John Ringo - Vorpal Blade

Less than a mile away in a covered dry dock a shattered submarine was being crawled over by technicians. The Blade was damaged but not done. Already the planning was in the works for the next mission. To go where no sub had gone before, into wonders and terrors untold.

Finally, the interminable ceremony was over. The group broke up and Berg wandered towards where he’d parked his Jeep.

“Hey, Two-Gun,” Gants said. “Where to?”

“Leave,” Berg said. “Headed home. How’s Red?”

“They’re fitting a prosthetic today,” Gants said, dropping in to step beside the much taller Marine. “He’s talking about trying to get back on duty.”

“Hell, with as much damage as the sub took, he could be ready for duty before we go back out,” Berg said.

“You’re going?” Gants asked, sucking his teeth.

Berg stopped and looked up at the sky. It was midday so not a star could be seen, not even the “evening star” of Venus. He hadn’t even thought about his response. He had been asked to “volunteer” again and had given an equivocating reply. But looking up at the cold blue skies of Virginia, he had no question in his mind.

“I’m a Marine,” Berg answered. “I go wherever the Corps sends me.”

“Hey, Two-Gun!” Miriam said, walking up and putting her arm through his.

“Hello, Miss Moon,” Berg said, looking down at the slight linguist. She’d changed again, back to the whimsical creature they’d all come to know and love. “How are you doing?”

“Cold,” Miriam said, despite being bundled up in a heavy jacket. “Where you going?”

“On leave,” Berg repeated. “Home, I guess.”

“Right now?” Miriam asked.

“Doesn’t have to be,” Berg said.

“Shiny. You. Me. Dance club. Now.”

“Works,” Berg said, grinning. “See ya, Sub Dude.”

“Take care,” Gants said, walking over to a busty redhead and a couple of kids. “See ya when I see ya.”

“Where is home, by the way?” Miriam asked as they walked off.

“West Virginia. Hey, you were talking about a country and western club, right?”

“Do I look like I was talking about a country and western club… ?”

Too Hot. Always too Hot now. But surely, someday, it would be Cold again. And then it could Be.

“Okay,” Bill said. “Good news.”

He hung up the secure phone and looked over at Miller.

“The shipwrights are done with their survey,” he said as the SEAL, very much against regulations, sipped a beer. “Six months to repair all the damage. On the other hand, we’re going to get various upgrades.”

“Glad to hear that,” Miller said, setting his beer down. “What about you?”

“What about me?” Weaver asked.

“You going?”

“Oh, hell, yeah,” Weaver said. “They’re not sure if I’ll keep the XO slot or not. But, yeah. You?”

“You ever think about fate?” Miller asked rhetorically. “Mimi told me that Tuffy couldn’t explain exactly why I had to be along. Was it my pointing out that there was an anomaly in the room? Was it the couple of times I kept Miriam alive? She figured it out when nobody else did. What? That mission? The next? Mimi won’t say. So do I have to go on, theoretically, saving the universe every time?”

“Do I?” Bill said. “Every day we wake up and we get faced with all these choices. Sometimes they’re clearly big, yeah. But there are always choices. And every day we have to figure out which one is going to save our personal universe. So which one you gonna choose, Big Boy?”

“Face it,” Miller said. “You just want to find out what we run into next.”

“Well, that too,” Bill said, chuckling. “It’s a big old universe and we’ve hardly scratched the surface. Don’t you?”

“Oh, hell yeah,” Miller admitted. “Wouldn’t miss it for the w… universe. But this time, I’m taking some more flowers. And a bigger grapping gun…”

I rarely, these days, look at reviews on Amazon. As a fellow author puts it, “they are the slush (the unsolicited and mostly unreadable manuscripts) of reviews.” There are rare, very rare, nuggets of brilliance in them and the “Top Reviewers” are generally very good. The rest, however… Sigh. One must shovel a great deal of muck to find a diamond. I have no patience for reading slush and less for Amazon reviews.

I did, nonetheless, read some of the reviews of Into the Looking Glass , the prequel to this novel. And I, as usual, had to shake my head. Especially at one reviewer (now made semi-famous and immortal) who thought it was a good book but “there was too much science in it.”

Two words: Science Fiction.

Looking Glass was a very strange book that came from nowhere. It had no precedents in my thought processes. But as I wrote it I became very happy. Because strange as that novel was, it had some serious science in it. I am not a scientist but I grew up with science fiction. Indeed, much of what I know about physics and astronomy comes not from classes (of which I’ve had few of the former and none of the latter) but from reading the “greats” of science fiction.

When pressed by my publisher to create a series from Looking Glass (which I’d intended to be a stand-alone), I realized that I had a golden opportunity to write some serious SF. Not aliens creating a pretext for a world war. Not a science fictionalized “boat book” (a term of art about a young man exploring a world new to him). A real, old-fashioned, can-you-handle-your-astronomy-straight-up? science fiction series. Nobody but nobody has said it better than Gene Rodenberry. “ To boldly go where no man has gone before .” And, along the way, impart a modicum of science to the uninitiated. (While avoiding as much balonium and make- maulk -uppium as possible.)

I knew that much of that was beyond me. I am neither an astronomer nor a physicist (as noted). I’m a former grunt with some background in biology and geology who likes SF. To do it, I needed a scientist, specifically an astronomer and physicist, to do the “fiddly bits.”

Thus I enlisted Doctor Travis Taylor, Ph.D. For those who find “Dr. William Weaver” unlikely, a snippet from Dr. Taylor’s bio:

Travis Shane Taylor is a born and bred southerner and resides just outside Huntsville, Alabama. He has a Doctorate in Optical Science and Engineering, a Master’s degree in Physics, a Master’s degree in Aerospace Engineering, all from the University of Alabama in Huntsville; a Master’s degree in Astronomy from the Univ. of Western Sydney, and a Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering from Auburn University. He is a licensed Professional Engineer in the state of Alabama.

Dr. Taylor has worked on various programs for the Department of Defense and NASA for the past sixteen years. He has been a guitarist with several hard rock bands, the 2000 Alabama State Champion in Karate, is a nationally recognized mountain biker, SCUBA diver, private pilot and is worshipped and adored by legions of female fans since he looks like a cross between Tom Cruise and a young Richard Dean Anderson.

(Okay, I added that last bit. )

So much for “Yeah, like there’s really a redneck physicist who mountain bikes for fun…”

From my point of view, the mission of SF was handed down from the greats. Science fiction, speculative fiction, however you wish to say it, has the mission of looking at current theory and taking it beyond the realm of the currently possible. To push the boundaries and think about what could be out there. Whether that is in macrocosmic space, looking at what planets might look like beyond our solar system, or in the microcosmic, looking at what particles might really be doing and why, in biology extrapolating and questioning the ethics of bioengineering in all its manifestations, SF is now and always has been about pushing the boundaries of the known and striking out into the unknown. To speculate, not to prove. What ifness to the nth degree. And maybe get some bright young guy to invent some of this stuff thus making my job harder. What, you don’t have a communicator? AKA a flip-phone?