Jethro 7 The Long Road Home is out!

 

  The fall of Horath had Warrant Officer Jethro McClintock and most of the surviving members of his Cadre unit scrambling for survival. They managed to jump away into hyperspace just before the energy wave of the wrath of a dying star caught up with them.

  Marooned in space, the survivors must find a way to continue their survival or die in the long night. There was no quick way home.

  Jethro's family back home has to make do without him. But, one way or another, that black cat and his friends are going to pull out all the stops and take the long road home.

Or die trying.

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09BK66DB8

B&N: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-long-road-home-chris-hechtl/1139927696;jsessionid=3BFF0B4AD54642E83AAAB32998EF6488.prodny_store02-atgap13?ean=2940162608028

Jethro Snippet 3

 Sitrep: I received the J7 manuscripts back this afternoon. I will start the final publishing process in the morning. 

Since you have to wait 1 more day, I figured I should give you another taste of what you are up against.

Chapter 3

 

UFN-80P

 

Survival mode meant cutting way back on life support, lighting, and the same. Anyone who didn't have a job to do had to remain in a given location and try not to use up resources. Energy usage was cut. The captain worked up and transmitted a mayday with their logs, but after that everything was shut down except passive sensors.

Meanwhile, the chief and techs did an inventory. The captain had ordered an in-depth inventory down to the last nut and bolt. They took that to heart, hoping to find something, anything that had been overlooked that might come in handy.

They all knew that they were in serious trouble. They were trapped on a ship built for 27 crew and 50 cadre with 266 souls in deep space with little power far from home. Crowded was an understatement; hot bunking was the norm in any and all quarters except the captain's chamber. It became clear within a day that there was no hope of rescue; by the time the signal that had been transmitted got to someone, they would all be long dead.

In other words, they were on their own.

~~~-^-~~~

The captain assembled the officers and engineers. “I want options, folks.”

“The signal we transmitted will get wiped out when it heads across the space where the nova occurred. Don't count on it getting to Finagle, Garth, or anywhere that we know the Federation is at,” the ship's A.I. stated flatly.

“So TFP?”

“TFP is over sixty light years away,” Ensign Kelsi Hatfield said with a shake of her head. She was a bit glum. She had run the numbers over and over and knew them in her sleep. No matter how she tried to twist them they were screwed.

“Obviously, we need to get back into hyperspace,” the captain prompted, looking at the engineers. The chief grimaced.

Chief Yoji Koda, also known as Lieutenant Commander Koda, was her XO and chief engineer. He preferred to go by the title of chief though. He was a pretty good wrench turner; though as an XO, he let the ship's A.I. take on his share of the paperwork a bit too much for her tastes.

“We can get back into hyperspace if we draw every molecule of hydrogen from every resource in the ship including from material and from our own bodies,” the chief said with a frown.

“And that will do what?”

“We'd be in the lowest band and octave of hyperspace for a short time. How long depends on the energy we can collect with the hyperspace collectors. But we won't have much energy to move the ship in hyperspace or to go up or down a band.”

The captain grimaced. Every crew member knew that there was little energy to collect in the low octaves of alpha band. The compression ratio was too low. The higher you went up the octaves and of course bands, the denser the energy and the more likely you can run the ship's systems off of the energy you collected alone.

“Okay, so, that's a problem. How far can we get?”

“Um …,” the ensign ran the numbers and then shook her head.

“That bad?”

“Maybe another two light years.”

“Oh. Yeah, that's bad.”

“It gets worse. There would be nothing left in the ship or even our bodies. That is why I didn't propose it before.”

“Okay, so, that plan is out. Next option?” the captain asked briskly.

“That … we are looking at the space we're in. The nearest star isn't even really a star.” The ensign pulled up a star chart of the region. “We are approximately 4.5 light years from this,” she said, sounding a bit dubious as a star system with a long alpha numeric string came up.

“Brown dwarf. Not good,” the captain said.

“Worse, it is a Y class.”

“Y class?” the chief echoed.

“Devoid of material to be used for anything including fuel. It is a very dim brown dwarf.”

“Oh.”

Brown dwarf stars were known as brown death. They were essentially failed stars, Jethro noted as Bast supplied him with the information. They sometimes had dust clouds since they didn't have enough gravity to get them to form into planetoids. Those that did form were usually dwarf or mercury class planets devoid of usable resources.

No wonder no one had gone there since it had been scouted centuries ago.

“Any port in the storm,” the captain murmured. “Okay, how do we get there?” she asked.

“We've got enough fuel to burp the sublight drives. We can get us up to point 5 C,” the chief said, crunching the numbers.

“Concur. But the burn would have to be short,” the ship's A.I. stated.

“How short is short?” the ensign asked. She blinked when they showed her the numbers. “Oh, that short. Yeah, we'd need everything we could for the shields and for braking,” she said with a nod.

The captain frowned as she stared bleakly at the numbers. At that speed, they would take nearly ten years to get to where they were going. Even when they got there they'd have little left for fuel and energy in a star system devoid of material.

“We'll brake at the start of year six,” the ensign said.

“Are there any other star system candidates?”

“At this point, the nearest habitable world is TFP, Tiny Freakin Planet,” the A.I. said. The star chart came up on their tablets and an icon blinked. “But it is seventy light years away through a minor nebula.”

“Oh.”

Jethro winced. The idea of spending one hundred and twenty years in stasis to get that far? The admiral had done it out of necessity in Senka but …

“To leave our families that long?” the chief asked softly.

The ensign looked wooden. She seemed about ready to cry.

“To get there we'd drain the ship dry. But there is another problem related to both issues; we don't have enough stasis pods for everyone.”

The captain frowned. “Okay, it looks like we're going to have to go with this option. So, list the problems and then break the problems down into solvable chunks. We'll build off of that.”

“First up is the stasis pod issue,” the chief said grimly.

~~~-^-~~~

Jethro 7 Snippet 2

 So far nothing from Goodlifeguide. I'll keep checking my inbox. :)

Chapter 2

 

Antigua

 

Shanti had been about to go into work when a text told her that she could report in and do work from home. She was grateful; the kittens were a handful for Red now that they were mobile. They seemed to be growing in spurts. They also had recently started to talk, though their understanding was mixed.

She was still struggling with the news about Horath. It wasn't helping her work at all. She couldn't focus worth a damn sometimes.

She felt a tremor as her doorbell rang, and she checked the video feed. She saw two familiar forms there, both in formal uniforms.

She felt her eyes tear up and felt a sinking sensation but forced herself to get up and go to the door.

General Lyon was there with Admiral Thornby. They had their covers off and tucked under their arm. “I'm sorry to …,” she closed her eyes, willing her ears to close too as she heard the formal words of apology of loss. She'd expected it, dreaded it the moment she'd heard about the final battle in Horath. The general had been good to send an official notice when word had broke a few days before; she'd been on auto pilot since then, hoping it was just a mistake.

“Come in,” she said as she stepped aside. They each stepped past. Red saw them and teared up instantly. Her distress set the kittens off.

~~~-^-~~~

Nara and General Lyon were quiet for a while but then began to talk on the ride back to the base in their government air car. "This sucks. It is the hardest thing, to tell people we don't know. That we may never know their fate."

"I know. Being in limbo is a terrible thing. Torture," Nara said with a sad face. “Is it too soon though?” she asked.

“They are overdue. We don't know if they got off the planet, to the ship …,” the general grimaced. “There are too many variables. The odds of their survival drop the longer they don't report in.”

“I have been running the scenarios in simulations, trying to see what the decision tree they were faced with and then reconstruct what might have happened,” Mars stated.

“And?” Nara prompted.

“It's not good. If they had to delay to get off the planet, which we expect, then they had to take one of a dozen courses away from Finagle or any known jump point in order to have even a small chance at survival. The longer they waited the lower the odds of survival were. To be honest, they might have waited too long. Given that there are last messages from Warrant McClintock and others, I believe they knew it too.”

Nara closed her eyes in pain. They were silent the rest of the way to the base.

When she opened her eyes again, she saw the flags being flown at half-mast.

~~~-^-~~~

Zuhura closed her eyes in pain as she felt her mom and younger siblings in the room. She had come home when she'd gotten the call from Admiral Thornby. They were all quiet and in mourning, just sitting on the couch and chairs glum. The younger litter were piled around their mother. Her tail was wrapped around two of them. One of the kittens had his thumb in his mouth. After a moment, Red sighed and slapped her thighs, startling them. “Well, I'm going to go find something to eat.”

She opened her eyes in surprise and looked at the small domestic cat. Red flicked her ears. “What?” Red asked.

“Really? At a time like this?” one of her younger siblings said in an accusing voice. It was surprising to hear that voice. They might be physically small but they had recently learned to talk. They seemed to share some sort of link that the other litter lacked. Zuhura had twigged on it when Red had noted that they seemed to learn collectively, almost like a hive mind. One would pick something up and the others would learn the trick without experiencing it within hours. Words were picked up fast.

“I'm hungry?!” Red said defensively. “Besides, if I don't eat, I get a headache and upset stomach. I'm not going to make myself sick. I miss the big lug, but I know he wouldn't want that.”

“No, he wouldn't,” Shanti murmured. She opened her eyes and stroked the kittens gently. “We'll eat or not.”

“So, that's it? Life goes on?” Zuhura asked softly.

“At the moment, yes,” Red said with a nod. “We don't know for sure he's dead. We may never know.”

Zuhura saw her mother stiffen.

“If he comes out of this scrape, we can razz his fanny for a long time for giving us a scare,” Red said with a buck-up tone in her voice. “Until we know for sure, I'm going to keep the faith.”

Zuhura nodded slowly. She looked at her mother who was also nodding. Of course her mom was, well, mom. She took care of them, and her instincts were coming into play there. “I'll give you a hand,” Zuhura said as she followed Red into the kitchen.

~~~-^-~~~

Jethro 7 Snippet 1

 Sitrep:

  Another story for Multiverse 5 is done, I finished it last night. Two more to go. It'd be cool to finish it this month but doubtful.

   In other news, we are now in the window to get J7 back from Goodlifeguide. Hopefully we will see it before the end of the month as I promised.

On to the snippet!

 

Chapter 1

 

UFN-80P, Deep Space

 

During the hasty evacuation of Horath 4, shuttles had poured people into the small prowler cadre transport. They had abandoned two of the shuttles once they had been evacuated, but the last two had been repurposed into booster engines by the Cadre.

The Cadre had worked under Warrant Officer Ox's directions as a collective hive to guide their nanites into the ship in order to facilitate their escape. They had used force emitters from the shuttles as well as from the cadre suits in order to shield the ship long enough for it to escape into hyperspace.

Each of the suits had been virtually drained of energy during the process as had the ship's systems. They had a small reserve left but were very low on power. So low they had been forced out of hyperspace one day out, coming out thirty-four light days from the expanding super nova.

To the 266 people on board the ship, it seemed that they had traded a quick clean death in the inferno from a dying star for a cold lingering death in deep space waiting for power, food, or life support to run out.

“We aren't dead yet,” Bast whispered in Jethro's ear.

He clacked his teeth together gently. “True,” Chief Warrant Officer Jethro McClintock rumbled ever so softly. He was a black Neopanther, an ebony shadow that had haunted the newly-reformed Space Marines before eventually being tapped to reform the Cadre.

“Well! This is another fine mess we've gotten ourselves into,” he muttered.

Bast flicked her long ears at him in mild amusement and reproach.

Bast, short for Bastet, was his personal A.I. She was embedded in his body, his mind, his implants, in the nanites in his body, and in the nanites in his armor. Together they forged a nearly unbeatable combination in combat.

Now they were in a different form of combat, this one he was ill prepared to handle either mentally or physically. No amount of training would prepare them for this sort of scenario. It was one of the worst nightmares of any spacer—to be marooned without hope of rescue.

~~~-^-~~~

Captain Lizel Tally nodded to herself as the latest reports came in. She had gotten her crew busy organizing the survivors and doing a thorough inventory of their resources. She'd made it clear she had wanted everything noted, right down to the nuts and bolts and skill sets of the passengers.

The A.I. and navigators were doing their best to plot their location. They knew how far they'd traveled from Horath based on their hyperspace odometer readings, a full thirty-four light days.

Now thirty-three days before the wave of energy from the supernova reached them.

She had them looking for a way out of the fix they were in.

Meanwhile, the lead engineers were busy trying to do what they did best, finding a miracle in their back pockets if possible.

Given that they'd been so low on fuel they'd been forced out of hyperspace, she knew it was going to be a tough one to pull off.

There was talk of rescue among the crew but she knew better. No, the only way to survive was if they rescued themselves.

~~~-^-~~~

Jethro hated the situation they were in. He felt trapped, helpless, and useless as time grew. He hated the feeling; it wasn't something he was used to having.

“Damn it, I'm an operator and a shooter,” he muttered to Bast. She nodded.

“You can't shoot your way out of this,” she murmured, caressing his ears with phantom hands.

He nodded. He knew a part of his problem was the feelings of loss of Letanga and his friends. For all he knew, most of his friends were now dead.

Just about every Marine and army soldier had been involved in the invasion of Horath. The elite at the very least, which included him and the Cadre. They had been sucked in, and when they'd been busy in ground combat operations, the “Pirate Empress” bitch had struck. She'd set off a nova bomb and destroyed her own home star system with who knows how many billions of her own people in the process.

Thinking about it objectively, he knew it was a strategic stroke of genius. Second Fleet had been shattered and most of the ground troops obliterated. She'd gotten away too.

The navy had tried to get some people off but he doubted they'd gotten many. Certainly not Letanga and some of the other troops.

He closed his eyes in pain. They probably were dead; the navy hadn't stuck around long to evacuate many of the troops. There had been little time to escape as it was, they'd barely made it, and only just so because the Cadre had intervened with their nanites. The other units didn't have their A.I. support or nanites.

Besides, he knew people like Valenko would put civilians, even Horathian civilians, over their own survival.

~~~-^-~~~

With multiple A.I on board, they divided up the sensor feeds and managed to plot the stars around them. Spectrographic analysis and a comparison to their star charts gave away their location on the third day.

They were in deep space far above the plane of the ecliptic of Horath and far away from the jump lines to Finagle or H001. The navigators were already saying there was no way back.

“First things first,” Captain Tally said once they gave her the grim news.

“What?” Ensign Hatfield asked in confusion.

“A memorial.”

“Oh.”

“Really? Now, ma'am?” Chief Koda asked.

“Now. We owe the dead that much. Not that they'd complain if we waited, but I think we should mourn our dead and then move on.”

“Aye aye, ma’am.”

“Chief, put the word out that we are going informal for obvious reasons. Quick and simple.”

“Aye aye, ma’am.”

~~~-^-~~~