“Then you know how much we can adapt. We have to. Earth is getting too small for all of us.”
I think of the place where I lived until I joined the service—humans stuffed into concrete shoeboxes and stacked a hundred high, then crammed next to each other for dozens of square miles. Weekly food allowances, occasional treats through vouchers for better food, and a small hope for a shot at a better life, the colony lottery. I know damn well that Earth is already too small for us, but I also know how small the colonies are, how long it takes to make a planet or moon even minimally habitable, and how quickly the population grows back home even with mandatory birth control in the food for welfare rats. We were running out of time long before the Lankies started to take everything away from us again. As a species, they seem much better at the adaptation game.
The cloud cover on New Svalbard seems to extend forever. When we finally break out of the zero-visibility layer of white that covers this part of the moon like a shroud, the altimeter readout from the computer shows twenty thousand feet. The sky is the color of cobalt, with the far-off sun a small but bright sphere near the cloud horizon, and the much closer blue orb of Fomalhaut c taking up a quarter of the sky behind us. Fomalhaut c is the gas planet around which New Svalbard orbits, twice as far away from its parent sun than Neptune is distant from the sun in our home system. It’s a pretty sight, but it reminds me of the mind-boggling vastness of the universe, and how far away from other members of our species we are right now.
The pilot takes a conservative ascent into orbit to save fuel, so we have thirty minutes to gaze at the scenery before we approach the Indianapolis in orbit. The orbital combat ship is built for stealth, and I don’t even see it until the pilot calls in docking clearance, and the Indy lights up her positional illumination. Twenty degrees off our port bow, a sleek ship appears out of nowhere, a vague indication of shape only illuminated by blinking station lights. As we draw nearer, I get my first look at the exterior of a Constitution-class OCS. It looks a little like a Lanky ship in miniature, all curves and streamlined surfaces, almost organic in appearance. The drop ship draws closer and positions itself underneath the Indy for the automated docking procedure, but even from just a hundred meters away, I can’t make out any exposed antennas or exhausts, just a series of openings near the tail end that look more like gills than thrust nozzles.
A few minutes later, the hull shudders slightly as the docking clamps attach to the Dragonfly and pull the drop ship up into the hangar of the Indianapolis. The status light on the loadmaster’s panel across the aisle turns from red to green, and the deployment light above the tail ramp follows suit. I shut off the sensor feed from the sensors and raise my visor.
“You can unbuckle,” I tell Dr. Stewart.
“Is there a procedure for stepping on a navy ship? Like, do I have to wipe my feet or something?”
“I’ll handle that,” I say, and return Dr. Stewart’s wry smile.
I get out of my seat and walk over to the loadmaster console to unlock the tail ramp. It comes open with the familiar soft hydraulic whining and reveals the small craft hangar of the Indianapolis beyond.
The Indy’s hangar is claustrophobically tiny. As we walk down the laminate steel ramp of the Dragonfly, I look around and see that the drop ship fills out most of the available space. I see a refuel probe, an automated ordnance loader, and very little else aside from two deckhands stepping up to the ship to check for ordnance to secure. There’s a corporal in fleet fatigues with a PDW slung across his chest standing by the bulkhead in front of us. I stop at the end of the tail ramp and salute the NAC colors painted on the bulkhead above the corporal’s head.
“Permission to come aboard to report to the CO,” I say.
The corporal returns my salute. “Permission granted,” he says.
I step off the ramp and onto the deck, and Dr. Stewart follows me. “That is one small hangar,” I say to the corporal as we step up to the hatch. “Smallest one of any boat I’ve ever been on.”
“We don’t have an air/space complement except for the two stealth birds,” the corporal says. “And those have their own berths in the hull. Hangar’s just for ferry flights and visitors.”
“I see.” I look back over my shoulder and see that the wingtips of the Dragonfly are barely far enough away from the walls to let an ordnance cart squeeze past.
“Well, it’s not a carrier,” he says. The hatch in front of him opens silently. “But everything’s new and shiny. Best galley in the fleet, I guarantee it.”
Colonel Campbell stands at the tactical display with his arms folded when I enter the CIC with Dr. Stewart in tow. He turns around and briefly returns my salute before offering his hand.