Chapter 1

LIBERTY ENTERPRISES Corporate Headquarters, Encinitas, California

       The Undersea Base at the Marcus Necker Ridge could have easily served as the independent, sovereign headquarters for Liberty Enterprises, but the late founder and original corporate President Kevin Duncan wanted to have a visible presence among the humans that by default the corporation had been chartered to serve and protect. Such military and police powers were not the primary reason the late Kevin Duncan had started Liberty Enterprises, but they were inherited by the corporation when the governments had become ineffective following the Otawian attack to do their duties. That was then. Now, the government had rebuilt both its courage and its powerbase, losing no opportunity to demonize this and other successful corporations.

      Over the last few years, Jonas Bu’Tan had been subpoenaed to testify, or to go on the defense in the court of public opinion before parliamentarian hearings in Salt Lake City, the Capitol of North America. In hindsight, he had regretted doing so. His answers had been clever and accurate, not nearly with the sharp edge and lack of tact that Victor Martin had expressed when appearing before the North American legislators. But the Broadcast News Nets failed to include any of his testimony. They only showed the rants and baseless accusations of the politicians which were statements framed in the form of lengthy questions. To add injury to insult, in the few words by Bu’Tan that had been quoted subtitles appeared to accompany his words taken out of context, as if North Americans were too stupid to understand his excellent English language with a Kenyan accent.

      The purpose of the political theatre, using the Broadcast News Nets and their reporters with short memories, was to demonize Liberty Enterprises so that arbitrary fines and tailored target taxes could be levied upon the corporation and so that Liberty Enterprises could be targeted as an evil large greedy corporation that needed to be cut down to size. Everything said of Liberty Enterprises was true – not of this corporation but of Sunshine Mining, who in fact were in a far different position. Sunshine Mining, instead of being punished for success and charged penalties, fines, levies, and taxes was the recipient of grants and contracts at the expense of the taxpayers. The pressure was so ridiculous on Liberty Enterprises that with great reluctance Montana Station, the floating technology demonstrator formerly hovering 27,500 feet over the distant end of the Encinitas Headquarters runway was brought down, now grounded as a tourist attraction. It had been the Jewel In the Sky since 2657, and in fact it was a technology demonstrator which helped to launch further successes and investments in Liberty Enterprises, but it was, by only feet our of reach of North American influence as it was 12 miles off the coast. Once it was brought down and touched Encinitas, it became subject to heavy taxation as well, but tourism to date was keeping the facility profitable on balance. As taxes were also derived from tourism, no one in government was complaining.

      Bu’Tan and Martin had discussed the option of just taking the corporation completely out of North America, but out of respect for Amelia Duncan, the former President’s widow and a major protected shareholder, they left the headquarters in the corporation’s oldest facility on the planet, the Encinitas Headquarters. But with Earth governments running interference and blockades and threatening a military attack on their sovereign undersea base, Bu’Tan decided to close it and open up shop elsewhere – somewhere well within the capabilities of the unmanned cargo and passenger ships labeled LIBERTY 01 thru LIBERTY 64 to reach, but out of range of the submarines, surface ships, and other components of a menacing Earth government military coalition. Now that the military was also building its own space fleet comparable to the capabilities of Liberty Enterprises, presumably to assume an oversight and leadership role wherever humans could be found both on forward deployed bases and in the trade corridors between them, the day would soon come when North America or some Earth government equivalent would establish a right to protect and tax Bu’Tan’s new construction zone.

           The incredible sonic booms had already been heard as the incoming 1,070 feet-long ship was still over 50,000 feet in altitude as it flew overhead following a standard entry into the atmosphere from west of Hawaii. Then, using the slowing capability of the blunt Lifting Body design which somewhat was a parachute built into its shape, guided by the angled elavarudders and its Variable Plates - better known by the old name - flaps, the subsonic craft began a steep dive and slow turn to swing back around to the west so that it could line up with the 12-mile long runway, no longer experiencing the joy previous generations had experienced by passing under Montana Station along the way.

           The Block III Liberty ship – the first of its kind, became identified to the crowd as it arrived, with both the name and registry of LIBERTY 95. The Commanding Officer had made the choice of a hybrid landing in the interest of making a slower approach and utilizing less runway space. The elevarudders moved to flare the nose from diving for a spot short of the runway to a nose-up angle of attack, carrying the direction on a curve from almost vertical to nearly horizontal. Vapor Thrusters were then added so that through a propulsion system of powerful jets from several parts of the hull’s underside the vehicle transitioned from depending on only its shape and speed in the support of passing air molecules for its lift. The forward momentum had been less than a hundred miles per hour when it touched down on deployed wheeled Landing Pods, one from each of its wings and one in the center nose section ahead of the swimming pool section. The Landing Pod wheels where attached to a strut which doubled as an additional Vapor Thruster source. Finally, the ship rolled to a stop and when its occupants left via a lowered onboard ramp, the packed base of the runway, over the San Elijo Lagoon of Encinitas changed to enthusiastic joy. Although relations with the local government had always been less than smooth – normally because of concerns of what might happen if the airborne Montana Station would have come down on Encinitas, the population had always been supportive, and today they were nothing less than overjoyed.

          “So,” said Jonas Bu’Tan to Victor Martin, “finally, an alien ship lands on Earth by invitation.”

          Martin laughed. “And we built it! Our outpost at Mirsola One did a good job for us, didn't they? I never thought we'd pay slave wages to produce such great art. It really is a beautiful ship. Almost looks as good as LIBERTY 72 did when I first saw her...”

          Debbie Hernandez-Martin reached to hold her husband’s hand, knowing how difficult it was for Victor Martin to watch Earth lose so many jobs after the government had given private corporations no other choice. “Our friend Jonas Bu'Tan is no fool, Vic. He had to build at Spaceport Two, or not at all. Things are very tough these days.”

          “That’s not it,” her husband retorted. “It tears me apart that I can't sleep until I know what happened to LIBERTY 72. I should have never sent her on a glamorous mission so far out of communications range. All for the corporate bottom line and an image we were trying to project to draw investors... it's criminal what we did.”

          “They knew what they were getting into,” said Bu’Tan. “If they didn’t go, we would already be bankrupt. As it was, we had to close Montana Station and our Undersea Base.”

          “Frankly, Jonas, I don't owe a spendero of stock in your company. I know better. My future is secure, as I still own half of New Atlantis County on Mars.  You'll always have a place to stay if your daughter won't let you shack up with her. There are more important things in life than your stock quote. It’ll come and go. It’s not really that important. But this ship … I think that must be Captain Ferrando.”

          “It is,” said Debbie Hernandez-Martin who reached to give Ferrando a handshake, reluctant with so many cameras rolling in the distance to give her old friend a hug.

          “Hello, Debbie!” said Ferrando. “How ya’ been, girl?”

          “Well, no complaints. I get to see my husband every night and he gets to go out every day to have fun – as he calls it. Welcome back to Earth, my old friend. Captain Cynthia Esperanza Ferrando, this is your boss, Admiral Victor Martin.”

           “And as his wife, you are his boss?”

           “Technically, that would be this man, Liberty Enterprises President and CEO Jonas Bu'Tan.”

           Ferrando laughed. “So I can skip the take me to your leader line! Actually, I recognized Admiral Martin immediately. You didn't tell me you were married to such a famous celebrity! And glad to meet you, President Bu'Tan. You're from Olohenga, right?”

          “Actually,” Bu’Tan said as he greeted her warmly with a handshake and a hand atop her shoulder, knowing fully well that the skin he was touching was as non-biological as Joseph Carr’s bones. “I'm from Nairobi, actually.  My daughter is president of the Federation of Olohenga. That’s probably where the confusion exists.”

          “How charming! I apologize for my ignorance of Earth. I haven’t spent a lot of time here lately. don't spend a lot of time here. Which begs the question ... why were we asked to divert here on our maiden voyage? You may be my boss and the boss of my boss, but my real boss is Admiral Santini. And she's really upset at you, Admiral Martin, for ordering one of her ships off its assignment for a diversion to Earth.”

          “She’ll get over it,” said Martin, “once she finds out why we diverted LIBERTY 95 to Earth.  Besides, she may be the Admiral of our operation at Spaceport Two, but I'm still the Admiral of the Range Management Branch which has authority over the known and unknown Universe where Liberty Enterprises is concerned.”

           “I see your point,” said Ferrando. “That makes you her boss too.”

           “Victor, perhaps you should have explained to Admiral Santini why you brought Captain Ferrando and her ship more than four hundred Light Years off course,” offered his wife, Debbie. “If you were in Admiral Santini’s shoes you might be a bit upset, too.”

          “She'd call me crazy, Deb.”

          “Well,” said his wife, “You are playing a pretty wild hunch.”

          Ferrando addressed the couple. “Mind filling me in?”

          Bu’Tan was the one to answer after a long pause. “Let's just say there are some very strange things happening to humans around the galaxy, especially on the trade routes in a direction towards the Galactic Core.”

          “Care to be a little more specific?” asked Ferrando. “Can you put a finger on the cause?  Perhaps suggest a solution? I mean, we noticed the same thing, now that you mention it. But we thought it was just a passing regional fad. We humans haven't been out of the solar system for that long, really. I think it's just growing pains of a species trying to adjust to their new environment away from this solar system.”

          “We thought the same thing,” said Bu’Tan, “until we got a call from Sunshine Mining’s corporate office in Santa Barbara asking for our help on a cargo run out of Suaner 4. Their President Dan Brenner would rather die of starvation than ask for help from the company he's spent three years trying to ruin. It could just be economics. He has the most successful Strasium Ore facility in the galaxy. As that’s the substance that doesn’t exist naturally on Earth and is needed to make our hulls so strong, there's a huge demand for it. At the prices for Strasium Ore these days, there's no excuse for Sunshine Mining to hold it on the ground at Suaner 4, and now he’s calling us to move it for him.”

          “Sunshine Mining has all sorts of Superoptic-capable freighters,” said Ferrando. We passed four or five of them on the way into this Solar System.”

          “And they’re all in perfect condition,” said Victor Martin, “and they’re running empty but for the asteroid crunching business they still run out of Brenner Station in the Asteroid Belt. They can get to Suaner 4, but they won’t. Brenner hasn't moved a pebble off Suaner 4 for in months. Suddenly, he's asking for our help to clear some of his stockpiles. I don't know why he's having difficulty hiring his own transports, and he's offering us top dollar to make this run. They're also asking us to bring in as much seed grain as we can hold.”

          Ferrando was starting to visibly express her disappointment. “Wait – wait a minute. You’ve just invited humanity’s newest, fastest, most powerful unscratched ship in the galaxy here to accept a request to ferry wheat out and to haul rocks back?”

           “It’s not a request,” said Bu’Tan. “First of all, we really do need the business.”

           “But it’s a lot more than that,” added Victor Martin. “Brenner is basically President Bu’Tan an SOS by even talking to us. I expect you to enter the Suaner system with your EFFB on full and your TAF Weapons ready to light up the skies so brightly that in 625 years or so, I'll be able to see them from here – if needed. Make an Intelascan Pass first at Superoptic speeds, and then circle around to go Suboptic to enter orbit and dock with the station in geosynchronous orbit over the main city.”

           “Intelascan?” asked Ferrando.

           “It’s a new technique invented by Antonio DiNyro.”

           “Of LIBERTY 72 fame, Deb?” Ferrando asked.

           “Yes,” Hernandez-Martin answered. “It should be standard programming on the Survey Station – you just have to look for it. Basically it records all light-speed signals that ever made it into space from the planet or the station as you pass, reconstructs them in order and allows you to hear things over the last three years that they probably wouldn’t have said were a Liberty Enterprises ship there at the time. For best results you’ll need to be recording on both sides of the planet so pass high over one of the poles and you’ll probably get the best results.”

           “Is that legal?” asked Ferrando.

           “It’s not illegal,” Bu’Tan assured her. “And if you don’t mind, LIBERTY 72 hasn’t made contact yet – they’re six months overdue, so keep an eye out for them, please. Maybe 625 Light Years is the distance we need to bridge to finally talk with them.”

           “Frankly,” said Victor Martin, “we’re not holding out much hope.”

           “I’m Cynthia Esperanza Ferrando,” said the woman who was terribly injured in an on-board ship mishap when she saved others following an enemy attack on LIBERTY 81 during her maiden voyage two years ago. Her natural beauty had been restored in the most unnatural but effective of ways, as most of her skin was synthetic and much of the tissues in her limbs were entirely artificial. To an outside observer, even those who knew her before the accident, there were no signs this was ever an injured human. Inside, she was dealing with her mental scars quite well. “Hope is my middle name.”

* * *

LIBERTY 72

           By ‘command discretion,’ Captain Joseph Carr had decided that on her first hour back to work, First Officer Monique Rivers should have some private time with the full complement of Mission Control Crew, both the on-duty crew for all three shifts and those from the Second and Third Shift crew, should they desire to speak with her. They all did. Although she was never good in the role, her job in Liberty Enterprises had been in the personnel administration department, and if anyone could take legitimate or perceived grievances to anyone with the ear of Liberty Enterprises – not that it mattered at this point, it would be Monique Rivers, niece of the late Kevin Duncan and his living widow who still wielded tremendous influence over Liberty Enterprises. Based on the learning curve from her younger days when she did not handle the personnel management area with much finesse, she had actually developed into one of the best in that field, and Joseph Carr knew it. So, he realized that a frank, open discussion between his First Officer and the crew about the ship’s situation and how it came to be could only be a good thing, if only to allow the crew to vent and ease the mental stress they had endured with nothing short of heroism – so far. Once the ship had managed to get far enough way to avoid radiation and other immediate dangers, in a helium bubble still near the core, the ship was stopped at last for several months of repairs. Now it was officially overdue on Earth by months, but there would no no way Earth could find them and no way the ship could send a distress call to anyone. First Officer Rivers and Mission Historian Fioha Secowm, among others, had missed it all.

           Some time after that meeting in the Mission Control Center, delayed because perhaps this would be the last place Rivers would expect Carr to be, she finally found him. He was near the bottom of the ship, behind the Nosewheel storage compartment adjacent to one of the ship’s two large swimming pools. Kevin Duncan had insisted upon the multi-purpose function for every compartment on the ship, and what would otherwise be a pressurized cryogenic compressed fuel block expansion pool was literally just that – a swimming pool. But for the last few months, ever since LIBERTY 72 jettisoned its fuel rig at the Galactic Core, an injured Trucowl had been placed into the pool – not because of her injuries which healed rather quickly, but because the accident had caused her to become pregnant.

           “Good morning, sleeping beauty!” said Carr as he shook her hand and then gave her a quick but sincere hug.

           “Did you miss me as much as I missed you, Captain?”

           “More than you’ll ever know,” Carr replied. “I covered for you as best I could, but I had no idea you were so busy as First Officer.”

           “No, I mean, did you miss me?”

           “Yes,” said Carr. “We all did.”

           “I hear you came and visited me every day while I was in my coma in Sick Bay.”

           “Actually,” said Carr, “that was Antonio DiNyro. I think he’s taken a real liking for you.’”

           “Antonio?” she said as she smiled. “Have you ever been in his Apartment?”

           “No, can’t say I have.”

           “There are about 30 pictures on his bulkhead – all of him – plus the man in the mirror that he’s in love with. The only reason he would visit me is for emotional security. He can finally win arguments with me if I’m in a coma.”

           Carr laughed. “Well, all I can say is if he’s interesting to you at all, go for it. He sincerely loves you.”

           “I’ll put that on my to-do list that among other things includes fixing the screwed up First Officer’s organizational plan you left me with.”

           “Like I said,” said Carr, “sorry!” His mood suddenly became more somber. “So how did it go?”

           “Well, they’re not any happier about the situation than I am, that we’re halfway home – a good thing, but still 13,000 Light Years short of the first known source of water.”

           “Well we’ll find water on the way. We have to.”

           “Who told you that? Father Paul Alders?”

           “Supposedly, water can be found everywhere. But okay, we now know that Amelia Duncan suspected is correct – that molecules are rare and elements are abundant the closer one gets to the Galactic Core. But What if I would have turned the ship on any heading but back towards Earth? What if it is in some of the Globular Clusters that were within our reach back there?”

           “That’s the other thing the crew mentioned … how hard you’ve been beating up on yourself. Well I’m back. You have someone else to beat on you now – you can stop.”

           “I have 9 crew dead, Monique. Structural breaches in 17 compartments, and no chance to call for help.”

           “I’m sure we’ll be in range soon,” she said.

           “I guess they didn’t tell you that part,” said Carr. “The Dimensional Corridor Comms Antenna was sheared off when we dumped the rig.”

           “Wow,” she said. “Yes, that does complicate our problems, doesn’t it?”

           “Best we can hope is that when we get closer – much closer we can launch a Class A Survey Drone which does have DC Comms capabilities, but we’d have to know who’s on the other end, where they are, and let’s face it – those Drones don’t have very good range.”

           “And, we're on our second-to-last fuel block, going to our last one today.”

           “All we need is one good fuel source – just one – and we can top off our tanks and make it back,” said Carr. “Just shutting off the cryogenic tanks that holds the fuel blocks in compressed form will save some power.”

           “What do you have in mind, Mister Optimism?”

           “One of Antonio’s Class A Survey Drones has found a star system twelve hours ahead, charted as Gamsosa. There are definite readings of water on the third planet. The bad news is that with available fuel and power savings, we're still going to be borderline after slowing the ship to approach speeds to Gamsosa 3. It takes a lot of water to fuel the Linear Spike Engines.”

           “So based on what you said earlier, that would place Gamsosa about 17,000 Light Years out from Earth or only about a week out at ISM 1, plus or minus a few more fuel stops.”

           “17,064 Light Years to be exact, to be exact. You do know what borderline means, don’t you? It means we'll never reach Earth.”

           “Yes, in space if we lose propulsion we’ll just keep on going in a drift, forever. Sure, we can switch to solar power inputs to survive a while, but we’ll just be a powerless comet on whatever elliptical path the future would hold for us. We need to make sure we don’t blow it. Conservation is the key. There is, of course, one other alternative,” said Rivers.

           “Yes, we can try a gravitational assist in the Gamsosa system to slow and make a landing, eventually on Gamsosa 3 – but that could take months and our calculations of the gravimetric parameters would have to be spot-on.”

           “No, she said as she looked into the swimming pool tank, seeing a huge bloated alien in the hibernation natural for pregnant Trucowl females. “We have one other option.”

           “For now,” said Carr, “I'd rather not even think about it.  Yes, here is our Mission Historian, the ambassador to humans personally selected by the Queen of Trucowl 5. But Fioha is more valued here because she is a crewman, and a friend. We found through Fioha’s own notes in the event this contingency would ever happen that she has to be in beryllium-laced water for more than two Earth years in hibernation, and frankly I’m not sure that pool is going to be big enough for her. She’s already as big as a whale.”

           “I hope Fioha would not mind me passing this along,” said Carr, “but on Trucowl 5 I asked a lot of questions about Trucowls. When this ship landed atop that space elevator and we took that shuttle car down to the surface, there was one lake on the whole planet, near the city, made of beryllium-laced water. It was a sacred place, I was told, and it was teeming with life – life that looks very much like what Fioha looks like now. And so realizing what happened to her we knew to replicate that lake here - from notes she had left for us in the unlikely event it would ever happen.”

           “So that’s where all the pregnant Trucowl females go? To that lake?”

           “Yes.”

           “But I must be missing something here. Where did Fioha find time to sneak a Trucowl male into her quarters?”

           “The rite of becoming an adult is a transition between going from Stage One to Stage Two. By then, a Trucowl is already educated and working, and more than a hundred Earth years old. A chosen mate … contributes to something she calls her requillary, and his … contribution is alive and well in her body until her useful career is considered over at which time he conducts a rather violent ceremony considered to be of great pleasure to Trucowl females.”

           “So why not just do it the old fashioned way?”

           “Apparently the … male contribution must mature for decades in this requillary before the contribution can be put to use. Normally, rupture happens under an almost religious atmosphere filled with ceremony at the Trucowl lake. No doubt, this was actually Fioha’s intention. She is a hundred years shy of the normal age for her condition – this Stage Three. On her planet, her condition will no doubt expose her to ridicule and shame. Whatever happens at this ceremony, it causes the requillary to burst open, flooding her outer compartment.”

           “Her outer compartment?”

           “Trucowl females are born with two abdomens, the internal one and the outer one which is something between an egg sack and a uterus. It’s all inside out and backwards from human anatomy. All of the turbulence when we left the Galactic Core – the turbulence that put you into that coma – it also did this to her – caused her requillary to burst. Just look at her abdomen now. Her inner abdomen has tentacles to each of the baby Trucowls growing inside her outer abdomen, and from what I’ve heard Trucowls by now have already counted and named each of the offspring. If we remove the water from this tank, she’ll live, but all of her offspring will die.”

           “That’s all very fascinating from a scientific standpoint, Joe,” said Rivers, “but if push comes to shove, you should not be afraid to drain the water from the tank so we’ll have the fuel to get home.”

           “It’s not that easy, Monique. On Trucowl 5, I was told that when a female hatches offspring, there are hundreds, if not thousands of lives born as a result. Do I want to sacrifice that many lives for a few hundred humans unless there's no choice?”

           “You may have to make that choice, since if we lose our fuel source, we’ll lose our power source needed to find food - in time. And once that happens, and once this ship and everybody on it becomes the temperature of the cold of space, she and her offspring won’t survive, either.”

           “Agreed,” said Carr, as he led her away from Fioha Secowm’s tank. “but so far, that hour has not arrived, and until it does, I will let her hibernate in peace. By the way … welcome back.”

* * *

           12 hours had passed on the ship as Rivers and Carr met again, on the balcony behind their elevated stand-alone deck of the Command Moat, a stand-alone 3-story structure atop a foundation housing the much thinner centralized hardware of the ship’s central computers.

           “Suboptic at last”, said Carr as he watched the new presentation of the huge hemisphere surrounding them, better known as the Botany Lab. After all of these months, the Tunnel Ratio Speed Engines had only been turned off once before - in the helium bubble they had discovered near the core, where the ship was for months of repairs. They were finally off again and the ship was suddenly traveling towards Gamsosa 3 at 0.25c. Now, a great deal of remaining water would be used in a controlled long-burn deceleration intended to maximize the availability of what little fuel remained on the ship. Two forward-facing Linear Spike Engines were already coming to life, yet at only a fraction of their noise usually heard at much higher chamber pressure settings.

           This upper level of the “Command Moat” contained their crew Apartments, a shared bathroom facility, and access to computer control consoles on the deck below them and it also led to the segregated Emergency or Auxiliary Mission Control Center above them meant for use in only the most dire of circumstances. There were back-up units for critical systems scattered throughout the ship, but only here, in the 3-foot tall cramped deck seemingly squished under the deck below them were the storage facilities for the tremendous wealth of tremendous data of stored sensor observations over the years. While the frame of data was sometimes approaching that of analog in bit data length approaching the known length of pi (π) at processing speeds approaching the speed of light, for some systems sometimes two bits were still the most efficient – the condition was either 0 for off or 1 for on. Yet the technology allowed for the marvel that still amazed Joseph Carr that made great use of what many still considered to be a great waste of valuable real estate in space. Surrounding the Command Moat, besides a lot of air that could be used periodically for games as gravity could be turned down and the crew could jump as if they were flying was a huge hemisphere. The bottom of the dome was a grass-filled circle complete with access to sidewalks. Within the hemisphere itself was a video display made of the most fascinating use of nanotubes that not only projected any environment designed, but allowed depth. For instance a bird could appear to be standing five feet away from an observer, and as a person would walk from left to right, the stationary bird would appear to move in the opposite direction. It was true 3-D technology.  The normal settings for the display were an artificial Earth, with twilight, a sun from starboard to port circling with varying inclination day to day – a sun programmed to give life light and heat to the grass and people upon it, sunset and then twilight, mixed in with the occasional thunderstorm to keep people as close to the reality of Earth as possible, plus water for the plants and grass, and then the night sky, which was nothing but the view of the outside of the ship, shown in optical bands and with safe radiation and brightness levels, as if the crew were viewing the outside environment from within a glass hemisphere as if the rest of the ship weren’t even there.

           That was then. After the tragedy in leaving the Galactic Core, as the artificial sun and rain, and the deep blue sky had disappeared. The view from here, 24 shipboard hours a shipboard day was that of the outside Universe. There would be no water going to the grass or plants in the last six months, and evaporated water molecules would be removed from the air and processed as fuel. This was now one very dry room with rooms within it. “You were right,” said Rivers. “You really did turn this place into Halloween in Nevada.”

           “Too bad I didn’t bring along any sand spur plants. I had forgotten all about it being Halloween back on Earth. That explains all of those All Saints and All Souls bulletins Father Paul has been sending around in email.”

           “Indeed,” said Rivers. “It’s going to be a dusty mess if we ever lose gravity on the ground. Shouldn’t we move the dirt somewhere more safe?”

           “Let’s take care of more important needs first,” said Carr, “and it might not be necessary.”

           “This really is our last chance, isn’t it?” asked Rivers.

           “I’d prefer to look at it as our last known chance.”

           “Captain Optimism. First Officer Realism asks: What about the three Large Landing Shuttles?”

           “They won’t be much help. That’s where we got the fuel to send out so many Class A Survey Drones. LLS Alpha and LLS Charlie are drained, as are the source transfer pipes. That leaves only LLS Bravo. I really don't think I missed anything. The crew is on water rations, and even the sewers are being distilled for fuel.”

           “Wouldn’t ya say a lot of thirsty humans might be a little upset that Fioha Secowm is taking a bath in the majority of our remaining water?”

           “Your point is?”

           “Joe, throw some guards on the tank.  I know how greedy people think, and I know how desperate people think. I've been both. People will lose their nobility when things really get bad around here. This place may turn into a dogpound of insanity.”

           “You don’t really think that …”

           “Captain Carr,” came the voice of Antonio DiNyro on the speaker of his personal portable computer. “We need you up here … now.”

* * *

          Carr and Rivers entered the Mission Control Center together. “Okay, let’s have it,” he said.

          DiNyro was clearly exasperated as he moved from the Command Chair back to his Survey Station as a relief vacated it to depart the Mission Control Center. “Captain, now that we’re in range with our own sensors, we can see what the Class A Survey Drones missed. Every sensor on the ship is telling me the same thing.”

          “What?”

          “We … we can’t go to Gamsosa 3.” It was the announcement of doom.

          “Why not?”

          DiNyro responded by accessing a computerized recreation from several bands of observation that simulated actual conditions on the planet, but with better resolution and in more bands than the human eye could see. It was badly a badly damaged, cratered, soot-covered and dead landscape. There were dried up ponds that used to be oceans, and the poisoned air was not only as unbreathable as air at the mouth of an active volcano, but it was also registering fatal doses of radiation by several factors. “Based on what I've been able to decipher from the spectrum analysis of the atmosphere, about four Earth years ago, this planet was attacked and totally destroyed.”

           “And the Survey Drones never got within four Light Years?” asked Rivers.

           “Exactly,” said DiNyro. “Not even cockroaches could have survived the attack. It's still so poisoned and irradiated that any fuel we picked up would kill us.”

           “Just our luck,” said a defeated Joseph Carr. “What if we send down LLS Bravo via remote control … closed-loop guidance and set up a distilling plant to evaporate the water? It may take a lot of runs and what would seem like forever, but eventually we'd have enough fuel to move on.”

           “Not a chance,” said DiNyro. “Contamination from LLS Bravo would be so bad you'd never want it anywhere near this ship. It's that bad. Take every weapon used in our first five world wars, multiply it by a five hundred, and light them off at once on a planet. That is the type of damage that hit Gamsosa 3 a few years ago. It will take centuries before we can land there. Probably a lot longer than that.”

          “If you haven’t figured it out yet, Antonio,” said Rivers as she studied the adjacent Engineering Console, “we don’t have Centuries. We have four hours and six minutes worth of fuel left.”

          “You’re not crawling in the corner in the fetal position, Antonio,” said Carr. “So you must have a Plan B. Let’s have it.”

          “Well, there is that second moon of Gamsosa 3 that looks very interesting to our sensors. There’s an ice cap on the North Pole of Gamsosa 3B - the second moon - that looks like a healthy mixture of carbon dioxide and water. I can't explain why it's there, since the atmosphere is very thin and most of the moon looks like something between Earth's moon and Mars. Better than that, the sheet of ice has sealed in a huge amount of liquid water, and it must be thick enough to hold down a lot of pressure. Unfortunately I don’t know how hard it’s going to be to get under that ice without releasing that pressure under us and causing a huge volcano to throw us away whether we want to leave the moon or not. We'll cause a lot of the ocean under the ice to evaporate if we break the pressure seal holding the water where it is.”

          “That sounds very much like Europa,” noted Rivers, “but on a much smaller scale. We found life there, so we might find life on Gamsosa 3B too.”

          “I’m not so worried about killing native animals and plants,” said Carr. “Soon enough the ice would freeze and seal the ocean. What bothers me is if you look at the ice crystals and water deposits frozen in the permafrost, all with crater marks leading back to that Moon. We won’t be the first ones through. Someone laid waste to the main planet. Why would that 2^nd Moon escape such a thorough attack? There might be some very unfriendly life forms lurking in that ocean...maybe even those responsible for the attack.” Carr turned to the Pilot Station. “Julie, set in a new approach script, and account for the need to use Vapor Thrusters to put us down safely on the north pole of that moon.”

          “No problem,” said Perkins, but I was just thinking, shouldn’t we reserve some power for the TAF Weapons, if what you suspect is true?”

          “No, Miss Perkins,” said Carr as he sat at the Command Stations. “Whatever did that to Gamsosa 3, if they’re now under the Ice Sheet on the North Pole of Gamsosa 3B, will not find our magnificent arsenal of weapons to be much of a threat to them.”

          * * *

           LIBERTY 72 made the adjustment to divert to Gamsosa 3B, but doing so drained the fuel to the point that quantities were so low that they were virtually immeasurable. Technically, according to the readings, they were already on empty. Every last option to save fuel was critical now. “Antonia,” Carr said as he turned to his Engineering Officer, “Antonia, adjust the Inertial Stabilizers to let half a g of force to bleed through, ship wide. Turn the gravity off.” Within a second the entire ship became weightless, and he turned to his First Officer sitting at the Weapons Console. “Let’s all get into EVA Suits. Once you have a complete crew roster but for Fioha, shut off life support ship-wide but for Fioha’s tank.”

           It was not much of an effort for the crew of the Mission Control Center to suit up and don their EVA Suits for they were hidden beneath each station’s chair, with spares available in a locker embedded behind one of the walls if needed. Today they would not be needed. Once Rivers got word that the entire crew but for Fioha Secowm was living inside spaceships within the larger spaceship, the life support to the ship, including primary lightning was turned off. All power was now supplied through the Solar Capacitors gaining energy from the solar collectors at the base of the twin elevarudder fins. As designed, secondary power gave adequate lighting to the consoles and power to the attached controls, even if light and power were misleading words for the consoles as they were all based on fiber optics without any power or metal wires in them. The whole Mission Control Center could flood and they would continue to work without incident. The days of sparks flying from consoles were long gone. With the ship’s gravity off, they floated into their seats, and without being told to do so, strapped themselves in via the harness straps designed to keep them there.

           “We’re now in gravitational capture,” announced Perkins as the ship was inserted directly into a low altitude, slow orbit over moon Gamsosa 3B. “LSE Pods off. Trimming with Vapor Thrusters to hold attitude. We’re going about a hundred miles an hour now, on a descent that should have us over the North Pole at a hundred and fifty miles an hour.”

           “We’ll play it by ear when we get there,” said Carr as he could not help but marvel at Perkins’ skills. “Just in case we lose all fuel, how long will it take to get water out of Fioha’s tank and into the CAR Processor?”

           “You waited too long,” announced Antonia DiNyro. “With all that beryllium in the water it will take a while just to distill it – probably half an hour after we hit the North Pole it will be ready.”

           “So once we lose our last fuel supplies, that’s it.”

           “Yes, Captain,” said Antonia DiNyro, “that’s it. The good thing is, the only thing we’ll need fuel for now is for Inertial Stabilizers and to light up the Vapor Thrusters to slow us to a smooth landing on the North Pole, and if needed to maintain an approach attitude.”

           “Don’t worry about the approach attitude,” said Perkins. “There isn’t a lot of atmosphere on this moon, but it will be good enough for attitude control at lower altitudes.”

           “Excellent,” said Carr. “So if we lose Vapor Thrusters, we can still count on LIBERTY 72 making a nice sled as we land with the Landing Pods in the up, retracted position.”

           Perkins turned around to face his suited figure with hers. “You can’t be serious.”

           “It’s only a hundred and fifty miles per hour,” said Carr. “Besides, if we lose fuel, Antonia knows to throw the Inertial Stabilizers to the Solar Capacitors.”

           “Yes,” the Chief Engineer said, “that I do. But we don’t know if we’re going to land on a nice smooth Green beginners slope or if the North Pole is corrugated to a Black Diamond. We’ve never been here before. Remember?”

           “We’ll be fine,” said Carr as he watched the lifeless moon’s surface get closer and appear to move faster as the ship continued to lose altitude. The mountain peaks that periodically crossed under the ship too closely for his comfort – that was his concern. “Let’s all say our prayers.” His First Officer, an avowed Agnostic, turned around just long enough for Carr to see her roll her eyes. “Don’t worry, Monique,” he said. “I’ll pray enough for both of us.”

* * *

           Several minutes later, the shadows grew longer and the landscape dimmer as the ship approached the North Pole of Gamsosa 3B, an area apparently eternally deprived of sunlight. “Holding at one-seventy true airspeed, eight hundred feet. We're still too hot on speed.”

           “Bring the nose up a little using Vapor Thrusters,” ordered Carr. “Not too far, though. In this atmosphere we don't want to slam the ship's front down so hard we roll over.”

          “My thoughts exactly,” said Perkins as she punched the commands for the forward underside Vapor Thrusters to fire. “No response, Captain. That’s it. We’re now officially completely out of fuel. Instead, I’m going to use the elevon to see if we can get some positive Alpha … and enough lift to clear that mountain range ahead of us.”

          “Just not too much lift,” said Antonio DiNyro. “Our target is right on the other side of it.”

          “Understood,” said Perkins as she navigated the ship to clear, by only dozens of feet the last mountain range. Perkins then flared the ship to a bottom-first flight pattern to rapidly slow using air brake techniques. She had the nose closer to level just in time. “Airspeed one twenty. Fifty feet to touchdown, thirty feet, ten feet...touch...”

          The vehicle experienced a violent landing as the bottom part of the ship struck a rocky ice sheet the ship would not avoid, perhaps sticking up thirty feet above the surrounding ice sheet. When it finally came to a stop the nose struck the ice with the energy to punch right through it. The ship quickly sank through the ice, and the predicted volcano of snow rushed into the atmosphere above the water, but not at speeds necessary to push the ship back through the surface.

          “We have no controls,” said Perkins as she unstrapped. “I quit!” she said in her usual jest.

           “Better get back in your seat, Julie,” said Antonia DiNyro. “We’ve also lost Inertial Stabilizers and it might be a rough landing when we hit the bottom. Captain Carr, it’s an overloaded command module processor relay. As soon as we settle down, I’ll take care of it.” Perkins sat and replaced her harness straps to protect her.

           “Where is the source of the damage?” asked Carr.

           “It’s in the area where Fioha’s tank was,” replied Antonia DiNyro.

           “Was?” asked Rivers.

           “That section buckled, just as its designed to do. A design flaw for a while it was split wide open. Now I only have to deal with fixing seams on a few hull plates, but I don’t have any internal sensor readings that Fioha’s even in the tank. She might have been ejected in the hull breach.”

           “Julie, use Capacitor power to lower the Landing Pods. We need to protect the bottom from further damage.”

           “Landing Pods down and locked,” said Perkins.

           “Brace for impact … any second now,” said Antonio DiNyro. Rivers passed the command on to everyone on the ship. And within seconds, the ship rocked with violent force as LIBERTY 72 landed right side up on the ocean floor. What little gravity was experienced by the crew came from the Moon Gamsosa 3B, which the ship was now touching.

           “Sensors, Antonio,” said Carr. “Where is Fioha?”

           “External sensors still off-line, for the reasons my twin sister stated. Should have them back up in short order.”

           “The good news is,” said his twin sister, “The Landing Pods have shock absorbers in them and they are now on the bottom – not embedded in the bottom. We have struck a rock floor. We’re in as good a position here as we can expect to begin fueling operations.”

           “Do it,” said Carr, “after we’ve found Fioha.”

           “I think I’ve just found her,” said Perkins as she pointed forward out the front transparency of the Mission Control Center. Illuminated by light allowed to exit, a much thinner Fioha Secowm was touching the transparency, waving to the crew to get their attention, almost without any of the trademark Trucowl illumination to call her own. She was trailing what appeared to be dozens of feet of shredded skin, which she was pulling free with the pain of an Earth human pulling off his or her own skin. In seconds, she was free and the much thinner Trucowl came over the overhead transparency and into the airlock behind the Mission Control Center, at the unpowered Sun Deck.

           Once Fioha Secowm was inside the airlock at the back of the MCC, the water was replace by ship’s air as Life Support systems came back online but for gravity and the crew restowed their EVA Suits. Carr still could not believe her new appearance, as she was in a rare display somewhere between dark violet and brown, colors he had never seen with a Trucowl. He knew that in the light gravity she would not be needing her snow skis – her specially designed gravity neutralizers, so he brought her into the Mission Control Center. “Fioha! I’m glad you’re alive!”

           “And I you as well,” she replied.

           “Your offspring?”

           “They could not survive the cold, fresh water. None of my hatchlings survived.”

           “I’m so sorry, Fioha. On behalf of humanity, you have our most sincere …”

           “Captain Joe, I need to speak with you as soon as possible of matters of galactic importance.”

           “The galaxy will have to wait. I'm ordering you to go to Sick Bay. Based on everything I've read about Trucowls you're in a state of deep shock - a life-threatening shock - and the sooner you go to Sick Bay, the better for all of us.”

           “I will be fine. My hatchings will not. I will adapt and overcome, Captain Joe. There is no need for you to waste your breath on sentiments. Not long ago I heard you and First Officer Rivers near my tank as you discussed my fate, and your sentiments are known and appreciated.”

           “You weren’t in hibernation?” asked First Officer Monique Rivers.

           “Trucowls don't dream when we sleep. We are still aware of our surroundings. But don't worry, you were right, First Officer Rivers. Captain Joe’s concern for me and my hatchlings, while touching, was out of place considering the danger the ship was in. Captain Joe, I am in no position to give you orders, but here is one I must give you. I am a mere commoner, a simple exchange student to humanity. You are never to place your ship into danger again on my behalf. What I must tell you will lead you to know that the danger for this ship is not over – it is just beginning.”

           “My orders will prevail, Fioha. Get to Sick Bay while we fuel the ship and repair what we can here,” said Carr. “Whatever it is that you have to tell me, it can wait until we're ready to leave and do something more than sit here.”

           “I suppose you're right,” said Secowm.

           “Excellent. Antonia, when will we be ready to leave?”

           “We’ll need to send some EVA Teams out to repair the hull seam ruptures, and we can’t do that while we’re fueling. So, twelve for fueling plus six for that – about eighteen hours.”

           “Excellent,” said Carr. “Fioha, I'll get you to Sick Bay for eighteen shipboard hours. Then we'll go save the galaxy together.”

* * *