Admiral Minacci called another commander’s conference to receive readiness appraisals from his commanders. All commanders reported fully ready to accomplish their assigned missions. Minacci congratulated them on their hard work, then dispersed the ships to their assembly areas. Minacci called Kelly in last.
“Kelly I need for you to monitor the enemy for me. Stick to them like glue. I need to know where they are at all times. If they split up, I need to know that. Don’t let them get lost. If we are to survive this, much less win, we need to know what the enemy is up to at all times. If you have a clear opportunity to take out a K’Rang ship, especially their supply ships, do so. This is going to be a campaign over a week or more. They will need to resupply. I want that to be a difficult proposition for them.”
Kelly returned to the Vigilant and started planning his hide spots, overwatch positions, and firing points.
Connie spent two watches plotting out all the potential positions Kelly designated. She correlated them to avenues of approach, choke points, and other criteria the Captain determined. When she was done, she had a plan for bringing the Vigilant into a firing position, firing, and moving under cover to the next position along the avenue of approach. She also had locations where sensor pods would be placed to observe K’Rang movements at forks in their path. When she had it all entered into the navigation computer, she called it a day.
She retired to her quarters to find Alistair lying in his upper bunk. He was wide-awake. She had a question that had been in her head since she found out he was from Archimedes.
“Alistair, could you tell me about what life was like on Archimedes?”
Alistair rolled onto his back and stared at the ceiling. He asked, “Do you really want to know?”
“Yes, I do. Please.”
“How much do you know about the Great Migration?”
She replied, “No more than I read about in history class.”
“The Great Migration was mankind’s first foray into moving beyond Earth and settling ten relatively nearby systems. It was the start of the Galactic Republic. Earth formed ten syndicates that built ten settlement ships each, recruited 100,000 people, and sent them out to the stars with all supplies they would need to create a settlement on these new worlds. One million people were sent out to establish new Earths.”
“The ships were massive, larger than the largest ships today. They were built to carry 10,000 people, their personal belongings, livestock, supplies, and fabricators that could form anything they needed out of raw minerals and scrap. Each ship was filled with suspended animation compartments for all the living things on board. Everyone was supposed to sleep for the year and a few months the voyage was supposed to take.”
“I don’t know how much you already know about my world, but the Archimedes settlement was supposed to be the eighth settlement ship to go to Epsilon Eridani 4. It never got there because the senior astrogator went crazy, put the whole crew into suspended animation, and took the ship off course. He left the Captain a long wandering confession and explanation of why he did it, then spaced himself. The ship powered through space for 30 more years, pilotless, before it sensed a class M planet circling a yellow dwarf very similar to Sol and woke the crew. They were horrified to learn they were 30 light years beyond their intended destination and 41 light years from Earth.”
“The 10,000 settlers considered all options, but in the end had only one available to them. They couldn’t go back. They couldn’t send a rescue message. They were forced to settle the planet and devolve their civilization before their modern capabilities ceased to work.”
“Not everyone was happy with this outcome. There was the Revolt of Desperation early on, by those not willing to stay and wanting to load back on the ship and return to Epsilon Eridani 4. The ship had neither the energy nor life support to sustain the ship for a return voyage. Nonetheless, they overpowered the settlement ship watch and loaded 367 settlers back onto the ship. They were in the process of powering the ship back up when the ship’s captain led an Ascetic commando raid to disable the ship and subdue the rebels. If they had gone it would have doomed the settlement, because most of the livestock were still onboard in suspended animation.”
“That led to the establishment of an autocratic form of government. The appointed settlement chief executive, a former Earth State representative, realized he was not qualified to lead a lone settlement through this new desperate and precarious situation. He selected the ship’s captain as the new leader of the settlement and the captain proclaimed himself Duke Carl I. He hand picked nine village leaders and made them all barons, declaring summary judgment in all matters for himself and his barons.”
“This got the people working toward the common goal of making the settlement a viable community, instead of pining for what would never be. It was a period of innovation, as people tried to devolve the civilization to a sustainable level before the power supplies on their modern equipment died.”
“They built steel mills, coking plants, mining equipment, and foundries. They built basic infrastructure for a 19th century society, even though they didn’t have the population yet to operate them all. All the basic building blocks of an early industrial age society were built, piece by piece, using the molecular fabricators that came with the ship. Cotton gins, rolling mills, flourmills, sawmills, and other light and heavy industry were pieced together from fabricated parts. They concentrated on building things that allowed for further capabilities. Boilermaker fabrication equipment was a priority, as the society’s primary power source would be wood fired steam engines.”
“They had a maximum of 30 years left in the power cells and had to make optimum use of the fabricators before that power ran out. They used the limited sensor capability of the settlement ship to find raw minerals, resources, and the best location for the settlement. They did a pretty good job. The settlement organized itself with the main township, in essence the county seat, in the center of a vast plain with a large river flowing through it. The nine villages were arrayed around it like spokes on a wheel about 200 km away from the county seat. The livestock and seed were distributed to the villages best able to utilize them. Villages along the river valley became farming centers. Villages with fertile grasslands became cattle and horse breeding centers. Villages in the highlands built mills along the creeks and became milling centers. Pigs were distributed equally amongst the villages as they could flourish anywhere. Goats were apportioned to the highland villages where other livestock couldn’t survive. Poultry were apportioned through out the settlement, some even allowed to roam free.
All in all, the early leaders did a pretty good job. They accomplished all their goals before the power ran out. After 30 years the population had quadrupled, and schools up to a university were built and staffed. Guilds were formed to train people to operate the factories, mills, and other specialized functions. Livestock population grew to where they no longer needed to be isolated to just one settlement. Trade flourished between the town and villages, aided by a unified railway system servicing the town and all villages.”
She interrupted him to ask, “Which village were you born in and how were you raised?”
“I was born in Copernicus. We were primarily an agricultural community, which I’m told was a hardscrabble existence initially. There were no horses to use as plow animals because they were all being used as breeding stock. It wasn’t until several years later that geldings became available for sale in the village markets. Of course, by the time I was born, they had developed steam tractors and harvesters to increase farm size and yield.”