A Path in the Darkness by M.D. Cooper

Author:M.D. Cooper [Cooper, M.D.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2015-01-20T19:00:00+00:00

CHURN AND BURN

STELLAR DATE: 3241792 / 08.17.4163 (Adjusted Gregorian)

LOCATION: GSS Excelsior

REGION: LHS 1565, 30 AU from stellar primary

20:21 hours to asteroid group

Tanis stood up after the meal and poured two cups of coffee, adding sugar to Joe’s and cream to hers. She handed Joe his cup and settled down in her chair, cradling the warm beverage.

“Mmm, just the way I like it,” Joe said after a long draught. “You do pay attention.”

“I did my fair share of dinner runs to the mess if you recall. It wasn’t all just you getting me my BLT.”

“That’s not how I remember it,” Joe said with a wink.

“Enough stalling, it’s your turn, mister.”

Joe nodded and took another long drink before beginning.

“Like with Toro, the full story of Makemake never made it out to the public. It started before your jaunt to Toro began and ended a few months after. I was with the seventh fleet on the Midway. We were leaving Ceres on our way to meet with the rest of the fleet for maneuvers near Venus.”

“I read a briefing about that,” Tanis said. “It was to test defensive patterns after the left-over core from Uranus was positioned between Venus and Earth.”

“Yup, but we never arrived, we did a polar loop around Sol and boosted north. The word on the ship was that orders changed and we were doing a patrol of the Oort cloud, but we all knew we weren’t provisioned for a haul that long.

“There was a lot of scuttlebutt, especially with the Scattered Worlds representatives talking separation in the SolGov congress. Some were also worried that we were on an Outsystem trajectory to Alpha Centauri or Tau Ceti, though anyone who could look out a window at the stars could tell that we weren’t headed there. The captain and the XO weren’t talking but I figured we were on our way to the disk somewhere. I didn’t expect us to be going to the capital, but rather Eris or New Sedna.”

“Ballsy to go right for Makemake,” Tanis commented.

“It was. I still don’t know if that was the order or the captain was given some leeway. I don’t think she’d churn and burn on a capital world without being explicitly told to.

“Either way, we went dark at our apex and took several months to drop back down the solar plane. When we were approaching Makemake we were still going damn fast. The Midway did the burn and made for a pretty rude awakening.”

“I can imagine, I saw the vids of the Midway braking over Makemake, it was brighter than their little pseudo sun,” Tanis nodded.

“We ended up engaging the SW fleet and even did a few strafes of their capital before they capitulated and stopped their separatist movement. There weren’t a lot of casualties, but I felt pretty damn dirty shooting down pilots of a sovereign nation because they wanted to leave the union.”

“Wait a second—” Tanis double-checked a reference she remembered seeing once “—your mother was stationed on Makemake at the time!”

Joe nodded slowly.

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