Colonial Prime_Humanity Read online

  Immortal Works LLC

  1505 Glenrose Drive

  Salt Lake City, Utah 84104

  Tel: (385) 202-0116

  © 2018 Kevin L. Nielsen

  http://kevinlnielsen.com/

  Cover Art by Garrett Harmon

  https://ghamon.weebly.com/

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For more information email [email protected] or visit

  www.immortal-works.com

  ASIN: B077TBVN1S (Kindle Edition)

  Contents

  Part I

  1. Colonial Prime – Cargo Hold – Day 1

  2. Colonial Prime – Command Bubble – Day 1

  3. Colonial Prime – Lower Level – Day 1

  4. Colonial Prime – Captain’s Office – Day 1

  5. Colonial Prime – Captain’s Office – Day 1

  6. Colonial Prime – Gardens – Day 1

  7. Colonial Prime – Command Bubble – Day 1

  8. Colonial Prime – Conference Room – Day 1

  9. Colonial Prime – Gardens – Day 1

  10. Colonial Prime – Captain’s Office – Day 1

  11. Colonial Prime – Corrin Living Quarters – Day 1

  Part II

  12. Colonial Prime – Service Tunnel, Engineering Section – Day 271

  13. Colonial Prime – Mess Hall – Day 271

  14. Colonial Prime – Captain’s Office – Day 271

  15. Colonial Prime – Corrin Living Quarters – Day 271

  16. Colonial Prime – Mess Hall – Day 271

  17. Colonial Prime – Corridor leading to Gardens – Day 271

  18. Colonial Prime – Empty Crew Quarters – Day 271

  Part III

  19. Colonial Prime – Corrin Living Quarters – Day 365

  20. Colonial Prime – Gardens – Day 365

  21. Colonial Prime – Service Tunnel, Engineering Section – Day 365

  22. Colonial Prime – Gardens – Day 365

  23. Colonial Prime – Command Bubble – Day 365

  24. Colonial Prime – Engineering Corridor – Day 365

  25. Colonial Prime – Gardens and Corridor – Day 365

  26. Colonial Prime – Upper Deck Corridors – Day 365

  27. Colonial Prime – Command Bubble – Day 365

  28. Colonial Prime – Corridors near Command Bubble – Day 365

  29. Colonial Prime – Access Corridor to Command Bubble – Day 365

  30. Colonial Prime – Command Bubble – Day 365

  31. Colonial Prime – Command Bubble Ventilation Shaft – Day 365

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  For Keri, who prefers science fiction, but still reads my fantasy anyway

  For Nicholas James West, who fought the good fight, lived life to the fullest, and inspired me in too many ways to name

  For Kaitlynn, who upholds the flame

  Jaelyn Corrin shifted against the safety harness that kept him glued to his chair. The straps were tightened as far as they would go but, Jaelyn was small enough that there was a little room for him to move. The thrusters’ roar faded to a soft hum as they passed out of Earth’s atmosphere and entered real space. Their ship was vertical still, meaning Jaelyn was oriented in a position that aligned with an Earth orientation of being vertical. The pressure against his back eased for half a moment, the weightlessness born of being in real space allowing him a small measure of relief. A heartbeat later, the artificial gravity kicked in and the pressure keeping his back against the chair switched to his feet instead.

  He blinked and swallowed to calm the nausea that threatened to overwhelm him at the change in perspective. His mind always oriented itself much faster than his stomach. He hated takeoffs. Actually, if he was honest with himself, he hated anything that made him feel uncomfortable. Suddenly reverting from the upward force caused by the ship’s propulsion engines pushing him back against his seat to the “lighter-than-Earth-gravity” artificial gravity pushing him horizontally was definitely uncomfortable.

  The speakers crackled and his mother’s voice blazed over the intercom.

  “This is your captain speaking. We have left Earth’s gravity. Those wishing to get their last glimpse of the planet should proceed to the viewing stations. All crewmembers will please report to their assigned duty posts until after the refueling process has been completed at the Jupiter Launching Station.”

  The speakers crackled again, signaling an end to the announcement.

  Jaelyn breathed a sigh of relief and pushed the button to release his harness. It unclasped with a faint pop and zipped back into the chair, retracting out of the way. Around him, hundreds more popping noises signaled that everyone else within this particular cargo area was mimicking his motion. The occupants of three other cargo holds within Colonial Prime, flagship of the small convoy and collective representation of the new government’s desire for peace, were likely doing the same.

  Along the walls, metal and gears creaked as the protective metal shield rolled up, revealing the thick DuraGlass observation windows. Nearly 15 centimeters thick and stronger than a meter of cement, the DuraGlass was crystal clear, giving the viewers a perfect look at the retreating form of Earth’s blue-green orb. It also gave them a view of the four other ships that made up their small convoy. A colonization mission. The colonization mission.

  A symbol of hope.

  Jaelyn almost rolled his eyes at the thought. So much after the war had seemed like people were simply doing things just to be seen doing them. Not much of any real substance got done, as far as Jaelyn could see.

  People got to their feet en masse, Jaelyn included, breathing sighs of contentment at being able to stand and ease aching muscles. Most headed for the DuraGlass. A buzz of muted conversations filled the over-oxygenated air.

  Crewmembers dressed in the ship’s muted blue-grey uniforms streamed toward the lighted exit, while the passengers, mostly small families or young couples, hurried to get a last glimpse of the planet they had – up until this moment – called home. Jaelyn cleared his throat and followed the crewmembers toward the exit.

  He almost made it. Three meters from the door into the hall his wristband chimed and a smooth, masculine voice spoke.

  “Sir, the captain wishes you to remain here with the passengers.”

  Jaelyn gritted his teeth and blew out his breath through his nose. Every blasted time. “She knows I hate crowds.”

  “I am sorry, sir. The captain feels that your presence would assist with morale aboard ship. This is a trying time, after all.”

  “What about my morale?” Jaelyn complained, standing in place and making the crew part around him. None of them complained. They knew who he was, or rather, who his mother was.

  “Shall I ask the captain?”

  “Oh, shut up, Ace.” Jaelyn snapped, turning around and heading back toward the observation areas.

  “As you wish, sir.” The watch beeped, signaling an end to the conversation.

  Jaelyn didn’t need Ace, the Automated Electronic Assistant that was integrated into the ship’s computer system, asking Captain Amara Corrin about his feelings. He already knew the answer. Jaelyn’s morale was a pithy victim of being the captain’s son. He absolutely hated crowds, and being around other people in general, but he hated disappointing his mother even more, even if her requests sometimes made his skin crawl with discomfort or forced him to hide in the ship’s gardens for a week or more to recover his nerves. And that was without her daily drills and borderline overprotective paranoia. Not that he could really blame her, not after what she’d gone through in the Solar Wars. And it wasn’t th
at the crowds themselves really bothered him, exactly. Mostly, he bothered them in that he never seemed to fit their expectation of how someone his age should think or act.

  He joined the throng of people watching Earth fade through the long windows, though he stayed near the fringes. People still noticed and tried to make way for him, but he shook his head, letting them stay where they were, forcing aside the urge to shrink away and hide. His mother was the commander of the colonial fleet – the first in mankind’s history. Unlike some of the earlier exploratory flights, this mission was not one where the people ever intended to return. He could sense the fear and nervous energy among the families. He saw it in the tears that stained cheeks and heard it in the muted whispers shared between lovers or parents and their children. They were leaving behind all they had ever known.

  Others were solitary figures, standing alone in the sea of bodies, staring out at the receding blue-green orb of Earth behind them. With everything that had gone on during the wars, it was a surprise that the atmosphere retained enough of the appropriate chemicals to allow life to continue. Life continued despite the efforts of humanity to end it. Jaelyn recognized these solitary figures from news reports and articles during the war. They were the exiles, the remnants of those factions that had come away defeated in the late wars. They looked back at a world they’d fought over, a world where they’d lost loved ones, friends, and family. They looked back on an emblem of their own failure. Jaelyn couldn’t even begin to describe the mix of emotions that crossed these figures’ faces.

  For Jaelyn, all he had ever known was the inside of ships, following along with his mother’s transfers. He had almost as much attachment to Earth as he did to his clothing. Both were easily outgrown and replaced. Still, he couldn’t help but feel a small pang of regret as Earth faded from view. Despite it never being a true home, the blue-green planet held everything he’d ever really wanted out of life. Stability, normalcy, a chance at a regular life. Now, relegated to the bowels of a ship that would never return, that hope was gone, buried in the same place he kept all his unrealized dreams.

  After a few long minutes standing at the back of the crowd, shifting under the sidelong glances of half a dozen older onlookers, Jaelyn decided it was time to leave. He was small for his age, looking younger than his thirteen years by a surprising margin, which invariably drew the attention of adults far more often than Jaelyn was comfortable with. He’d made his appearance and fulfilled his duties in regard to his mother’s wishes. It was time to get to know the ship that was now the exact width and breadth of his entire life for the next forty-five years.

  Captain Amara Corrin stood with her hands clasped behind her back, her posture one of perfect parade rest in her typical position in the Command Bubble. Personally, Amara hated the familiarity and laziness of the term. A bubble was something children played with while taking a bath. This – this was where futures were decided. This was where lives were either saved or lost, with this voyage in particular. She was commander of the first colonial fleet. Her decisions would affect not just her own life, but the collective life of everyone aboard her own vessel and the four sister ships that accompanied her, an entire branch of the human family tree. To call this place a bubble simply because of spherical resemblance was ludicrous and demeaning to its very nature.

  “Captain,” a younger man said, approaching along the catwalks that stretched from workstation to workstation across the room.

  Amara recognized him almost immediately, the son of one of the high ranking generals under whose command she’d served during the recent world war. Had this young man still been a part of the military, he would be well on his way to the rank of commander himself, even though only in his late twenties. Nepotism was as common in military life as bullets. Aboard Colonial Prime, where Amara had yet to fully organize her command structure, he was simply another crewman, the same as everyone else.

  She nodded to him, indicating that he could speak.

  “The applications for your executive officer have been uploaded to your datapad, sir,” he said, proffering the thin device. “Navigation reports we should be at the Jupiter Launching Station within the hour.”

  Amara winced, though the expression was barely able to be called such. Anyone who did not know her well would have missed it. Those that did, would have noticed the minute tightening around her eyes, or the slight tension that hovered at the corner of her lips. Cruel experience in the war had taught her to school her emotions, an edict which held even more true when one was in a command position.

  “I know protocol dictates I be addressed as ‘sir,’” she said, taking the datapad. “But I prefer to be called Captain.”

  “Yes, Captain.”

  The man turned to leave, but Amara stopped him. “What’s your name, Crewman?”

  She knew it already, but wanted a moment to study him as he spoke. He didn’t look much like his father. With a thin frame and youthful features, he looked almost boyish. And his hands were thin and nimble-looking, the hands of an artisan, perhaps. His eyes, however, bespoke a knowledge and depth that belied his youth. Very dissimilar from his father, indeed, except for the eyes. The eyes were the same.

  “Nathan Esquina, formerly a lieutenant in the United Continental Army of the Americas.”

  She made a mental note to check into his file. “Thank you, Crewman.”

  He nodded. “Will that be all, Captain?”

  She dismissed him with a wave and glanced down at her datapad. Five names stood on the list of candidates for executive officer. Amara wished she didn’t have to make that decision, but at the same time was glad she got to pick her own command structure. The new world government, the Grand Council of Nation-States, had left it in her hands. It would make the transition from a militaristic lifestyle to a colonial one that much easier. In theory, at least.

  And, Amara thought to herself rather ruefully, there were factions aboard ship that needed to be kept in check. It was imperative her command structure be in place before they left the Jupiter Launching Station. The Grand Council had saddled her with the political exiles too dangerous to let remain on Earth. Not only that, the passengers themselves were as far from a homogenous group as it was possible to be.

  Peoples from every nation-state, from every geopolitical boundary in the world, congregated here on Colonial Prime and her sister ships, each and every one of them making the decision to turn their back on their homeland and journey across space on the chance of having a new world free from the chaos and history of the old one. She only hoped that the terror and chaos of the world they’d left behind didn’t follow them here. They needed unity. They needed hope. They needed peace.

  They needed to begin their lives anew.

  If only she could figure out how to make that transition herself. Not that she allowed herself the luxury of granting the idea of not transitioning any purchase. She was the commander of this fleet. Though her sister ships, the Delta, the Omega, the Alpha, and the Beta, had their own captains and individual problems, they all reported to her. She was the figurehead here. She had to be the steady, larger-than-life rock upon which the colonists could rely. She had to be, more than just do. She had to become. She didn’t have any choice.

  Gritting her teeth, she selected the first name on the list Crewman Esquina had given her and pulled up the file.

  Jaelyn trudged through the bowels of the ship, ignoring the inquisitive looks of the crewmembers that passed by. Outside of the Command Bubble, there weren’t any other restricted areas aboard ship so he could go where he pleased, as far as the actual rules were concerned – written ones, at least. Each ship had its own system of implied and unwritten rules, though they often developed over time and as Jaelyn discovered them. Having spent most of his life moving from fleet ship to fleet ship with his mother’s transfers during the Solar Wars and later during the Third World War, his system of exploring new ships was something he wasn’t willing to change. He always started on the upper decks and w
orked his way down.

  The belly of the ship was where all the interesting things were kept anyway. The engineering sections where the massive engines and fuel compartments rested, the gardens – which spanned an entire deck by themselves – and much of the cargo areas, those not previously used for housing passengers during takeoff, all lay on the bottom decks. Those cargo holds would be filled with the requisite supplies to last their decades-long journey when they reached the Jupiter Launching Station. The ship was massive, easily ten times as large as even the largest Fleet ship Jaelyn had ever been aboard, so his explorations would likely take more than a single day. Perhaps he should adjust his regular routine.

  “Ace,” Jaelyn said, activating his wristband, “how long ‘til we reach Jupiter?”

  “According to the NAV system, the ship will dock with the Jupiter Station in 27 minutes, sir.”

  Twenty-seven minutes. Plenty of time to explore the gardens.

  “Where are the gardens, Ace?”

  “From your current position,” came the crisp, masculine voice, “take the second corridor on your left and it will be the doorway on the right.”

  He followed the directions, reaching the indicated doorway without incident. The doors were large, though not as big as the ones on the cargo bays. They slid open at his approach, letting out a wash of clean, fresh air.