ISS Tolkien
“Madam President,” replied Commander Jane Bennett, “I’m confident that my crew and I will see the USS Tolkien safely through our solar system and well on its way to Sirius Major.”
Twenty-six minutes later the President answered. “Thank you, Commander. Have you read the Times this morning? The Only Earthers have pledged to sabotage the Tolkien. I trust you’ve taken precautions.”
“Of course, Madame President, but I expect that damaging an asteroid we’ve converted into a generational spaceship is beyond their capabilities.”
“I’m sure you’re right, Jane, but after the French elected a practicing Luddite to parliament, I stopped taking anything for granted.”
Jane sat back in her chair on the bridge of the Earthship, ISS Tolkien, a former asteroid.
The Forian asteroid, 2675 Tolkien, was selected because it was an extremely slow rotator and located in the inter-regions of the asteroid belt. Almost seven miles in diameter, it was captured and placed in high Earth orbit years ago, hollowed out, and slowly converted into a generational spaceship. Some of the colonists were great-grandchildren of the original work crew. She made a quick life support check. The oxygen level was 16% and the rotation maintained gravity at 72% Earth normal.
“All parameters are in the green. I can’t speak for everyone, but most of our 100,000 colonists are happy. Like any city our size, we have births and deaths almost daily, but that’s the cycle of life. Four hundred years to Sirius. Our schools are open, power sources are exceeding expectations, and the engineered soil supports crop growth beautifully. The bees love the lower gravity.”
The President responded twenty-six minutes later. “Outstanding. I’ll have the Post contact you for an interview. Make it a fluff piece, please. The stars are our destiny sort of thing. Meanwhile, don’t take the Only Earth fanatics too lightly. I expect they’ll be trouble.”
“Yes, Madam President,” replied Jane and ended the call. She took another moment to view live satellite feeds of Earth and then focused on the ongoing status reports. She spent most of her time reviewing data that never changed. Her team operated the Tolkien like a watch. She scanned screen after screen.
Suddenly three things happened almost simultaneously. An alarm flashed indicating that an atomic power generator station was offline. It wasn’t reporting. It might be functioning or it might be about to explode. Second, a message appeared from the panicked station manager saying that a group of colonists had taken over his control center. And third, her private phone rang. She answered the phone first.
“This is Professor Wilkens, the provisional leader of the Only Earth Society forces on this converted asteroid. We have control of power station twelve. We’ll blow the core if this abomination isn’t promptly decommissioned and everyone returned to Earth.”
“I know who you are, Professor. I’ll be there shortly to talk face to face. Please don’t do anything rash.”
“You have fifteen minutes.”
Jane contacted security, hurried to her personal transport, entered the coordinates, and called the station manager on his personal communicator. “Are the Only Earthers in control of your power station?”
“Not completely, Commander. They have the control center, but three of us have barricaded ourselves in the reactor room. For now, they can’t access the reactor remotely or in person.”
Jane flew her transport directly across Tolkien’s interior. “Corporal Robinson, this is Corporal Robinson is it not? They’ve threatened to blow the core. Can you decommission the reactor?”
“Yes, Commander, this is Robinson. I can manually insert the dampening rods and pull the core, but I’ll need half an hour.”
“I’ll buy you all the time I can. Let me know when the core is safe.”
Jane disconnected before the station manager responded, skidded to a landing, and forced herself to walk slowly to the power station.
Professor Wilkens stood behind the blockaded entrance in a shirt reading Genesis 1:28, the dominion scripture that the Only Earthers referenced to justify their philosophy that mankind belonged only on Earth. He held out his hand. “Stay back from the door, Commander Bennett. Contact Earth and have them prepare to repatriate everyone inside this asteroid. Otherwise, I’ll blow the core. The fallout will make this generation ship uninhabitable for a million years.”
Jane’s stomach clenched, but she smiled on the outside. “Professor, we’ve spent seventy years and billions of dollars hollowing out this asteroid and converting it into a functional world and spacecraft to take mankind to Sirius. The stars are ours. You don’t want to throw that away.”
“You’re doing the devil’s work. The Lord gave us dominion over the Earth, not the universe, not other planets, and not even this asteroid. The Lord made the Heaven and the Earth. Making our own worlds is sacrilege. Mankind must accept the Lord’s will. Earth is our home, our only home. Make the call.”
“I’ll need more time. Sometimes Madame President isn’t available and you know that there’s always a delay during conversations. Sometimes for several minutes.”
“Liar, tell that to someone else. Radio waves only take three seconds to reach the moon. We’re closer than that.”
Jane nodded and returned to her transporter. She thumbed her communicator and pretended to contact the President, but after three minutes Wilkens impatiently waved her over. “This is taking too long. I want to talk directly to her. I don’t trust you.”
She opened her personal communicator and contacted the bridge. “Professor Wilkens and his mob of Only Earthers have taken control of power station twelve. He insists on speaking directly with the President. Once you reach her, transfer the call to my device.”
“Yes, Commander. You know it’ll take almost thirty minutes to get a response.”
“I do. Make the call.”
“Wilkens fumed. “Thirty minutes. I’m not stupid. You’re stalling.”
Jane’s communicator vibrated and a written message appeared from Corporal Robinson. “The core is decommissioned, but the Only Earthers are breaching the security doors. Should we resist?”
Jane called the corporal and added the Professor to the call. “Good job, Robinson. Don’t resist. Professor Wilkens is on this call with us.”
Jane stood directly in front of the clear plastic door and made eye contact with the professor. “Yes, I was stalling and there’s nothing you can do about it.”
A red-faced man yelled to the professor. “They’ve decommissioned the core. It’s as inert as a chunk of granite.”
Wilkens shoved the man aside and glared at the Commander. “Clever girl. You think you’ve won, but you haven’t. Return me and my people to Earth or there’ll be another day. There’ll always be another day.”
Jane smiled smugly. ‘No there won’t. We can’t send you back to Earth. We secretly left Earth's orbit six weeks ago. We slingshotted around the sun and will pass Mars orbit in two days. Our solar sails deployed successfully and we’re continuing to accelerate. We should be inside the Sirius system in a little over four hundred years. You really should open the door. According to my records, you have a class to teach this morning.”
“I’d have known if we left orbit, and I can see the Earth on the screens.”
“Video loop, my friend. Leaving orbit is far gentler than blasting off from the surface. We simply nudged this big old rock at the same time we increased rotation speeds and increased gravity. No one felt a thing. Seemed the best way to deal with your kind.”
“This is unconscionable. You’ve shanghaied us. I demand you return us to Earth.”
“Shanghaied, I think not. You signed on under false colors. I think of you lot as stowaways, but I’m willing to downgrade your status to mutineers or treat you as colonists. Your call.”
“I insist that we’ve been taken against our will. Stowaways indeed! Take us home.”
“Professor, I won’t argue semantics with you. I can’t turn this ship around even if I wish. At our speed, it would take several years to stop and without a solar wind behind us or another star to slingshot around, it would take us decades to return. You and I won’t live that long. Face it, professor, you’re here. You can work or not. I can order your confinement until you grow old and die, or you can perform the duties we know you can do. Meanwhile, I have a power station to restore and a world of paperwork to finish. Stop wasting my time.”
The professor shook with anger, and then took a deep breath and got himself under control. He visited briefly with his team before he opened the door. “If you’ll excuse me, Commander, I’ll need to change my clothes. I’ve a class to teach this morning.”
“Not so fast. You can’t just walk away from mutiny and sabotage. This morning you and yours will be confined to quarters. Tomorrow, you’ll appear before a tribunal. The court will decide whether you teach school, stay locked up, take an unsuited spacewalk, or spend the rest of your life working in the recycling facility. I don’t suffer saboteurs lightly.”
“Court, I demand a lawyer.”
“Sorry, but we didn’t bring any lawyers with us. Colonist court with mostly military rules. I’ll chair it.”
“That isn’t fair. You can’t be judge, jury, and executioner.”
“You tried to kill us all and you speak to me of fairness. Actually, I’ll only be one of three judges, but I’ll also be a witness and the prosecutor. If I were you, I’d spend today figuring out how to convince me that you’re an asset, not a liability. I’m a busy woman and I deal with liabilities only once, and as swiftly and permanently as possible.”
“Captain, I accept that we’ve left Earth behind. I was an Only Earther, but it would be utter nonsense for me to continue my fanaticism and ignore reality. Crying over spilled milk and all that. I assure you I won’t be a problem.”
“For your sake, I hope that’s true.”
The guards loaded the Only Earthers into a transport. Commander Bennett waited until it was airborne, and walked back into the power station. She returned Corporal Robinson’s salute. “Corporal, how long before we’re back online.”
“Less than an hour, Sir, I mean Ma’am. We only shipped the fissionable material and hid it. A few minutes to slide it back into place and recalibrate everything and we’re good to go.”
“Excellent. Please have one of your workers return my vehicle. It’s only four miles. I think I’ll walk home.”
“As you wish. If I may be so bold. You might walk through the Galileo Gardens. The tulips are in bloom. It’s lovely. Simply lovely.”
Robert Allen Lupton is retired and lives in New Mexico where he was a commercial hot air balloon pilot. Robert runs and writes every day, but not necessarily in that order. Over 200 of his short stories have been published in various anthologies, magazines, and online magazines. He has three novels in print, Foxborn, and the sequel, Dragonborn. His third novel, Dejanna of the Double Star was published in the fall of 2019 as was his edited anthology, Feral, It Takes a Forest. He co-edited the Three Cousins Anthology, Are You A Robot? in 2022. He has six short story collections, Running Into Trouble, Through A Wine Glass Darkly, Strong Spirits, Hello Darkness, Visons Softly Creeping, and The Marvin Chronicles. All eleven books are available from Amazon. Three Cousin Publishing released the new anthology, Witch Wizard Warlock, in August 2023. Over 2000 of his Edgar Rice Burroughs themed drabbles and articles are located on www.erbzine.com
Visit amazon.com/author/luptonra, his Amazon author’s page for current information about his stories and books and like or follow him on Facebook. https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100022680383572
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