Things Fall Apart: Chapter 66

Captain's Office, Zephyr, Inbound Tau Ceti, 16.9.775 CW

21.2 megaseconds since the catastrophe

Despite that only a small portion of the crew had been directly involved, the rescue of the Thessalian freighters had made a serious dent on flagging morale. Arriving in-system, the crew had seen what it had honestly expected to see. But expectation and hope are not the same thing. Having their hopes of a less devastating outcome in Tau Ceti proper dashed was not an easy thing.

Especially, thought Singer, for those of us who grew up here.

But Robinson Station survived. Some remnant of Fleet personnel survived, including, of all people, Karenski, now styling himself Fleet Admiral. The planet itself had taken damage from power plants and similar infrastructure facilities gone haywire, but the death toll, per se, was low. Unlike in Gliese 581, Karenski and his people had retained enough inships and boats to provide useful relief efforts of various kinds. Many of those ships were now literally grounded as power supplies, which struck Singer as simultaneously sensible, and wasteful, but she couldn't immediately think of a better alternative until everyone had power they could rely upon again.

Even before Karenski's request had reached her, all question of remaining outsystem had gone by the board. A letter from Haraldsdottir removed the last vestige. The irony of the situation right now was that, sitting outsystem, Zephyr could communicate with Newer York or Borass with only a few kiloseconds of lag through the TC relays; while insystem communication crawled along at light-speed down a deep well for thirty kilos or more. At this point, Haraldsdottir had concluded—and Singer was already inclined this way—it was more important to exchange news and ideas efficiently with the surviving command structure on Robinson, than to have that quick relay. Zephyr was fast enough even on its insystem engines that the trip would only take a few planetary days.

Karenski's first message had reached them around the same time they'd begun refueling the Thessalians. Singer had found herself involuntarily smiling the minute the old man's face had lit the screen. She could not have hoped for a better person to have survived and be in charge, here. Even he had never contemplated a catastrophe of this scale, but he'd spent years pushing cadets through all kinds of horrifying scenarios. She knew he'd learned as much as he'd taught.

He, in turn, was plainly glad to know it was her on the other and of the line, even though he hadn't seen her, yet—her data stream so far had been easily compressed text to mitigate the length of the transmission across the light-kilos of lag.

She had a premonition she was also in for an, "I told you so!" from him regarding her command potential. Reviewing the last several megaseconds honestly, without allowing herself refuge or false modesty, she had to admit she probably had it coming. She'd made mistakes, but here they were.

Thankfully, because the foreign freighters routinely tanked up at the former anchorage and other similar TCTO facilities, their filling systems were easily adapted. It had been harder to convince the captains to accept the aid, even after one of them had called for it, than it had to actually do the work.

So now, the freighters were turning outsystem and—yes, there was the flare as the lead ship jumped out. They'd be about three megaseconds getting home on their old jump drives, but they'd get home. Singer, remembering that Admiral Donato in David's Star had a back-channel to the Thessalians despite no formal embassy, made a point of letting him know as well, with a request to pass the information along. The relay to the DSR would be quick, and the packet ships, assuming they at least had newer jump systems, should get the news back faster than the freighters.

Singer was just about to get up, stretch, and maybe go see what PO bat Avi was up to in the arboretum. The woman had been positively buoyant, despite a hangover Singer had sympathized with, coming back from her leave on Newer York, and had finally gotten to infodump at her captain about it en route to Tau Ceti. She'd come away with seeds as well as useful information, and had declared that the space was "just about ready, if the captain would like to inspect."

The captain was missing ready access to green space, so that notion appealed.

"Chef?"

"Captain?" The voice was subdued. He'd been subdued a lot, lately. She found it hard to blame him, but was unsure what to do about it.

"Anything else need my attention just now?"

"The stream to us from downwell is mostly routine at the moment. I get the impression Karenski didn't have a report prepared, at least, not quite as detailed as yours, and you're going to get most of the briefing in person." There was actually a bit of a wicked smile on the AI's face at that, as if the notion of his captain being better prepared than the old-hand admiral appealed to him. Singer was glad to see it. "However, there is one fresh item for your attention, just landed in your inbox. Not that I read your mail or nothin', but you might want to read it before you go."

Singer snorted at that. Chef had been authorized to at least keep an eye on her inbox since back on Bellerophon. It was pretty routine for the command AI to be doing so, just as it might have been for a yeoman on an older ship, or in a fleet with less AI integration. Still, he'd been circumspect about it for the most part, so for him to flag something to her attention was notable.

"All right, then. I guess I will," she responded, sat back down, and tapped up her inbox.

To: Elyah Singer, Commander, TCTF Zephyr
From: Esmé Singer, Lowly Civilian, Proud Mother, Union City
Subject: You ARE coming down to visit, yes?

Body: See subject. I love you. - Mom

Singer burst out laughing, jotted a quick, affirmative reply, "subject to the discipline of the service," and finally left for the arboretum, smile still on her face.

That smile turned into an open grin when she entered the arboretum. When she'd first come into the compartment during the tour, it was bare and smelled like any other part of the ship. Now, it smelled alive—and green. She could hear running water, there was a mild breeze contrived, she assumed, with the connivance of engineering, and there were plants in various stages of growth everywhere.

She found bat Avi kneeling, working with a trowel on an otherwise fallow bed, hand-planting seeds. The other woman was facing away from her, but Singer could read that this was a person happy in her work.

Not wanting to startle the gardener, she instead walked carefully around her and knelt down so she was clearly in view. The petty officer looked up to see her CO, and met her eyes, and her grin. "Whaddya think, Cap?"

"I think it's amazing, PO. How have you managed all this so quickly?"

"Most of the greenest things you see are things we actually had as seedlings, cuttings, and saplings up from Borass before we left. Your friend and mine, Sipho, found them buried in the manifests under the somewhat cryptic label, "Arb. Sup.", which is why it had gotten missed. Some of them are actually gifts from Hassan, although most of what he was able to part with were seeds, like these," she pointed with her trowel at the small container she'd been pulling from. "So, we had a head start. I worked with Cadotte and Castor to figure out how to configure the room to encourage growth. Apparently since the calamity, Castor's branching out from his usual specialty, not unlike myself, and learning more about growing things."

That was interesting news all by itself, but Singer filed it away for later inquiry, and just said, "Well, whatever you've been doing, it's working."

"Yes, ma'am! I think we'll be ready for regular visitors about the time you'll be bringing the next dignitaries around for a tour. There will be a tour, right?"

Singer pretended to think about that, but couldn't keep a straight face. "You ever meet Karenski?"

"Once. He came aboard Kitty Hawk for a tour when I was just an Able Spacer and even that was so new it squeaked when I turned around too fast. Interesting fellow, made a point of sitting down with us in the mess."

"Do you think there's any chance he'd pass up a tour of this ship?"

"Not even a little bit. We'll be ready for him."

Singer decided to risk a confidence, despite that this woman was "only" a petty officer, and still a relative unknown. "I'm glad someone's feeling ready for Karenski. I'm not sure I am."

Like Singer, bat Avi's face didn't stop smiling—the room itself made it hard not to smile—but her eyes got a bit more serious as she said, simply, "We're with you, Captain. All the way."

Singer took a deep breath before saying, "Thank you, PO. That means a lot."

"Coming from me, you mean? I know I was a pain in the ass right at first."

"Maybe just a little. But you know, I have a feeling we're going to need someone capable of rousing some rabble, at some point, too."

That got the grin back. "Just let me know, Cap. I'm your huckleberry!"

Chuckling, Singer stood, waving bat Avi to stay as she was as she said, "I'll let you get back to it. Good work, PO."

"Thanks, Cap!" came the reply, and then bat Avi turned back to her seeds, and Singer continued down the path, idly wondering what a huckleberry was.