A Galaxy Unknown (3 page)

As Jenetta began pulling Karen around by her hands, trying to get her to join in her celebration, she said lightly, "I still don't care. I'm going into space and that's all that matters. In a few years I might wangle an SO assignment on a research ship, or maybe even a destroyer."

"Destroyer, hah! Good luck," Heather said derisively. "They want officers who don't have to think for five minutes before making a decision. You might make it aboard a research vessel, though. You'll fit right in with the other eggheads."

Jenetta stopped dancing and fixed an intense stare upon the five-foot seven-inch brunette. "Really? And where are
you
being posted, Heather?"

"I have orders to report to the
destroyer
Vancouver at Earth Station One," she replied haughtily.

"That's only her ride," Maria Torres said, her dark-chocolate eyes twinkling and her smile gleaming brightly. "She's being posted to the Ethridge Space Command Station at Nivella-3 as a Junior Food Service Administrative Officer." A little more cattily, she added, "Maybe you'll be supplying food to
her
off-world base that no one ever heard of."

Karen started laughing hysterically as Heather glowered, turned, and walked sullenly back to her room without saying anything further. The rest of the girls grinned before returning to their rooms, while the freckle-faced redhead finally gave in, smiled widely, and began blithely dancing around the room with Jenetta.

* * *

Newly commissioned Ensign Jenetta Carver eagerly reported to the Hokyuu at Earth Station 3 a few weeks later. Merely a supply ship, the Hokyuu's crew complement was small when compared to that of a warship, and Jenetta was to be the only Science Officer on board, but that didn't diminish her excitement at going into space. She spent the better part of fifteen minutes just staring at the gargantuan, six-point-three million-ton cargo vessel through a viewing port near the airlock before finally proceeding out the airlock pier.

The quartermaster ship didn't have a Marine complement, and there were no sentries in evidence at the entrance to the ship; just one bored looking lieutenant(jg). Having the dubious distinction of being the officer of the deck at the forward cargo bay airlock, he accepted her data ring and touched it to his viewpad's spindle interface to confirm that the bright-eyed young officer was really assigned to the ship. When her image was returned from the ship's computer as confirmation of her posting, he handed back the ring and allowed her entry, telling her to wait just inside the airlock hatchway for an escort.

The ship's fourth officer, Lieutenant Randal Coster, came to the bay when notified of her arrival and escorted Jenetta first to her quarters, then to the astrophysics lab. Coster, an eighteen-year Space Command veteran and self-important minor cog in the Hokyuu's chain of command, towered over Jenetta with his six-foot six-inch height. The gold, inverted ‘V' insignia of a command officer gleamed brightly on his collar.

"Here you go, Ensign," Coster said. "This is your lab." Glancing scornfully down at the science officer insignia on Jenetta's collar, a wide gold ring with two short gold bars that bisected the ring on opposite sides, he said, "You'll spend each first watch here, performing whatever it is you people do. Should the computer detect anything abnormal while you're off-duty, you'll immediately report here and determine the nature of the problem. Any questions?"

"Uh, just one, sir. What's our destination?"

Coster had little personal use for science-types, especially recently graduated ensigns who, in his words, ‘would probably sit and enjoy the spectacle of a super nova instead of getting the hell away as fast as possible', and he didn't try to conceal his feelings. His jealousy of people who could master the finer points of quantum physics and spatiotemporal trigonometry was the root cause of his often-derisive comments about science officers. His moderately respectable scores in the command and control lab exercises had allowed him to make the cut for shipboard duty, although his grades and aptitude hadn't been deemed adequate for him to attend the Warship Command Institute.

An officer bypassed during the WCI selection process, who later distinguishes himself or herself in action against an enemy, can receive a special appointment to the College, but being posted to a quartermaster ship left Coster with little such opportunity. The prospect of serving an entire, potentially mediocre, career making ‘milk runs' aboard a supply ship while fellow students enjoyed the prestige of serving aboard an active duty ship of the line certainly hadn't improved his temperament.

"It's all in your computer, Ensign," he said in an aggravated tone. "You do know how to use a computer, don't you,
science officer
?"

"Yes sir," Jenetta said, her calm voice not revealing a hint of the growing exasperation that she was feeling for the string of condescending remarks he had leveled since meeting her at the cargo bay. "I know how to use a computer." She was still too excited to let a disgruntled space weenie like Coster, bring down her mood.

"Then carry on, Ensign." Without another word, he turned on his heel and left the lab, overjoyed to have successfully completed the tedious duty of orientation for a new officer.

Jenetta rolled her eyes once and then set about exploring the huge lab, activating the equipment as she went. Some of it was older than the equipment she had trained on at the Academy, and all of it had seen a great many more years than she had. Although the equipment was outdated before she was born, the lab contained everything she required for her job. And it was all hers.

* * *

Three months after departure, as the tedium of long distance travel between inhabited solar systems and military bases began to catch up with her, Jenetta's enthusiasm had waned somewhat. At the start of each workday, she would sit at the science console and progress through all the motions of astral observation that had been performed tens of thousands of times before in the areas of space through which they would pass. Already containing every last bit of information that she could possibly record, the computer irritatingly verified back to her that she had both done the calculations correctly, and that there were no changes from previously reported observations. By exhibiting an interface demeanor even more exasperating than that of Lt. Coster, the shipboard computer system proved that it was seriously in need of reprogramming, and it took all of Jenetta's willpower to resist an unauthorized hack into the system with the specific goal of performing an ‘attitude adjustment.' She thought wryly, with a hint of a smile, that if she were able to hack into Coster's brain, and give
him
a new personality, she wouldn't hesitate for an instant.

Although able to complete her entire daily work assignment during the first hour of her watch, Jenetta was required to remain alone in the astrophysics lab until first watch ended. To kill time, she found herself spending long hours playing the ancient video game on her personal log ring. To remain politically correct, she told herself that the game kept her hand/eye coordination sharp as she destroyed attacking alien fighter craft by the thousands. When that grew tiresome, she recorded messages to home, or exercised. Jenetta was lithesome, and every ounce of her hundred eight pounds was properly placed and muscle solid. Like all Space Command officers, exercise was an integral part of her daily existence, and it kept her body fit and supple. The last hour of her shift was always devoted to jogging around the large deserted lab.

On her last evening aboard ship, Jenetta returned to her quarters feeling genuinely depressed. Glancing into the mirror, after slipping into her nightgown and brushing out her collar-length blond hair, she was dismayed to see the bored expression so plainly visible on her normally cheerful face.

A black-anodized aluminum picture frame containing an animated image of her family always occupied a prominent position on her dresser, and she wondered what her father and brothers were doing as she looked down at the 20x30 centimeter portrait. The other Carver children had all gone on to attend the Warship Command Institute and then been posted to the bridge of a Space Command warship. They were probably, at that moment, chasing smugglers or enjoying R&R privileges on some exotic alien world.

"Why can't something exciting happen to break this monotony?" she recorded on her personal log ring just before climbing into bed.

Chapter Three

The existence of hyperspace had been hypothesized since the twentieth century. Certain scientists and mathematicians claimed to be able to prove ‘mathematically' that it existed, but discovering a means of transitioning matter into or out of hyperspace continued to evade researchers. Once generally propagandized as the only practical avenue to faster than light travel, research all but ceased in that regard when a small cadre of scientists, working under a government research grant at a U.S. university, chanced upon a naturally occurring phenomena that they immediately named Dis-Associative Temporal Field Anomalies. Their original objective of finding new methods to more accurately predict the formation of tornados using lidar measurement was quickly set aside as excitement over the new phenomena gripped the team. DATFA research was later credited with pounding the final nail into the hyperspace FTL coffin.

Rather than simply being a different dimension in space, DATFAs exist
outside
space. Or at least outside the currently accepted physical laws and scientific definitions for three-dimensional normal-space and hyperspace, not the standard plebeian dictionary definition of ‘the unlimited expanse in which everything is located.' As word of the discovery leaked, scientists who had long theorized the existence of wormholes, though none had yet been identified, immediately announced that wormholes were simply naturally occurring DATFA interchanges with certain unique properties of stability and ingress. More pragmatic scientists preferred to engage in research with a proven scientific fundament, so the number of scientists working to develop the field of DATFA expanded rapidly. Within a decade, under the tight security of the U.S. military, the theorems had been developed into practical mechanics and the door to galactic adventure was about to be flung wide open. Miniscule formations of DATFA could be coalesced, then expanded to completely surround a physical entity. By ‘constructing' this temporal field anomaly around its entire length and breath, an entity effectively disassociates itself from the physical bonds of normal space and time. When viewed against development of life on Earth, the current inhabitants of the planet moved from an intrastellar civilization to interstellar explorers overnight.

A ship outfitted with a temporal field generator can first build its envelope, then advance by building another envelope, slightly ahead of, but overlapping, the first. The ship is then ‘absorbed' into the new envelope as the older envelope dissolves. In this way, the ship goes along for the ride like a surfer catching a wave, but being disassociated from the mechanics of the surrounding space and time means that there's no sensation of movement. To change direction, the shape of the next envelope is altered slightly with the forefront aimed more in line with the direction the ship wishes to travel. To speed up or slow down, the ship simply alters the rate at which new envelopes are created. When the temporal field generator is disengaged and the envelope dissolves, the ship is in a new place, still just as stationary as it had been when the initial envelope was built. Time does not slow down as the ship approaches and then exceeds the speed of light. It's as if no such relative barrier exists in normal space. Nor does time stop for the travelers in the envelope. It simply continues as it had before. Inside the envelope a new space and time exists. A trip takes only as long as it takes to create the full series of temporal envelopes from starting point to destination.

By disassociating a spacecraft from space and time, Einstein's Theory of Special Relativity was marginalized for space travelers. In fairness to an incredibly brilliant mind, he had himself already admitted that something was missing from his calculations that prevented him from developing a single, unified theory of relativity. His theories about a repulsive form of gravity that emanates from empty space, and which was later named dark energy, would have benefited greatly from knowledge of temporal anomalies.

Earth's first successful Faster Than Light spaceship put the United States at the forefront of galactic exploration, and it continued to press that advantage by producing a series of ever faster spaceships, capable of generating new envelopes at ever greater speeds, as it explored the cosmos. Along the way, it naturally laid claim to planets capable of supporting human life, and immediately established colonies as evidence of that ownership. While international treaties governing ownership rights on Earth's moon had been signed, none that referred to territories outside Earth's gravitational influence had been officially inked. For decades, the issue was cause for great debate, anger, and hostility among the more fanatical elements in the nations on Earth technologically unable to send their own explorers into space, because it allegedly denied them the opportunity to spread their religions and cultures among the stars. Naturally, the ‘godless' United States was blamed by them as the party most responsible for their almost total inability to compete in space exploration. One senator, with tongue firmly planted in cheek while on the floor of the U.S. Senate, agreed to accept personal responsibility for the fact that camel dung cannot properly be synthesized into spacecraft fuel. He added that it's difficult to conquer the stars while you're doing your damndest to remain rooted in the eighth century.

* * *

As established interstellar colonies grew, their citizenry demanded a home rule government not subject to martial law except in times of obvious crisis. These first stirrings of independence were recognized in the U.S., whose own struggle for independence from distant colonial rule in the late eighteenth century is still celebrated each year. In a magnanimous gesture, the U.S. Government guaranteed complete independence to all its colonies once they reached a certain population density, subject to the proviso that areas where previously established business interests existed be designated as permanent U.S. Enterprises Zones
.
This insured that certain so-called independence efforts were not just a precursor to planned nationalization of valuable and prosperous business assets. Within all Enterprise Zones, planetary governments were required to observe the business rights spelled out in the Off-World Colonization Act of 2035. Other spacefaring nations soon followed the U.S. lead and granted independence to their larger colonies.

A further legacy of the U.S. lead in the early exploration of the galaxy was the adoption of Amer as the defacto standard language in most off-world colonies, just as American had long been the official language of international business, shipping, and aviation on Earth. Amer was a more business oriented, less stylized version of the American language, still with all the colloquialisms and nuances that had crept into the English-based language over the centuries. Even so, scattered enclaves, and eventually even entire colonies, were establish-ed where zealous individuals kept alive their ancient languages and cultures.

* * *

As the decades passed, and space travel became almost commonplace, the need for laws governing space, an agency to enforce those laws, and courts to adjudicate issues and violations, became obvious to everyone. The solution, arrived at by a committee composed of representatives of earth and the fifteen largest planetary governments, was the formation of the Galactic Alliance. Established as a confederation of member planets, the purpose of the GA was to promote the general welfare by providing extra-world security to all member planets. From the start, it was decided that the GA would, within specific boundaries, regulate interstellar transportation, establish policies for peaceful trade between planets, create a galactic monetary system, and establish a military arm that would enforce the laws and protect the established territories of the GA. No control of planetary governments was ever planned for or desired. Initially composed of sixteen original signatories to the charter, it was clearly recognized that the number would grow as populations grew in both established colonies and colonies that hadn't yet been envisioned.

Representatives from the home worlds that signed the initial accords worked for eight years to develop and ratify a constitution, then delineate the territory to be included. Galactic Alliance space originally encompassed a cylindrical area of space with a diameter of five-hundred light-years, that stretched to five-hundred light-years on either side of a median line extending through the center plane of the galaxy. At the beginning of the twenty-third century, the Alliance amended the territorial delineation to include all galactic space above and below the cylindrical diameter, and added a one-hundred parsec wide band around their territory, except where parts of that space had already been claimed by another nation. Although officially GA space, the newly claimed area was far too vast for proper enforcement of laws, and that part of the GA became known as the Frontier Zone. The expansion immediately created a common border with two nations, the Clidepp Empire and the Aguspod. A third nation, the Kweedee Aggregate, expanded their territory shortly thereafter, extending their border up to the territorial border of space now claimed by the GA. With that expansion, slightly more than one-half of Galactic Alliance territory shared common boundaries with other nations, while the remainder bordered on unclaimed space.

From the beginning, it was decided that not all planetary governments within the claimed territory need become active members of the GA, but that all space outside every planet's sensible atmosphere (one hundred kilometers above the planet's mean surface), would be subject to all the laws of the Alliance. Any attempt to create an extra-planetary ruling government within GA space would be treated as sedition, or invasion. True to its charter, the GA maintained an official ‘hands off' policy with both member worlds and non-member worlds. What happened on their planet was their own business, with four notable exceptions. One was in the area of sentient life rights. Absolutely no slavery involving sentient life forms would be permitted anywhere in GA space. The manufacture of illegal substances, intended for export off-world, was prohibited. The development of certain technologies, whether for export or not, were outlawed. And lastly, counterfeiting and other attempts to affect the economical stability of the Alliance Monetary Fund would be dealt with quickly, severely, and decisively.

If civil unrest or violence on a planet threatened to expand beyond a planet's borders, then the GA had not only the authority to step in, but also the mandate to do so. That included the authority to arrest individuals traveling to another planet for the purpose of sowing the seeds of revolution. If a legally recognized planetary government requested assistance, the GA might send in help to restore order. But each intervention had to first be approved by the GA Council. And there was no guarantee that the government calling for assistance would be allowed to remain in power once they arrived. The forces of Space Command and the Space Marine Corps would not be used to prop up unpopular or puppet governments.

Finally, as a further incentive to join the GA as a participating and voting member, all non-member worlds were prohibited from trading with or interacting with business interests on member worlds. The benefits of membership were immediately apparent to everyone who had goods to export, or desired the importation of goods from member worlds. Member worlds were also free to withdraw from GA membership and again trade with non-member worlds, but withdrawal mandated a full ten-year waiting period before an application to rejoin the GA was considered, during which time there could be no trade with member worlds. To insure that illegal trade was not conducted, an outpost was establish-ed in orbit around every inhabited, non-member planet. All ships were required to submit to a full inspection when arriving or leaving the planet. It didn't stop smuggling, but it severely retarded its growth.

Contact with any world containing sentient life, which had not yet achieved space flight capability on their own, was strictly forbidden. A heretofore un-colonized planet that was found to contain native sentient life could not be colonized, or even occupied until approved by the Galactic Alliance Bureau of Alien Affairs. Where a planet with sentient life had already been colonized, the GABAA was charged with working out a reasonable settlement of claims.

Any violation of the rule of law, or any attempts to subvert the regulations, carried the strictest of penalties. Space Command was charged with watching for such interference, authorized to take whatever steps it deemed proper to prevent such abuse, and under mandate to arrest the perpetrators. The ships and cargo of convicted violators were seized and sold to support Space Command operations.

The Galactic Alliance Headquarters, sited at the former SAC HQ in Nebraska on Earth because the planet seemed to offer the best security during the early years of the GA, was the official home of a body comprised of democratically elected galactic officials. Earth was not at the center of Alliance space, but it was over five-hundred light years from the borders of the Alliance's nearest neighboring nation. Regardless of the chosen form of government on the home world to be represented, only GA officials that had been freely elected in a planetary referendum under the supervision of GA monitors, could take their seats in the Alliance Senate. Each planetary delegation would then elect a single member to a committee of directors known as the Galactic Alliance Council. Each councilor's vote was weighted by a complex formula designed to ensure the fairest representation for both large and small planetary populations. A council member could be recalled at any time by a majority vote in his or her delegation, and a new council member seated. The size of the council would only grow as the number of member worlds grew.

* * *

The Galactic Space Command was developed as the enforcement arm of the Galactic Alliance. With no desire to totally reinvent the wheel, it was decided to use the navies of Earth as models in its creation. Its final form seemed to represent the navy of the U.S. more than others, but that might have arisen more from convenience that anything else. The committee started with the U.S. Navy as its foundation, and only altered the structure where it felt another nation's service branch provided a more enlightened solution to specific concerns. It was fully recognized that the final form would change as practical application met Utopian ideals.