1. Max Gomez-Velasco
“Twenty years ago, Terra screamed,” the director said.
“Every light-radio channel lit up with as many desperate voices speaking in as many desperate languages as could fit in the nigh-unregulated electromagnetic radio spectrum. The quantum telegraphs flipped out of control, spitting out message after message. The New Solar Militia had unleashed something terrible, something beyond scientific understanding, and then they were gone.
“A few more warpships faded in on the outer edges of the Carina system, packed full to the brim with desperate people fleeing the cradle of humanity, but then they stopped coming.
“Over a decade later, with very little understanding of what happened back in the ancestral home of our species, the authorities of Carina ordered everything that could pick up a radio signal point at the dim little star named Sol. As the photons finished their fifteen light-year journey to Carina, they stopped coming too.
“Sol winked into darkness.” He let the weight of those words rest on the heads of everyone in attendance for a moment before continuing, “Any expedition there to examine what might remain has reported the exact same thing: nothing.”
The auditorium was silent. The stinging void in space where Sol and Earth used to be was also stinging the minds of every human that sat in the arched rows, silently twiddling pens and styluses in the shared remembrance of the event. Some here were children on the warpships that fled.
“So, that leaves the children of Terra scattered,” Director Yakovich announced finally. He let the room stew in the mock funeral for Earth as long as he could bear. “We’ve had infrequent contact with the other three colonies, very little trade, and definitely not any academic or scientific exchange.
“So that’s where you come in.” He clicked the remote in his hand, and the lights fade up on the simple auditorium. The black walls behind him were lined with screens that duplicated his image and banners for the Carinaean Republic, waving lightly in the recirculated air. “You captains and vice-captains assembled here are to dispatch on a mission of good-will diplomacy, to reconnect humanity and rebuild the infrastructure that Sol was maintaining.”
My commpad beeped, one in a small and quiet chorus of other devices alerting their owners.
“Each of you is receiving a ship to command, a small crew, and as many resources as you may need. Your command is hereby reorganized, by authority of the Carinaean Council of Ministers, into Special Detachment Gold Wing, under the Carinaean Interstellar Corps.” The director paused, adjusted his uniform, and continued, “I am your fleet commander and therefore your point-of-contact with Carina. If you run into unforeseen difficulties that are not outlined in the mission briefs you’ve been sent, you are to q-telegraph me at once.”
The director set down the remote on a desk in the center of the room. “You depart in twenty-two hours. Dismissed.”
There was a rumble of personal items being collected, chairs being pushed in and out, commpads waking up, and voices of people in several languages as they all collectively spread out towards the exits.
Sophie looked at me, “Well, Captain Max,” she said lightheartedly. “I have to go hire a cat-sitter. I’ll meet you at the docks?”
“Agreed, Vice-captain,” I said. “Twenty-two hours.”
She smiled and picked up her heavy faux-leather coat. A rainbow of patches from various ships and missions were arranged on its back, and as she draped it over her arm it appeared as if she was wearing the patches more than the coat.
The city of New Luksemburg did not sprawl, it climbed. The gravity of Carina, seven-tenths of a G, enabled grand towering structures that defied the ground. Rail-shuttles magnetically climbed and descended massive buildings before making ninety-degree turns and venturing out on hair-thin monorails over the canyon-like multi-level parkways hundreds of stories below. Three hundred years ago, the very first colonists set out from Earth and Mars on purpose-built ships and landed them here, dismantled them, and built the very first shelters on this world. Over the course of several generations, the atmosphere was made breathable and the original Carinaean colony was labeled a monument to human cooperation, ingenuity, and determination. Now, in the scale of what Carinaeans have built, they look like nothing more than tiny bronze-colored statues.
Waiting on a rail-shuttle platform, I stood hunched over my commpad, trying to read the sim screen in the bright red sunlight that washed over everything.
Ship: CIC Verdant.
Awesome.
Command: Maximillion Gomez-Velasco
They always have to use my full name, don’t they?
Vice-Captain: Sophie Paradiso
If it was anyone else, I’d riot.
Chief Engineer: Parker Burnham
No clue. I hear he’s good, though.
Chief Helmsman: Rosa Huang.
Fresh out of the Interstellar Corps Academy, apparently. File suggests high proficiency but very quiet. We’ll see.
A rail-shuttle slides up flush against the granite-gray pavement of the platform, and a couple young kids sprint off the shuttle, apparently racing one another into the park below, screaming and laughing the whole way. I sidle my way on board and hang onto a handrail as the shuttle emits a soft electronic chime and accelerates away.
This rail-shuttle is on the Blue Line, terminating in Haymarket. The next stop is Anchor Center. Thank you for riding the Carina Central Transit System.
And like this, I rode from the downtown core southwards to my home: a public housing development in the shoddily-constructed neighborhood of Haymarket. Not that the buildings themselves are shoddy. The entire city has survived a number of earthquakes with the only damage being a number of toppled-over drink glasses. The shoddiness manifests itself in its street layout.
It was the first neighborhood to be constructed after the terraforming project had generated a breathable atmosphere, creating incentive for walkable streets and tight, homely alleyways separate from the canned air of a rail-shuttle’s air-tight cab. Now, with New Luksemburg’s increased population and the higher density brought on by that, the once squat little apartment buildings grew into massive towers. Balconies overlook into the thin, twisty, narrow walkways between buildings, and neighbors span clotheslines with colorful clothes and sometimes friendly messages to the entire community in a variety of languages.
As I step off the rail-shuttle, I meander through the lower level shops, the smell of food and coffee floats lightly through the afternoon light. Kids weave between a group of four older women talking gossip, playing catch in the narrow confines of the brick and mortar constructions. The newer constructions, build immediately on top of the initial apartment buildings that were the first in the neighborhood, continue the stone brick architectural style for another hundred stories.
I duck around a street vendor and enter the lobby for my building. Moving slowly through the cramped confines, I enter the elevator and press my floor. Beside me is the older woman that lives the floor below me, Esme, who speaks with the half-abbreviated accent of Jovia.
“‘Ola, Capitán,” She says quickly. “I saw on the news, yer meetin’ with the Mantonians?”
“Well, we’re meeting with all the colonies, but yes, we’ll be going to Mantos,” I reply, forcing a smile.
“Well, yer best shootin’ ‘em out of the damned sky,” she growls before whispering under her breath, “Malditos fuckin’ fascistas.”
I chuckle a little. “They should let you run the diplomatic corps.”
She shoots a glare at me before releasing a loud, hearty laugh that fills the elevator.
Ding. The door slides open.
She begins to waddle slowly through the door, both hands full of groceries. She stops halfway out the door. I hold the elevator door as it begins to close.
She turns and says, “But really, don’t b'lieve them.” Her tone could be deadly if she wasn’t holding baking ingredients.
The door mechanism tries again at closing, blocked by my hand. “Thank you, Ms. Esme,” I say. She smiles.
I let the door close and the elevator begins its quiet ascent again, briefly, before dinging again. One floor up. The doors open into a little hallway, two windows on both ends, and two doors on either side of the hall. There are two apartments here, I live in the one next to the elevator. I swing around the corner, dress shoes squeaking on the tile floor, and press my wallet against the card reader. The door clicks open and reveals home.
The lobby is only narrow because it has to share the ground floor with the entrances to several other neighboring tower blocks, but up here in the sky I can stretch my legs. A simulated fireplace that I don’t use is on the far wall, two desks both covered in the detritus of their work: one covered in papers and folders emblazoned with the Carinaean Interstellar Corps, and the other covered in various half-forgotten hobby projects; model building, there’s a data stick in there somewhere with a half-finished novel I tried to write, various dinner recipes I never bought ingredients for.
My civilian clothes are draped over the dresser I store them in and my uniforms hang neatly in a closet with the door half-ajar. The mug that held my coffee this morning joins a small army of other coffee cups near the sink. Distinguished in the line of duty in the Expeditionary Force and now I’m doing the dishes.
The glamorous life of a captain of the Interstellar Corps, but I don’t think I’d have it any other way.
This is Chapter 1 of my new writing project, I hope you enjoyed it :)
I'll be updating this infrequently, as I work on it, as I'm happy with what I manage to write down. If you want to keep up with me, my website is discfla.me, and my twitter account is @DiscflameMusic.
