Janet Edwards - Earth Star

He saluted, and I numbly returned the salute. Captain? He said Captain? What?

He turned to Fian. ‘Fian Andrej Eklund, you are hereby promoted to the rank of Captain. Congratulations.’

The Captain saluted, and Fian waved a bewildered hand in the general direction of his ear.

‘I apologize for the lack of ceremony,’ said the Captain, ‘but we’re a little rushed here. Please be advised that your ranks are not part of the chain of command.’

‘Understood,’ I said.

‘Uniforms are waiting for you in your quarters in Accommodation Green Zone, Dome 9, Room 18. We’ve assumed joint quarters were appropriate, if not …’ He glanced enquiringly from Fian to me, decided we weren’t objecting, and hurried on. ‘Orientation sessions are running two hourly in Orientation Hall 1. This base is operating on Earth America time, which is Green time minus five hours. You’re scheduled for Captain’s table at 19:00 hours.’

I did some frantic mental calculations. We’d gained seven hours in the move from Earth Africa time to Earth America time, so … ‘Captain’s table? Dinner?’ I checked my understanding. ‘With Colonel Torrek?’

The Captain nodded. ‘Dress uniforms. You’ll find details on your lookups.’

I was past the stage where a mere dinner invitation from a Military Colonel could leave me grazzed. ‘We’d better get to our quarters and …’

Fian and I staggered out into the corridor, and he made a strange strangled noise. ‘Why have they made me Military? Why am I a Captain? You’ll have to explain.’

‘Me?’ I asked. ‘You want me to explain? You think I have the faintest idea what’s going on?’

‘But you know all this stuff.’

Know all this stuff? I was struggling to work out which way was up and which was down! At least the genetic tissue samples made sense now. Military officers always had genetic tissue stored in case they were exposed to damaging levels of radiation. I felt Fian wouldn’t appreciate me explaining that.

‘Fian, I don’t know anything, I just watched a lot of vids. I may have fooled a class of civilians into thinking I’d been to a Military school but … This is the real thing!’

I checked my Military lookup. A map with a helpful flashing arrow told me where I was, and which way to head, so I started walking. Several members of the Military passed us, dodging around our little road block of hover bags. They didn’t seem surprised to see people in civilian clothes with masses of luggage. There was probably a constant stream of new arrivals at the base.

‘What did he mean about chain of command?’ asked Fian.

‘He meant they’ve made us Captains, but in an emergency, if for example the aliens attack and the Colonel gets killed, we don’t go around yelling orders. Even if we’re the highest rank present, we let people who know what they’re doing take command.’

‘I can do that,’ said Fian, sounding near panic. ‘If the aliens attack, I don’t want to take command. I’m a history student, not … not Tellon Blaze on Thetis!’

I gave an instinctive shudder, thinking of the chimera. I’d seen dozens of horror vids set over a quarter of a millennium ago during Thetis chaos year, all telling variations of the story of the nightmare chimera and the legendary young hero who fought them. People only ever mentioned Thetis itself, but several other populated worlds were also infested with the chimera. If it hadn’t been for the leadership of Tellon Blaze, humanity might have lost everything.

The chimera hadn’t been intelligent, but they were a savage killing species with an advanced chameleon-like ability which let them merge into any shadow. That had let them get on board our ships, sneak through the old portals that didn’t have protective bio filters, and infiltrate our worlds.

If humanity had met an alien life form as lethal as the chimera, with the added advantage of intelligence and a technology as advanced, or even more advanced, than our own …

No, I told myself firmly, I was overreacting. Whatever humanity had encountered this time, it couldn’t possibly be as bad as the chimera.

We went out of the dome and looked around. I’d seen on the map that this place was big, but …

‘Amaz!’ said Fian, gazing around in awe. ‘That’s a lot of domes.’

We were standing on a grassy plain, dotted with a positive forest of huge domes. There was a clear area ahead with three oddly bulky portals in the middle of it. Judging from the map, it was a long walk to the Accommodation area, so I headed hopefully for the portals.

‘All this in two days!’ said Fian. ‘It’s impressive, but why set up a base on Earth?’

I gave a despairing wave of my hands. ‘The orientation sessions may explain that. We should have time to attend one before Captain’s Table.’

‘What’s Captain’s Table?’ asked Fian.

‘It’s an archaic term the Military use. Dates way back into pre-history, originating from seafaring ships. It means being invited to dinner with the commanding officer, and please …’ I held up a hand to stop him before he said it. ‘Don’t ask me why we’re invited to dinner with Colonel Torrek. I’ve no idea.’

We arrived at the portals. There was no way to enter a portal code, just a list of preset destinations, so I selected Accommodation Green. The portal established, Fian and I went through, and popped out in another grassy area surrounded by domes.

‘Dome 9!’ Fian pointed at a grey dome with a huge white number nine painted on the side.

We headed inside and found a door labelled 18, which opened when I touched the palm plate. The room inside was dark, so I tried a hopeful order. ‘Room command lights.’

The glows obediently came on, proving we were somewhere far more luxurious than a basic dig site dome. We led our retinue of hover bags inside and spent a moment exploring.

‘Living area, bedroom, shower,’ said Fian. ‘Proper voice controls, and our own food dispenser too. Zan! Aliens or no aliens, I’m hungry.’

‘What’s in the food dispenser?’

Fian scrolled through the menu display. ‘The obvious drinks. Snacks. A few meal options. I expect there’s a proper dining hall somewhere as well.’

I checked the time on my lookup. ‘We’ve only got forty minutes before the next orientation session so …’

Fian was already getting us glasses of Fizzup. ‘You want the cheezit and tomato mash?’

‘Please.’

I carried the glasses over to the table and Fian followed me with two plates. We spent the next few minutes eating at high speed.

‘That wasn’t bad,’ said Fian. ‘Better than we get from our dig site dome food dispensers anyway.’

‘Dig site dispensers are old models and …’ I wrinkled my nose as I saw Fian go across to one of his bags and take out a small bottle. ‘Oh no, not again. I hate taking meds.’

‘Well, if you’d rather fall asleep in the middle of dinner with Colonel Torrek …’

I sighed and held out a hand. Fian carefully counted seven tablets into it and I gulped them down. This was the second time in two days that my body clock had been hit with biorhythm adjustment meds. It probably wondered what the chaos I was doing.

We washed the tablets down with more Fizzup and I checked the time. ‘Uniforms!’

Two impact suits and a neat line of standard and formal dress uniforms hung in the bedroom storage area, all in the blue of true combat Military. I ran my hand over the sleeve of the nearest uniform, feeling the cool smooth fabric, checking it was actually real. I saw there were medals already attached to the uniforms. Fian had the blue planet image of the Earth Star pinned to his, while I had both the Earth Star and the distinctive golden sunburst of the Artemis.