the years I had evolved a standard way of explaining what had happened, one that didn't get the security people too upset about secrets.

Let's say you are trying to measure a parameter, like maybe outside seawater pressure for a submarine. Remembering that in real life the instruments are actually calibrated to show "water depth at the keel in feet", I'm going to use PSIG because that's what the depth gauges really measure. Let's say that the pressure is supposed to be no more than 445 PSI, as that is the water pressure at our rated maximum depth. Now, let's say that something has gone wrong with our automated depth-keeping system, and the pressure is actually increasing past 500 PSI, which means that, well, you can do the math. We aren't supposed to be that deep. Bad things happen if you go that deep.

Now, let's say that we have a high-precision digital readout taken off our automated depth-keeping system. It says the pressure is 386.752 PSIG, with the last couple of digits fluctuating. That's six digits of precision. Note that 'precision' is NOT a synonym for 'accuracy'. It isn't a synonym for 'reliability', either. The three terms all mean completely separate things. It would be nice to have all three at once, but it is entirely possible to have only one of the three.

Let's say that since outside sea pressure is so important to a submarine, we also have older, less precise but far more reliable mechanical gauges in various places where we might want to look at them. No one ever looks at them any more, but they are there, available for emergencies. When one of my guys in the Engineroom decides he doesn't like the hull noises he hears and goes to check one of those gauges, it says that the outside sea pressure is 490, no 500, no 510 PSI and climbing. What does he do? He runs, screaming, for Maneuvering, where I'm talking to the EOOW about some upcoming maintenance when we get home in about four days.

In Maneuvering, we have another one of those mechanical gauges that no one ever looks at. In fact, it's behind us with the other nonessential stuff where it's not in anyone's way. It's just a backup to the newer, better stuff. The high-precision digital readout we go by is steady. The mechanical gauge shows increasing pressure. One of them is lying. And, I don't like what I hear from the boat's hull either. It's being stressed, and it doesn't like it. It doesn't take too long to decide which instrument I believe.

I didn't even stop to ask the OOD what he was doing. I hit the chicken switches for an emergency blow, and then I told the OOD why I did it. If it's the wrong decision, we can argue it out once we are on the surface. I'll take the hit.

Well, no, we can't argue it out later. A weld in the emergency diesel's head valve's intake piping where it went through the hull -right above the plotting table in the control room- started leaking about the same time the blow started. That may even have been part of the reason; the shock wave from the blow-valves slamming open being the final straw on the camel's back.

So, maybe you can blame me, but if so it was about to fail anyway and going deeper would have made it blow on its own soon. It would have been a bigger hole, we would have been deeper with more pressure and more water coming in faster and farther to go to get to the surface, and ... We wouldn't have made it. My way we got out alive, most of us. I'll take that blame.

The leakage rate wasn't that bad at first, but at that pressure it came in at enough of a jet to kill the six people up forward in the control room who happened to get in the way. We lost our CO, our XO, the junior officer who was actually standing OOD at the time, a chief, and two junior enlisted people. The Navigator wasn't killed, but he and a couple of others were injured enough that he could not assume command. As Chief Engineer, I was supposed to be way back in the line, only 4th in line for command, but with the Skipper, the XO, and Nav all unavailable I'm it. Great.

The leak got worse on our way up. The absolute pressure behind the leak was decreasing, but the crack was getting bigger as erosion ate away at the cracked weld, to the point where we stopped calling it an uncontrolled leak and had to call it uncontrolled flooding. Within seconds we lost the use of the control room, although we could still get to the bridge through the sail's access trunk.

When the COB -who was Diving Officer when it happened and we were damned lucky there- reported that he and his planesmen could no longer remain at their stations, I ordered him to lock his planes on full rise and lock his helm at three degrees to port, then evacuate the forward compartment through the bridge when we surfaced. On my end, I told the EOOW to have the throttleman maintain turns for three knots.