CHAPTER 6
Oh, God. Are all captains this nervous? Captain Anika Ahuja, having assumed command of the Mumbai less than twenty-four hours previously, was taking her ship from lunar orbit toward the outer solar system where she could safely engage the Hawking Drive and begin her reconnaissance mission to New Hyderabad. This was the exact same bridge upon which she had been serving but from where she now sat, it looked different. The difference in appearance, in feel, was not due to where she sat—she had assumed temporary command many times for Captain Padmanabhan during the last year and sat there before. But now was different. She would not be relinquishing the chair when the captain returned to the bridge. She was the captain, and the weight of that responsibility was bearing solidly down upon her. Maybe the nervousness will pass with time, she thought—she hoped. It would take them five days to reach their departure point, more than enough time to get used to her new job. At least, she fervently hoped it would be enough time.
Her XO, Lieutenant Jenya Chatterjee, was at her new station and did not look the least bit nervous. There is no reason she should look nervous, thought Anika, she has been XO before and knows what she is doing. I hope she doesn’t figure out that she, instead of me, is more qualified be the captain of the Mumbai.
“Mitra, what do we know about the settlement at New Hyderabad?” Anika asked. Mitra was the ship’s AI. When Anika first came aboard the Mumbai and met Mitra, she did not like him. He was too quiet. She generally did not like to be around people who were overly quiet and introspective and found no reason to change her preferences to accommodate a machine intelligence. Over time, she came to appreciate Mitra’s quiet competence and to understand that his quietness was simply a personality trait and not a reluctance to get to know her personally. Mitra was just programmed to be an introvert.
“New Hyderabad was settled by a group from India. Funded by the donations of the wealthiest families in the city of Hyderabad, the New Hyderabad settlement ship was the second from India to participate in the diaspora, departing only two months after the Jaipur settlement was established. When the ship departed the Earth system, it was the largest settlement ship at the time, accommodating just over ten thousand colonists. The planet they settled was typical for the time, not too far from Sol and just barely habitable for Earth life. The colonists were eager to leave and, according to sources at the time, they did not want to wait for the survey ships to find that ‘just right’ Earthlike planet to call home. What they found was a terrestrial planet circling a G2-type star approximately 350 light-years from Earth. The planet is forty percent larger and more massive than Earth, making the increased gravity likely uncomfortable to the colonists and visitors, but not debilitating. All other aspects of New Hyderabad are Earthlike, including the atmospheric constituents, a vigorous magnetosphere, and a tidally locked large moon,” Mitra replied, displaying an image of New Hyderabad that Anika presumed had been sent back to Earth in the earliest days of the settlement.
“The records of the settlement for the first ten years are fairly complete. The settlement’s leadership during that time sent robotic drones back to Earth with detailed records of the events occurring there: social, economic, political, and environmental. They sent an update drone back each year for the first ten years. In the eighty years since, there has been little contact. They have continually rebuffed efforts to initiate trade and requested that they be left alone,” Mitra continued.
“Do the records indicate any sort of disease, disaster, or unrest that might explain why?” Anika asked.
“No,” Mitra replied.
Anika was not very troubled that the colonists had not attempted to recently contact the home world. Many early colonists left Earth because they wanted to have nothing to do with from where they had fled. What was troubling about the whole colonization effort was the lack of follow-through from Earth. One would think families, governments, and most of all, commercial entities would want to remain in contact with those that left in case there were new opportunities discovered or new wealth to be made. After all, with a whole galaxy of resources available, the possibilities were endless. But that logic had not prevailed in the real universe. In the practical reality of life and business, there were simply too many settlements, and too many worlds open and available for settlement, for anyone on Earth to go out of their way to force themselves on those already launched.
“Thank you, Mitra. Is there anything else we should know?” Anika asked.
“No, Captain, there is not. I will inform you if anything pertinent comes to my attention,” said Mitra.
“Very well. We have some time until we can engage the Hawking Drive, so let’s make the best of it with a few drills. XO, I read in your file that you excel at combat simulations. You and Mitra need to create a few for us to simulate these next few days. Plan the first one to occur just after tomorrow’s first shift goes off duty,” Anika said.
“Yes, ma’am,” said Chatterjee, a devious smile forming on her face.
We are going to get along fine, thought Anika as she settled back in her chair to begin the disposition of a mountain of messages. Being in charge looks like it just means more paperwork. Maybe being captain won’t be as glamorous as it looks, she thought.
Five days and seven simulated battles later, two of which had resulted in the loss of the Mumbai with all its crew, the ship activated its Hawking Drive and jumped to the New Hyderabad system.
From forty light-minutes out, space looked basically the same in the New Hyderabad system as it did back in the solar system—black with uncountable pinpoints of starlight in all directions except toward the system’s center where its Earthlike star lay. The familiar constellations with which she grew up were absent, of course, but that did not stop Anika from trying to find them. Human brains liked patterns and familiar patterns most of all. She did not allow herself to become distracted by her amateur-astronomer predilections. She had a job to do.
“Mitra, I need a threat assessment,” said Anika as she manipulated the virtual viewscreen projected in front of her and the bridge crew, zooming in on the region of space New Hyderabad occupied, or more accurately, the space the planet occupied forty minutes ago. Any glimpse of the planet that they might see would be as it appeared in the past, given the time it took the light to travel from there to their telescopes.
From this distance, they could see the planetary disk, but not much else. She knew that while she was straining to see the light from New Hyderabad and make sense of it, Mitra would have performed a full sky survey, looking for emissions across the electromagnetic spectrum from radio, microwaves, and infrared, to ultraviolet, X-rays, and gamma rays. If there were other active spacecraft or nonnatural objects in the system anywhere close to the Mumbai or the central star, Mitra would find it. Inactive craft, like mines or remote missiles, were another story.
“Other than the robust radio traffic I am detecting from New Hyderabad, the system is clear of artificial emissions. I must caution, however, that from this distance it is impossible to detect the low-power emissions of drones or missiles like those that attacked the fleet at Nikko,” Mitra calmly announced.
Anika was immediately relieved for two reasons. First, New Hyderabad was still there, as evidenced by all the radio noise coming from the planet. Second, there were no other ships in the system, or at least nearby. For the moment, she could relax. She had not taken the ship to General Quarters for the jump because there was simply no need. Space is big. Really big. At forty light-minutes from the star, the chance of another ship being within missile range when they arrived was so low as to be essentially zero. There was no need to go there now because there was no obvious threat. That might change as the ship neared the inner solar system, and Anika had no intention of allowing her ship to be surprised as the Indefatigable had been.
Winslow. As her thoughts raced from one threat scenario to the next, the mere thought of the Indefatigable made her think of Winslow, changing her mood from pensive to melancholy. She so loved that British man who was so British that he did not even realize he was a living, breathing, walking stereotype. From his penchant for tea and love of naval history to his irrational attachment to the anachronistic royal family and stiff upper lip, he was the epitome of Britishness. Even if she could not understand all his predilections, she loved him from the top of his head to the tip of his toes. And she was going to hurt him. Worse, she had run away to avoid the inevitable hurt that would come when she told him that she had to choose between career and him—and that he lost. No, they both lost. Winslow. Dear Winslow. How can I do this to you?
“Mitra, what have you gleaned from eavesdropping on the natives?” Anika asked.
“The settlement world appears to be doing well. Most of the broadcasts are commercial data transfer, some are obviously entertainment, others personal and government communication. There is minimal encrypted traffic and no sign of any sort of heightened alert status,” replied Mitra.
“We’ve only been here ten minutes so they would have no idea they are about to get company,” said Lieutenant Charun Patel, the ship’s tactical officer. Mitra was good at gathering and synthesizing data, but command and control of the ship’s most vital systems remained in the hands of flesh-and-blood people. Lieutenant Patel had served on the Mumbai almost as long as Anika and had proven himself to be quite capable. As XO, she had tried to get to know him better, but he always kept his personal life at arm’s length. She sensed there was some sort of pain in his background that he tried to avoid by not engaging in any sort of personal exchange beyond the perfunctory. Now that she was captain, she would like to fix that. She wanted to really know her officers and what made them tick. It was that kind of soft knowledge that might make a life-and-death difference in a crisis.
“Lieutenant Patel, do they have any sort of space-based radar array?” asked Anika.
“There are no radar emissions powerful enough to resolve our presence until we are well within the orbit of the planet’s moon. We are still too far away for me to assess their space capabilities,” Patel said.
“When will they know we are here?” asked Anika, already suspecting the answer.
“From what I can tell, they may remain unaware of our presence unless or until we announce ourselves. There is always a chance that a ground- or space-based telescope might inadvertently spot our thrust plume, but without an active radar system more powerful than anything I have found so far, there is little chance of us being detected,” Patel replied.
“Let’s keep it that way. I don’t want to announce ourselves until we are fairly sure there are not any mines waiting on us and that the locals are friendly. Lieutenant Utreja, plot on a course in-system that will put us in orbit around New Hyderabad’s moon, but don’t execute. I want to first get a better understanding of the locals before I decide if we are going to get close enough for them to do anything that might surprise us,” said Anika.
“Yes, ma’am,” said Utreja. Utreja was the Mumbai’s pilot. And, unlike with Lieutenant Patel, Anika had been able to get to know the affable and deeply philosophical Lieutenant Laj Utreja. He was an astrodynamicist to the core and was perfectly happy talking about the nuances of planetary orbits, Oberth maneuvers, and Hohmann transfers ad nauseum. But when personal matters were brought up, he did not shy away from them. Anika knew so much about Utreja’s parents and siblings that she felt like she knew them personally, even though they have never met. And may the gods show mercy if you ever got him talking about Nyaya-Sastra and other Indian philosophies. The man was a walking, talking encyclopedia of esoteric knowledge. Anika thought that a mind that could grasp the nuances of interplanetary trajectories might also be wired to appreciate the more abstract side of living embodied in traditional Indian philosophy, so it sort of made sense. Sort of.
As Anika absorbed the tactical situation near New Hyderabad, or, rather, the lack of a tactical situation, she had a decision to make. If the settlement had truly not been attacked, and if they had no capability to defend themselves, should she announce her presence and warn them of the danger? If no attack came, then the panic that might arise from the warning could do more harm than good. If it did come, and if the populace were warned, what good would it do if they have no way to defend themselves? They had learned from Nikko that surrender did not help. The enemy paid no heed and nuked the planet from space with the obvious intent of killing as many people as possible. Her orders left the matter of making contact and providing a warning to her discretion based on “the circumstances.” In other words, it was up to her to screw up when some future politician looked back and assessed her actions in the context of what was yet to come.
Complicating the matter was her order to visit two settlements—New Hyderabad and Jaipur. Given that the Hawking Drive would not allow arriving or departing any system closer than forty to forty-five light-minutes from the local star, and that most habitable planets were within ten light-minutes of the star, actually visiting the settlement in each system would require a minimum of eight to twelve days, give or take. Even if she provided warning, there was not much else she could do to help other than say “good luck” as she left on her way to the next system or back home.
If she were a settlement administrator, governor, or president—she had no idea what form of government or governments were currently in place on New Hyderabad—would she want to know?
Yes. Yes, I would, she thought. That moment of insight then raised the next logical question. Should she take the time to go to the planet for a dialog with the settlement’s government or just do it from where they were to save time? From here, the communication would be frustrating due to the speed-of-light time delay, but still advantageous from an overall time-spent perspective. If they did not need to spend days traveling inward to the planet and then back out again to activate the Hawking Drive, precious time would be saved. They needed to minimize the time in the New Hyderabad system and move on to Jaipur. The enemy had not pressed their attack after Nikko, but that could change. The Mumbai needed to complete its mission and get back to Earth where another warship might be needed the most.
“Mitra, what language are the colonists primarily using?” Anika asked.
“A bastardized version of Telugu and English, not terribly different from the dialect spoken when they left Earth, though I have intercepted communications completely in Hindi and English, the latter being not so common,” replied Mitra.
“You and I need to figure out who is in charge, how we get in contact with them, and what to say so that we aren’t misunderstood and nothing gets lost in translation. And we need to do it so that the inevitable back and forth is minimized. We’re going to initiate contact from here and then move on Jaipur as quickly as possible,” Anika said.
“Certainly, Captain. I can be ready when you are,” replied Mitra.
“Let’s get started,” said Anika as she began dictating her first thoughts of what an introductory message might say.