ENSIGN (A Starship Hope Prequel)

CHAPTER 12

An oval table dominated the room. Seven out of its ten seats were filled with uniformed officers and military nationals from all over the world. The door slid closed behind her, the music that had been thrumming through the air coming to an abrupt stop. It was at that moment that Dana remembered she was wearing her uniform unbuttoned to the waist, and hastily made the correction with fumbling fingers.

"It's all right, your uniform isn't why we called you here," Major Thompson said. There was a smirk on his face, as if he were amused at her discomfort. He pulled out a chair for her at the table and gestured with one hand for her to sit. "As I said, you're being reassigned."

"Now?" Dana whispered.

"Yes, here and now." He kept his voice at a level everyone could hear.

"I've never heard of anyone else being reassigned in such a way," Dana hissed, glancing around the faces at table. "There are dignitaries here representing every branch of government. What kind of assignment is this?"

"Do you remember hearing about the meteorite that landed in the ocean off the southern isles?"

Dana thought for a moment, recalling something about it having popped up on one of her newsfeeds. "Yes... the waves were reportedly bigger than anything previously seen. Surfers were riding them for days."

"Yes, well, there are more asteroid fragments headed our way." Thompson's face went grim. "These ones are larger, and a lot less survivable than the previous."

"I see," Dana said, then true understanding dawned. Her skin flushed and her scalp tingled. This was another space-faring mission. The last time they'd had this much asteroid activity, she'd been serving under her father on the Atlantis. He'd done what it took to eliminate the threat to their planet, sacrificing his ship and his life to save them.

Now her government was asking her to do the same.

"You want me to go up and eliminate them before they can damage the planet's surface?" She squared her shoulders and gave a curt nod. If her father were here, he'd smile at her adherence to protocol, even while seated. "It would be my honor."

"No."

The booming denial belonged to General Hughes, a man she'd had no personal dealings with in the past, but who had been there the day her father died. He had the droopy eyes and low bark of a basset hound, and a full head of snowy white hair cropped into a tidy, regulation flat top. His left lapel was decorated with all the awards of his ranks, including one for bravery.

Dana had heard him thank her father eye-to-eye for his service, for his sacrifice. Several months of therapy later, she'd finally been able to let go of the resentment she'd carried against the man for knowing what he'd asked her father to do.

Even without the resentment, the simple declaration brought her up short. Did they doubt her ability to handle the mission? If so, why had they brought her here? The protest was on her lips as Hughes stood up.

"Our planet appears to be in the path of these asteroids," he said. "Once these have been destroyed, there will be more. We don't want to spend the next fifty years sending up manned crafts to pick them off one by one. There may come a time when there's one too large for us to take down with our weapons or ships, and the world government isn't willing to wait to begin making plans to evacuate. We have a more dangerous and long-term assignment planned for you."

Dana wasn't sure how to respond. The room was deathly quiet. What he was saying didn't register with anything she'd heard before. Whatever they weren't telling her had to be one of the best-kept secrets in the world.

"We need to find a new home," General Hughes continued. "Our planet won't survive the onslaught of rock headed our way in the years to come. Currently, we're building a starship for long-range transport of a select few passengers and an elite crew. We need you to take this ship, and lead a crew to travel as far from here as they can to find a new, habitable planet for our inhabitants to settle on."

Dana blinked several times in succession to convince herself that she was, in fact, awake. Her mind struggled to put together what he was saying.

She'd be going up into space, to find them a new planet. Their ancestors had done something similar back when they'd left Blue Earth and discovered Zelenia. However, at that time, much like the colonist Columbus, it had been a happy accident. This would be a purposeful trip–one with no definitive end date.

"What you need to know is that, although this is mainly an exploratory mission, we're sending some of our most brilliant minds along for the ride to begin settlement immediately."

Dana sat speechless while the rest of the room turned their eyes on her expectantly. What did they want her to say? This was the mission of a lifetime, with no guarantee she'd ever return.

Silence enveloped the room again, and she sat in it, unprepared to add her voice.

General Hughes continued his speech anyway. "The vessel itself is top secret, as is the mission, so you won't be able to tell anyone about it–not your former crew, not your family, friends, no one. Once the project is complete, we'll debrief you with any other details you need to know to carry out your mission with success. We'll also transfer the command codes to the starship at that time." He fixed her with hard, drooping eyes. "We cannot stress enough the need for complete secrecy."

Dana nodded, not trusting her voice enough to speak.

"There'll be no written record of this meeting," he added. "And the news of the mission and its crew won't be made public until we can ensure the safety of everyone involved. You'll be given strict instructions on how to proceed during each phase of the project."

Dana let the briefing wash over her as she visualized leaving the room and keeping the news of her new commission to herself. A top-secret mission to space to find them a new home with a select crew and a manifest of passengers chosen by the world government. It felt like something out of fiction.

"Questions, Captain?" the general asked, taking his seat again.

"Can you answer them if I ask?" Dana said, surprised at how steady her voice came out.

The general gave her a wry smile and shook his head.

She nodded to herself and smiled back at him. "That's what I thought. Can you at least tell me the name of the ship?"

General Hughes looked to one side, and then the other at the faces around the table for confirmation, then nodded.

"We're calling it Hope."

Continue the journey of Captain Dana Pinet in ...Starship Hope Exodus