The sharp edged black plumbs generated by the volcanoes dotting the planet spread horizontally through the thin atmosphere. Officially designated Zulu four four, the harsh snowball planet quickly picked up the name Ice Station Zebra. Apparently one of the survey captains is a fan of pulp literature created just as man started to enter space. It is going to be a harsh life for the nearly one million citizens of the Solar Union that we recruited to come here. We screened the applicants and only took families that were used to living in domes and environmental suits. None of the colonists have been brought out of stasis yet, but my company's team has laid out the first basic habitat.
I guess that's reason enough to take the gig over for a celebration on the SUN Mars. Well technically the new colony class cruiser is still in the builders hands going through trials, but Captain Patel still thinks she is in charge. The Mars was the price we paid to get the repair ship Weishanhu to come along. Zebra is four jumps from the nearest outpost and even further from any yard so we needed some remote repair capacity. At least the Solar Union is picking up the tab for leasing the Weishanhu.
“Captain Arnold, welcome aboard the Mars, the rest of the guests are already in the Wardroom. Except your son. The engine glitch he saw still has him busy in the forward engine room. The captain is really hot about having to tether back up to the Weishanhu again.”
“Thank you Commander Lin, the Mars is certainly cutting edge compared to an old soldier like Bear. After we bought her surplus from the SUN, they only let us keep a couple of sprint missile launchers. You have to expect a few hiccups with all the new gear.”
“You filled the empty space with some nice survey and sensor suites. The Bear is still pretty cutting edge herself.”
“That she is, shall we head to the wardroom commander?”
“Yes, sir”
The Mars is ready for commissioning, you can see she is functioning like a real warship now. Captain Patel must be pissed my son John dragged her all the way out here on builders trials. He is the lead design engineer of the Ganymede yards, so I guess they didn't argue too much when he insisted on a multi-jump acceptance trial. Still it must have eaten into the bottom line pretty extensively.
The wardroom still had the stark gray on gray appearance of a new ship. The captain and officers haven't put in their personal touches yet. “Welcome aboard Captain Arnold, please join us.”
“Thank you, Captain Patel, you have a fine ship, she'll serve the navy for many years.”
“Thank you, Captain Arnold. You've already met my XO, Commander Lin. I take it you already know Captain Arnold of the Weishanhu?”
“I met my daughter-in-law at the wedding, yes. How did you let John get sucked into work at dinner time, haven't you taught him to delegate yet?”
Jitendra Arnold was obviously a direct descendant of someone from the Indian sub-continent of Earth, without any of the ethnic blurring that is creating a homogeneous population. Ironically, she and Talha Patel could be sisters by appearance, but I liked Jitendra. “Paul, you should know by now that John isn't going to be a sailor. You raised an engineer that likes to get his hands dirty.”
“Touche... Captain Patel, I've had the opportunity to work with all your fine officers over the last few months. I think we can skip the introductions?”
“Very well, Captain, we'll move on. Steward, what's our schedule for dinner?” As Captain Patel shifted to her command voice.
“We'll be ready to serve in twenty minutes captain.”
“Very well, inform us when you are ready.”
“Yes, sir.”
And back to her diplomatic tenor. “Captain Arnold, it must be nice to have so much family around this far from home.”
I let a little edge slip into my voice. “I don't think you realize the extent of it Captain Patel. Evey crew in the colony fleet is family, with the exception of Mars.”
Captain Patel was taken aback, but recovered quickly. “Of course, this colony expedition is all Gadiwana owned ships. You feel all your employees are part of an extended corporate family.”
I needed to suppress my misplaced anger. While Captain Patel has acted like she is running this expedition, she isn't a bad person, and most of her crew wasn't even born when...
“The captains of my ships were all classmates of mine back when Mars tried to leave the Union. Being a sparsely populated and harsh planet at the the time, all students on Mars were required to do survival training. We were half way up Erebes Montes when we saw our home dome go up. I remember how we rushed back into the inferno looking for our families. I lost my parents and both my sisters, all of us were orphans. We resealed one of the greenhouses. It was nearly two weeks before the troops came through and rounded us up. In the meantime we promised each other we would be family forever. The Mars orphanages were more like prisons. We were educated, had plenty to eat, but we had to watch as carpet baggers bought our old homes and farms at tax auctions and level our old lives. When we were let out as adults, there were no jobs except mining someone else's claim or farming someone else's land. Mars didn't have a University at the time, and we couldn't afford the Earth ones, if they even wanted a bunch of scraggly Mars orphans. So we signed on as deckhands and moved to space. At the time the need for freighters was booming, and being desperate we threw ourselves into learning the trade. Eventually we got the chance to become officers, save our money and buy our own ship, then ships, and here we are.”
Captain Patel and her officers were now a bit leery. The history books and popular culture portrayed Martians from that time as terrorists, hicks and generally insane. And now she was surrounded by them. “It's good you've been able to make so much of your lives starting from such humble beginnings.”
Luckily Commander Lin changed the subject. “Your ships are hauling the supplies and infrastructure for the new shipyard and forward naval base, aren't they? After commissioning they might run us right back out here again.”
Captain Patel interjected. “I believe you are carrying a new forward base. I doubt it'll grow much unless the survey fleet finds something interesting soon.”
Suddenly the ship went dark.