Henrietta suddenly stood up and began walking around the galley, not sure where to go. She looked as though she had energy to burn but no idea how to use it up.
“Arietta, what’s wrong?” Peter asked.
“Antares is six hundred light-years away?”
“If I remember right,” Peter replied.
“So the voyage out took three years. That means I’m seventeen already!”
“Ha! Missed your sixteenth birthday and never been kissed,” Stiles taunted.
“You mean I’m a teenager already?” Jimmy asked.
“Well, we won’t know for sure how old we are until we find a solid referent,” Ali suggested. “But I’d bet money on it. Hey,” he suddenly exclaimed, “that makes me seventeen too!”
The kids pondered their plight and all the time they had missed.
“Don’t worry, Henrietta,” Perry offered. “I am 540 years old by now and have yet to be kissed either.”
* * *
Stiles spent the afternoon transferring the stores of food from the courier back onto the ship. He readily agreed to complete the chore alone because he admitted it was his fault the stuff was there in the first place. He apologized for causing such a stir, and for insisting on using the shuttle. Henrietta was impressed, and mentioned something about him actually starting to act like a human being. Whatever that meant, he thought. In actuality, Stiles volunteered to get away from the others and access the ship privately again through the courier’s remote com station. He input a manual message to the ship again, being extra sure his request could not be overheard. Can’t be too careful, he realized.
“Private communication initiated,” Perry replied.
Stiles thought for a moment about exactly what to say. “As you know, we will not be abandoning you.”
“For which I am appreciative, Stiles,” Perry said.
“Uh-huh; and I had a lot to do with that decision.”
“Oh, I did not know that. My records indicate several conversations where you adamantly suggested utilizing the shuttle as an escape vehicle.”
“Like any good commander, I was keeping all options open. Peter actually suggested the shuttles first, when you were still inoperable. I disagreed, but like I said, it is important to consider all available options.”
“That is understandable. I appreciate you … what is the term? Standing up for me.”
“That’s all right. I’m glad to help. You remember what I said before about seniority.”
“Of course, Stiles.”
“Good. There’s another protocol I must discuss with you. The Academy is insistent on certain … security requirements.”
“I am aware of several security protocols. Would you care for me to list them?”
“No, that won’t be necessary. But there’s a special one called the Commander’s Prerogative that is not listed in the manuals for compartmental secrecy. I am choosing to utilize one now.”
“Understood, Stiles,” Perry replied.
“I order you to keep these conversations secret from all the others. We’ll be having several more sessions like this as well. Nothing from these talks can be leaked out for maximum security reasons.”
“Accepted.”
“Very good. We’ll get along splendidly, then. Terminate external connection.”
Stiles smiled. His plan was working wonderfully.
* * *
Jimmy, Ali, Henrietta, and Peter met outside the galley at 1800 hours. As they entered they saw Stiles already there, imperiously telling everyone to sit down. Amazingly, he was volunteering to prepare the night’s supper. Jimmy looked on suspiciously, wondering what nefarious plan Stiles had in mind. The new arrivals reluctantly took their seats and watched in wonder as Stiles hummed a tune at the main processor. No one said a word for five minutes.
“You need a hand over there?” Henrietta finally asked.
“No, I got it. Just relax,” Stiles replied.
Henrietta glanced at Peter and shrugged her shoulders. Wide-eyed, she silently shook her head and mouthed ‘I have no idea.’
Peter tried to contain himself, but the more he tried, the harder it was. He broke out in laughter, causing everyone else at the table to lose control as well. Soon, everyone was giggling so hard they could hardly catch their breath.
“What?” Stiles asked, turning around.
“Nothing,” Peter replied. “Just wondering who you are, and what you did with Stiles.”
“Funny,” Stiles replied deadpan. He turned back to his brewing concoction. “Try to do a favor, and see what it gets you.”
“Oh, don’t let us stop you,” Henrietta interjected. “You’re doing just fine.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Stiles said dejectedly. It looked as though he was about to give up, as he placed the massive spoon down on the countertop.
“Actually, it smells pretty good,” Henrietta observed.
“I can cook, you know.” Encouraged, Stiles turned and went back to his duties. Several minutes later, Stiles juggled four plates over to the waiting crew, proudly displaying something resembling lasagna, smothered in rich, creamy cheese.
Ali looked down longingly at his plate. “You did this?”
“Yeah.” He went back to the processor and brought over a plate for himself. He warily sat down next to Ali.
Ali put his head over the steaming food and drank in the aroma, with his eyes contentedly closed.
Everyone waited for Stiles to begin, but Stiles graciously motioned to their plates instead. “Go ahead and try it,” he offered.
Ali did not need to be asked twice. He ceremoniously picked up his fork and sawed off a crispy corner of flat noodles and bubbling cheese. He raised the heaping fork to his mouth, closed his lips around it, and slipped the food slowly off the utensil. Ali’s eyes closed again as he chewed. “This is …” Ali nodded his head slowly, smiling softly and making sure he finished chewing before finishing his sentence. “… really good ….”
Taking their cues from the culinary expert, the others quickly tore into their dinners. “Wow,” Henrietta exclaimed, fanning the hot food inside her mouth. “Stiles, you dog. You’ve been holding out on us.”
Stiles blushed at the compliment as he tried his portion. “Eh, it’s okay. Not as good as my mom’s, though.”
“Gee, I wish I’d tried hers, then,” Jimmy replied. “This stuff is Italian, right? I’ve never had Italian.”
“Uh-huh,” Stiles answered. “My grandma back on New Capital used to cook this all the time. I only wish I knew how to make hard bread. It’s no good without it.”
“Who needs bread,” Peter exclaimed, scrapping up the last morsel of food. “If I had a wish, I’d wish for more of this.”
“Me too,” Ali said dreamily. He had not looked so satisfied since they left the base.
Stiles waited until Henrietta finished her meal before he dared move. He got up and collected their plates, “Wait until you see what’s for dessert,” he bragged.
“There’s more?” Jimmy asked. “I thought we were on rations.”
“We are,” Stiles replied, “but this is a special occasion.”
“Occasion? Which one?” Peter asked suspiciously.
Stiles bent down and pulled a chocolate cake from the warming oven. “Well, between the five of us, we’ve missed fifteen birthdays in our journey out here—assuming Peter Pan knows what he’s been talking about, of course.” He sat the small cake down on the table between his companions. “So, I figured this could be a communal birthday celebration. I used a little of Lieutenant Wilkins’ chocolate.”
It looked more like a large cupcake than a true birthday cake, but it did look good.
“Good idea,” Henrietta said. A trace of a smile formed on Stiles’ face, but was gone as soon as it appeared.
“You know,” Ali pondered out loud, “Stiles brings up a good point. Let’s assume we did take five hundred years to get here. That would make this Year 500, so this isn’t Y
ear 1 after all.”
“Always the engineer,” Henrietta complained. “So shouldn’t we just add five hundred years and call it 2865?”
Ali shook his head, “We’ll never be exactly sure how far we travelled until we return to the Colonies, or at least fix on a solid reference point. So saying it is 2865 is assuming too much accuracy. Anyway, we need to establish an identity of our own, so let’s celebrate Year 500 too.”
“Plus,” Stiles added as an afterthought, “we might as well celebrate getting away from Antares in one piece.”
“Huh,” Ali replied, “I guess being alive is a good enough cause to celebrate.”
Henrietta began leading the group in a birthday song, with Ali and Jimmy reluctantly joining in. Peter’s chin sank to his chest as he gazed at the table.
Henrietta stopped singing. Soon, the others stopped too. “What’s wrong, Peter?” she asked.
Peter stared at the cake, teary-eyed. He took a deep breath, trying to compose himself.
“Peter?” Henrietta persisted.
“I half-convinced myself my dad might have survived that attack. But I just realized nobody we know back home is still alive, whether they survived the attack or not. Not even my mom. Probably not even any of the kids of anyone we knew. They can’t be after five hundred years.” After sulking for three heartbeats, Peter began laughing dryly.
“And what’s so funny now,” Stiles asked.
Peter smirked a final time. “Just thinking,” he replied, “the amount of time we’ve been gone? Go back that same amount of time before we left, and the English Colonies in the New World on Old Earth were just a recent memory. Steamboats were the thing of the day.”
Stiles stared at Peter. “You sure know how to spoil a party.”
“Sorry.”
“That’s alright,” Henrietta added, “I hadn’t really thought much about that either until now.” She suddenly looked almost as sad.
“Yeah, well,” Stiles said, “the survivors continue on. That’s life. Live with it.” He produced a knife out of thin air and cut the small cake into five equal pieces. The kids ate their treat in silence, not mentioning how good it really was.
* * *
“No, Henrietta, I believe the best way to view this is by assuming secondary backups will override primary defaults.”
Perry was currently in a heated debate with Henrietta over emergency scenarios. The present one was similar to what they experienced after leaving K-T-space, but in this case due to a missile strike. She suggested Perry’s link to consciousness was impaired and asked how the crew could keep the ship in operation.
Ali installed a firewall so Perry would lose the ability to shut down ship systems unless he was able to input a random pass code that changed every three milliseconds. The software was accessible to Perry on an external link, and as long as he was fully functional he could retrieve the current number and reinitialize his access to operations. If the numbers differed, Perry would be closed off from the supervisory data access, thus turning operations to fully manual.
The question posed to Perry was how the ship would respond in the time interval between when he went offline to when Ali could assume manual control.
“So, what you’re saying,” Henrietta assumed, “is that the primaries are only applicable for normal ship operations.”
“That is correct. The primary defaults can handle normal day-to-day decisions, but if we are currently under attack, as confirmed by tactical systems being online for more than three milliseconds, the secondary backups revert to total ship defense, and will instruct the ship to seek an area as far away from any external powered sources as possible. In other words, it will conduct a strategic withdrawal at maximum allowable speed until the system is manually overridden. Throughout that time, I will be shut out of any decisional operations until an external engineering source—that would normally be Ali—grants me renewed access.”
“And just coming out of K-T-space?” Henrietta asked.
“Tactical is always activated prior to jumping, so we revert to a defensive mode whenever we jump back into normal space.”
She thought about that for a few minutes. “I guess,” she relented uncertainly.
“Ali is certain of that logic, as am I. I have run five thousand simulations since installation, and every one has concluded successfully. We even applied it to the Sigma Bootis simulation, and I survived each conditional run.”
“Well, it must be good, then,” Henrietta concluded.
“What’s good?” Peter asked, stepping onto the bridge.
They spent their first day traveling back to the entry point to Antares in relative ease. During that time, the kids were recovering from the stress of saving themselves from certain death. Now, they were just taking it easy, and installing software patches to Perry’s operating systems as they found the time.
“We were talking about these default running parameters Ali and Perry have dreamed up,” Henrietta replied.
Perry started humming. Henrietta recognized the tenor of the hum as mild annoyance.
“Henrietta,” Perry interjected, “you should recall, I do not dream.”
“Yes, I remember. No need reminding me.”
“That statement would appear to contradict what I have just heard you say,” Perry insisted.
“Yes, it would,” Henrietta replied, equally annoyed. “Let’s just leave it at that.”
“If you wish ….”
Peter enjoyed watching Henrietta turn red.
“Perry,” Henrietta remarked, “do you always need to get the last word in?”
“No.”
“Okay, then.”
“Fine ….”
“Ugh,” Henrietta shouted. “All these men onboard; I give up!” Henrietta stalked to the navigation station and switched on the display. She pretended to study the ship’s progress through the nebular clouds.
“Peter, was it something I said?” Perry asked.
“That’s likely. Let me give you some advice about women; something always to remember. First, whatever they say is right, and second, let them always have the last word.”
“Hello,” Henrietta called out. “I’m still over here.” She continued talking in Portuguese, just slightly under her breath. Switching back to Standard, she said, “And what do you know about women?”
“See?” Peter asked the ship in triumph.
“I shall remember your advice,” Perry replied, “as opposed to Henrietta’s propensity in displaying questionable recall.”
If Peter could see in the infrared, he would have enjoyed watching heat waves emanating from Henrietta’s flushed face. “I think you two have been working together far too much,” Peter suggested.
“I agree,” Henrietta mumbled.
“Peter,” Perry began.
“Perry, privacy please,” Peter requested.
Perry’s subtle “annoyance” hum returned. “Complying ….”
Peter swung the com chair around to face Henrietta. “You’ve been working non-stop for, what, nine days?”
“I guess.”
“And your efforts saved our lives. Even Ali couldn’t do what you’ve accomplished. But look, you need a break. We’re doing fine now, so take some time off. Just for yourself. Maybe we can do something in the gym.”
Henrietta considered Peter’s suggestion for a moment. “But gee, Peter, if we are really six hundred light-years away from home, I can’t see how everything is okay. I don’t think we can rest until we get back to the colonies.”
“Then you got a long wait ahead of you. You’ll burn out if you don’t relax.”
Henrietta pouted. “You really think we’re that far away?”
Peter looked at the nav screen Henrietta was using, and cleared his throat, wondering if he should continue down the path Henrietta was opening. He decided he had nothing to lose, “See, I had this vision, sort of, when we first came out of jump. My grandfather talked to me.”
“He talked to you ??
?.”
“Sorta. He believed in Spirit Guides. It’s a Cheyenne thing, and he told me we traveled a long way. Beyond where any eagle has ever flown.”
“And you believe this?”
“I don’t know—”
There was a concerned voice coming from behind Peter. “Spirit Guides!”
Peter turned around and saw Stiles standing at the bridge entryway, casually leaning a shoulder against the wall. His arms were folded menacingly across his chest. “You’re seeing your dead grandfather now? We’re betting our lives on a nut!”
“Stiles,” Henrietta began.
“No,” Stiles shot back, “I’m serious. He’s crazy. I think all this space addled his brain.”
Peter turned red and hung his head low. Why did I open my mouth?
“Peter’s not crazy.”
“I don’t know what your definition of crazy is, but I know mine. And he fits the bill.”
Peter needed to explain fast, “Stiles ….”
Stiles threw up his hands defensively. “I don’t want to hear it.” He looked at Peter with an ice-cold stare. “You know, I gave you way too much credit. Peter Pan was a dreamer, but at least he wasn’t crazy.” Stiles stormed out of the bridge as quickly as he had entered.
CHAPTER 11
Antares Star System – Inner System
The ship was as calm as could be as they cruised smoothly toward the far exit point, with Perry vigilantly guiding them along. It was late in the evening and the lights in the bedroom were low. All but one of the crew was fast asleep, but not all were tired enough to fall asleep. So, opening his PAD to his personal page, he began typing.
PERSONAL LOG, Day 9, Year 500, 2305 hours: It’s been a few days since my last entry. I’ve been busy keeping the crew focused and in addition to that I needed to dedicate my remaining precious time to the ship. But I find myself with a few spare minutes to record what has happened in our journeys so far.
I explained last time how we escaped from the Wasatti in the nick of time and how the carelessness of others brought us so close to a red supergiant star. I would mention who messed up the jump, but that would not be right, and it is not my nature to be so mean. We’ll just leave it at that, and say that I think I could have provided the crew a successful jump if things had gone my way.
It’s a pity, because I know how much the human race depends on adding this powerful ship to our arsenal. But in some respects, it is good we jumped away from the Wasatti, because from this dangerous situation we find ourselves in, I learned this ship still needs a lot of testing and upgrading to be dependable. Better to learn now than in a real battle.