Hyperion

"Yes."

"Understood."

Ripley sighed and turned away from the screen for a moment, hopefully not giving too much away. "After what Covenant's Walter relayed about the organism, I don't think we have any other viable choice."

"Well, you know the Company is going to raise hell about losing such a huge investment..."

"Let alone three thousand people," Ripley added cautiously, shuddering at the fate of the people onboard Covenant.

"Of course." She signed off and Ripley changed back to Patton's frequency, and her XO came on.

"Admiral?" Commander Thomas Jung said, and Ripley looked around, trying to spot Judy somewhere on the bridge.

"Where's your CO?" he asked.

"She's in her cabin, Admiral. Can I assist you?"

"Did you get the updated plot from the tankers?"

"Yessir, and the course is laid in. ETA nine hours to rendezvous."

"Okay," Ripley sighed. "Keep me updated."

"Yessir. Should I have the captain call you?" Jung said with an ugly smirk.

"Only if something comes up," Ripley replied with his patented withering stare before he signed off. 'So,' he thought, 'everyone in the fleet knows. And it's become a laughing matter.' Which only made what had to happen next all the more troublesome.

So it was time; he turned to Hyperion's XO, Commander Chen, and all he said was: "Launch Shuttle Two."

Chen looked away for a moment, hesitating, then she nodded. "Launching Shuttle Two, Admiral."

'Maybe all they'll do is court martial me,' he sighed.

Chapter Ten

You better start doing it right...

USNSF Hyperion                                                          16 August 2105

Lost in light, light everywhere. More than halfway to the doomed star Capella, Hyperion and her fleet are spread out in a long, thin line -- streaming towards oblivion. Patton and Stavridis are still well behind, about to rendezvous with the last of the fleet's tankers. And streaking away from the fleet: Hyperion's Shuttle Two, now with Ripley's Gordon at the helm. Covenant and the small Company ship are dead ahead of the shuttle, but as it happens both ships are anything but dead. Life now crawls through the twisted remains of Covenant, life now not quite human -- but life once human, life writhing in darkness, waiting to be fulfilled -- a glistening amalgam of sulfuric acid, silicon, and human DNA that lies waiting, patiently waiting, to spring unseen traps on the unsuspecting.

Ripley's Gordon keys his mic, the video feed to Hyperion now set to Continuous Record.

"Admiral," Gordon says, "as you can see, the Company ship's name is Daedalus. I am picking up signs that the main reactor plant is now online and increasing power output, but her Field is still not online."

"And the Field generator came online when you scanned with radar?"

"Yes, Admiral. As you and Captain Caruthers surmised, the ship is still under intelligent control."

"What are you showing as time to impact, Gordon?"

"Patton's torpedoes will arrive in seven minutes, four seconds. Stavridis' torpedoes will impact one minute and fifteen seconds after that."

"Any reaction from Covenant yet?"

"No Admiral, nothing so far. How is your approach to Capella? As anticipated?"

"More interaction between gravity waves than expected, but the inertial dampers are handling it so far."

"Is it possible that there might arise unexpected zones of interaction, Admiral?"

"How so, Gordon?"

"Ah. Unexpected interactions between gravity waves from Capella and the magnetar. Like colliding tidal streams, perhaps?"

"We haven't programmed that into the simulation. What makes you think that's possible?"

"Admiral, from this distance I can such waves forming, so interaction seems inevitable. There are more gravity waves emerging from the magnetar than we expected, yet I can see collisions between these waves and the more typical gravitational waves being pulled into Capella. There is a zone of conflict between these inbound and outbound waves, and the plasma ejected from Capella's corona appears very disturbed in this region."

"Okay Gordon, thanks. We're programming the new simulation now."

"You're welcome, Admiral. Four minutes twenty seconds to first impact. Daedalus' Field generator is ramping up to full power now; I suspect her Field will activate any time now."

"Understood."

"Admiral, you should input your code now. There could be disrupted COMMs after impact."

Ripley nodded, but "Okay" was all he managed to say. He watched the live feed from Shuttle Two, Covenant with her massive solar array now in tatters -- and with a very malevolent Daedalus docked to Covenant's forward crew module -- so he wasn't at all surprised when Daedalus disappeared behind her Field.

"Daedalus Field now active and at one hundred percent rated power, Admiral. First torpedo impact in thirty seconds."

"How far out are you, Gordon?"

"Twenty thousand kilometers, Admiral. Safe enough for now."

"Understood."

"Admiral, may I transmit the data to Patton's Gordon now?"

"Yes, go ahead."

"Thank you, Admiral. Impact in ten seconds."

Ripley turned to Hyperion's astronomer. "You recording this?"

"Yessir, but at this distance we may just see a series of small flashes."

Ripley nodded. "Make sure you record the shuttle's feed to redundant sources."

"Aye, sir."

Ripley, watching the feed from Shuttle Two, almost flinched as the first torpedo struck Daedalus' Field -- but, as expected, absolutely nothing happened. The torpedo just barely penetrated the Field, and this alone caused the one gigaton hydrogen warhead to detonate. Shock waves wouldn't reach the shuttle for several minutes so the image remained clear, so Ripley and the bridge crew on Hyperion watched as three more warheads impacted and detonated, and when the intense brightness finally faded everyone could see that the little ship's Field was now glowing bright yellow. Then, as the heat contained by the Field built and built the Field turned solid green...

"Admiral," Gordon said, "the temperature within the Field itself is now at 11,000 Kelvin and rising. The second round of torpedoes will impact in fifteen seconds."

"How long before the shockwave reaches you?"

"About two minutes, Admiral. Permission to begin my run."

"Granted."

"Fifth impact, Admiral."

Ripley nodded and watched as the first of Stavridis' warheads slammed into Daedalus' Field, and as the flaring began to fade he saw patches of blue forming within the Green Field -- then the sixth warhead hit and her Field began to turn solid blue...

"Internal Field temp now at 15,000 Kelvin, Admiral."

The seventh warhead hit and the little ship's Field turned cobalt blue with violet patches...

"Field burn-through imminent, Admiral."

The eighth and final warhead plowed into Daedalus' Field and this time the energy released by the blast shook Covenant and the little ship's Field turned intensely violet -- before it began to collapse in on itself.

"Her Field is gone, Admiral, but as predicted the ship is still intact. Picking up heat blooms in her reactor spaces, and more personnel are transferring from Covenant to Daedalus now. They appear to be removing sleep modules from Covenant and taking them to Daedalus."

"How long, Gordon?"

"To impact, Admiral? Less than five minutes at present speed."

"Was your data transfer successful?"

"Yes. Thank you, Admiral."

"Arm the warheads, Gordon."

Ripley watched as Gordon turned and flipped switches, then Gordon returned to the screen. "Both warheads now armed, Admiral."

"Thank you, Gordon."

"Admiral?"

"Yes?"

"All my brothers as well as myself have been encoded with a reasonable fear of death. This was done to prevent us from taking our own life, or the lives of others."

"I see, Gordon. I'm sorry, I had no idea."

"Admiral? I am afraid."

"You have every right to be, my friend. But Gordon, that is why so many human actions are driven by duty and honor."

"I understand, Admiral. You will remember our pledge?"

"Of course I will, Gordon."

"Thank you, Admiral."

"Gordon, tell me something...as man to man."

"Yes, Admiral?"

"Do you think that the past still exists somewhere?"

Gordon looked puzzled, then almost unsure of himself. "I don't know, sir. I don't think I've ever thought about it before. Why do you ask?"

"Oh, I don't know. Maybe we'll meet again there, in the past. Someday."

"I see, sir. Yes, perhaps. Sixty seconds to impact, Admiral."

Ripley looked at his screen: Shuttle Two was streaking in fast now, aiming right for the Company ship's center of mass, the two 5-Gigaton warheads in her cargo hold armed and with their proximity detonators active.

"I don't know if we ever really die or not, Gordon. That too is part of the human condition, and I think sometimes it gives us a kind of hope."

"Hope for what, Admiral?"

"Oh, I don't know. Maybe that something comes after, and so there's no reason to be afraid of the darkness. Maybe, I guess, because we won't be lonely, wherever it is we end up, and that one day soon we'll see each other again."

"I see, sir."

Ripley looked Gordon in the eye. "Gordon, it's been an honor to know you."

"Yes, Admiral. Thank you for being my friend."

Shuttle Two burned in at 46,000 meters per second, closing the last few miles to Daedalus and Covenant in the span of a single human heartbeat...then Ripley's screen flared briefly before it went black.

"Yes, goodbye my friend," Denton Ripley whispered -- before he turned away and closed his eyes. If only to hide from the universe for a few minutes more.

Hyperion: CODA

Holy Mother of God...you've got to go faster than that...

USNSF Hyperion                                                                 21 August 2107

Lost in time, unforgiving time.

Unforgivable time.

Ripley remained locked away, deep within the cold, dark warrens of his in-port cabin; today, like so many recent days, he remained content to leave the day-to-day running of the ship to Captain Brennan. It was, after all was said and done, her ship. He had started playing a musty old guitar he'd purchased at a music shop in Annapolis early in his second year at the Academy, thinking that perhaps someday, maybe while out on a long patrol, he might actually find time enough to learn to play the blasted thing, yet somehow that day had never arrived. Until two years ago.

He had read somewhere that the blues was the one and only "real" American art form; everything else being simple imitations of imitations, or so that line of reasoning went. So he'd started there, because at the time the blues had seemed a perfectly reasonable place to end this particular journey of his.

The more he studied the basics the more the musical forms of the blues seemed ideally suited to the life he'd made for himself out here beyond Earth, at least it did on most days: three chords spread over 12 bars in 4/4 time, but with an endless variety of emotional repetitions possible, with each chord suited to the many moods of the day. Or was it really the needs of the moment?

Yet anyone, Ripley surmised, could memorize three chords, even him, so why not start small...?

Yet after two years the blues still eluded him. 'Just as truth so often eludes us,' he mused.

And now that Hyperion was finally back in Sol system and headed for Gateway Luna-4, Ripley had finally packed away the musty old guitar with all its nasty, silent recriminations, giving up for the last time on music. For the last five months, after remnants of the fleet had mapped Langston Points as far out as Polaris, Ripley had held class almost daily with the five remaining midshipmen. And once a week Patton's shuttle came for him and he went to the smaller ship to visit his wife and daughter, often spending the night with them before returning to Hyperion, his flagship.

Then they'd Jumped back to Sol after spending a final two months in and around Castor and Pollux, the two brightest stars in the constellation Gemini. They'd discovered two habitable worlds in the regions around Castor, and these discoveries alone would justify the expense of such a long duration voyage...but then again, that was the good news.

Because, Ripley knew, good news always comes with a price. In this case, one of the moons there appeared inhabited.

Inhabited.

He felt around the contours of the word, because the word still felt foreign, almost surreal on his tongue. But that would change now. It had to.

Once out of Jump shock, Hyperion's crew performed a COMMs check and then checked-in with SpaceCon in Norfolk. New orders arrived within the hour: all but Hyperion were to proceed directly to the main Gateway in Earth orbit -- to refuel and rearm, but that was also when the word arrived that new crews would soon be taking over.

But not Hyperion.

No, Hyperion was to proceed direct to Luna Gateway-4. To Admiral Stanton's HQ.

So Ripley finished-up and turned-in his final expedition report, a four hundred page mea culpa detailing the circumstances around the destruction of Covenant and Daedalus, as well as the loss of both Ticonderoga and the Woodrow Wilson. Of the silence they had all experienced? He left all that out of his report.

He heard from Admiral Stanton not long after that. A Board of Inquiry would be held at the gateway; an Admiral's Mast would follow.

Tankers met the fleet after departing Mercury and Ripley began to wrap up his instructions with the middies not long after. Two weeks later Hyperion, as well as Patton and Stavridis, docked at Luna-4 -- and that was it. Over, everything over, and suddenly Denton Ripley could feel small again.

According to BuPers he was now officially one year past his mandatory retirement age; Judy still had two years to reach that milestone, but unless she wanted to go out again, which he very much doubted, she too was finished, at the same end. More than one colony ship would be headed to Gemini soon enough, and wouldn't it be a fine thing if they all could make the trip together?

+++++

It turned out the Board of Inquiry was a mere formality; Ripley would, after all, be officially retired as soon as he left the base. The Admiral's Mast was another thing entirely.

Informal gatherings such as Admiral's Masts were non-judicial hearings often held to go over the more controversial details of a voyage that didn't make it into the (often sanitized) final Expedition Findings, and typically for politically sensitive reasons. In short, Ripley would have to come clean about the reasoning behind the destruction of Daedalus and Covenant but also his thinking behind the decision to send his Gordon unit on a terminal mission.

And then...there was the unaccounted for silence he had omitted from his report.

Video of the fleet's encounter as they approached Capella and the magnetar would also be reviewed one more time, and the greater implications of his silence reviewed and discussed. Stanton presided, of course, and four serving admirals came up from Norfolk to attend, as did an Undersecretary of Defense and a member of the U.S. Senate, both Navy veterans who had served in space.

The Mast was held in a special room hidden away deep within the Lunar Gateway, a hallowed space built of actual wood, the real deal. Old-growth oak from Tennessee, in point of fact, and mounted on one wall -- the original wheel from the U.S.S. Constitution, Old Ironsides, and one of the few artifacts preserved during the fire that finally consumed the old ship. There seemed to be no point of contention that could not be raised in this venerated atmosphere, if only because what was said in the room tended to stay in the room.

Once Admiral Stanton took his chair everyone else sat -- with the exception of Denton Ripley. A sailor brought before the Mast was typically to remain standing while a summary of the meeting was read aloud...for the record...and so Ripley stood behind his chair, waiting. Stanton finished reading a document that Ripley could see was clearly marked 'Classified' and 'Top Secret' while the rest of the gathered attendees poured water into glasses or checked messages on personal tablets. Yet they ignored him, never looked his way.

Until Stanton looked up and called the meeting to order.

"Denton, have a seat," Stanton said, breaking tradition and changing the tenor of the proceedings at the outset.

So Ripley sat. And he waited. Again. While Stanton continued reading from his pile of classified documents.

Then the old man put his papers away and looked over to his aide and nodded. The room darkened, a flat panel display lowered from the ceiling and came to life. Images flickered and then stabilized into a standard split-screen arrangement, the left side showing Hyperion's bridge, the right side a diagram showing the arrangement of Hyperion and her fleet as they departed Beta Capella-4 to make their long approach to Capella and the emerging magnetar.

"Denton, after reading over your report, and what we have of Admiral Adams' on Ticonderoga, I just wanted to be sure I understand the sequence of events." He looked up and nodded at Ripley, his blue-gray eyes hard and clear.

"Yessir?"

"This shockwave? The Walter from Covenant's ground party identified this as coming from a collapsing neutron star -- and not a 'nearby stellar ignition?' as he originally postulated?"

"Yes, Admiral. He also advised that the small citadel on Beta Capella-4 was a scientific colony, and that the scientists stationed there had been waiting for and then observing the collapse for some time. He was, once the hostile organisms on the planet identified him as an item of no interest, able to make a few trips up into the mountains, where their observatories were located."

"Of no interest? Clarify, please."

"Organic tissue, sir. In the instant case, organisms not originally from that planet, usually in the form of airborne spores, penetrate the mucosal membranes of living hosts and within hours a new hybrid completes gestation and is born..."

"Within hours, you say?"

"Yes Admiral, and these new organisms seem to be born combat-ready almost as soon as they are out of the semi-human placenta used during gestation. I mean quite literally within seconds."

Stanton looked at the men around the room. Heads were shaking in dawning realization of how dangerous, or perhaps how useful, such an organism could be.

"You say in your report as much, but you've left out the origins of this organism. Does Covenant's Walter not know?"

Ripley looked away, collecting his thoughts. "Admiral, the record here is at best circumstantial. This Walter relayed to me that members of the original Prometheus mission discovered a weapons storage facility maintained by this civilization..."

"The Tall Whites, as you can them?"

"Yessir. And the lone human survivor of this mission, one Elizabeth Shaw, along with the David unit assigned to that mission..."

"Peter Weyland's personal unit, you write. Supposedly considered his son?"

"Yes, Admiral. And after the destruction of Prometheus, Shaw and this David traveled to the citadel and, well, they quite literally bombed the city with a biological package taken from this storage facility. And this released the airborne pathogen that spread around the continent, Admiral."

"So, whether we like it or not the human race has de facto initiated hostilities against this group, your Tall Whites."

"And that's why I tried to differentiate our forces from those on Daedalus, Admiral. I wanted to declare them as our common enemy."

"Quick thinking on your part, too. What you might not know is that while you were away the Weyland-Yutani Group moved their entire operation to the Orion colonies."

"The Japanese colony, sir?"

Stanton nodded. "A marriage of convenience, I think. Intel suggests they intend a sudden return to Earth with overwhelming force, their intent being to wipe out the combined Naval and Space Forces remaining here and so to pave the way for their return. Our best guess is that they are after that organism for just such a purpose."