“You have got to be shitting me,” I said.
A pilot met us on the launchpad and opened the doors to the Johnston. He was a Navy man, a full lieutenant dressed in khakis. He looked at me and smiled. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”
The petty officer placed my bags in the Johnston and saluted. “Lieutenant Harris does not believe this bird is self-broadcasting, sir.”
I followed the lieutenant aboard. The Johnston was heavily modified inside. It only had four seats instead of the usual twelve. Used for both military and corporate travel, Johnstons had small galleys for long trips. There were no such amenities on that R-27. Behind the four seats, the rest of the passenger cabin was blocked by a cloth-covered wall.
The Johnston took off like any spaceworthy plane, using discrete jets to lift ten feet off the ground. We left Earth at a standard trajectory, flying at the standard MACH 3 speed. We had the usual quivers as we left the atmosphere.
Moments later, the petty officer shot me a wink as the tint shield darkened the windows. The air inside the cabin began to smell of ozone. Muffled crackling sounds seeped through the barrier at the back of the cabin. There was a bright flash, and suddenly everything was normal again.
“We’re in the Perseus Arm now,” the petty officer said. “Our base is a bit off the beaten trail, so to speak. Without a self-broadcasting ship, it would take you more than a month just to get to the nearest disc station.”
According to Admiral Klyber, not since the United States developed the atomic bomb in the New Mexico town of Los Alamos, had a military project been conducted as covertly as the creation of the Doctrinaire. In many ways, Klyber’s Doctrinaire reminded me of the Manhattan Project.
No one would ever stumble onto Klyber’s shipyard by accident. Located on the outskirts of the Perseus Arm, the facility sat in the middle of the unsettled frontier. Spies could not trace the location because self-broadcasting ships leave no trail. Any research done on this facility stayed on this facility.
At first glance I found the shipyard unimpressive. It was big, but that meant little to me. I still thought that the Doctrinaire was part of a new fleet that Klyber planned to outfit with some new kind of cannon or faster engines—no big deal. As we approached the dry dock, the only thing I could see was the scaffolding.
When we got closer, I realized that Klyber was not building a fleet. All of that scaffolding was built around one colossal ship, a broad, wedge-shaped ship with bat wings. The ship was at least twice as wide as a Perseus-class fighter carrier. “What is that?” I mumbled.
“She’s the biggest bitch in all of the six arms,” the petty officer told me.
The petty officer led me out of the Johnston and told me to wait in the docking bay for further instructions. He left with my rucksack. A moment later, the pilot came by and patted me on the back. “Welcome aboard,” he said, then he, too, disappeared.
I was not alone in the docking bay, however. The area was filled with engineers and workers. Technicians driving speedy carts raced between platforms, welding plates, placing circuits, and lacing wires. The area looked like an office building that had been framed but not finished. Strings of wires and aluminum ribs lined the inner walls. Uncovered lighting fixtures shone from the ceiling. The air ventilation system twisted over my head like a gigantic snake.
“Lieutenant Harris?” A young seaman approached me. He saluted.
I saluted back.
“Admiral Klyber sent me. He is waiting for you on the bridge. This way, sir,” the seaman said.
“How long have you been stationed on this ship?” I asked, as we left the bay.
The seaman considered this question for several moments, long enough for me to wonder if he heard me. “Six months, sir.”
“What do you think of her?”
“The Doctrinaire?” he asked. “She was made to rule the universe. If we ever leave the galaxy, it will be in a ship like this.”
It took twenty-five minutes to get to the bridge. True enough, the Doctrinaire’s twin docking bays were in the aft sections of the wings, the farthest points from the bridge; but even so, the walk seemed endless.
“How big is she?” I asked.
“It depends on how you measure her,” the seaman said. “It’s two full miles from one wing tip to the other. That’s the longest measurement. She has twelve decks, not including the bridge.”
If there was an area that wasn’t under construction between the docking bay and the bridge, we sure as hell never passed it. Half of the floor was pulled up in the corridors. Mechanics and engineers popped in and out of the uncovered crawlways like moles. The seaman took no interest in any of their work. He was a clone. All of the enlisted sailors were clones.
We took flights of stairs between decks because the elevators did not have power yet. The only lighting in one stretch of the ship came from strings of emergency bulbs along the floor. The engineers had not yet installed generators in that area, the seaman told me.
When we finally arrived on the bridge, I saw Klyber standing over two field engineers as they installed components in a weapons station. I read his restlessness in the way he micromanaged these poor engineers, going so far as to complain about the “inefficient” way they laid their tools out.
“Permission to come aboard, sir?” I called from the hatch.
The engineers, who were lying on their backs like mechanics working under a car, watched nervously from beneath the weapons station. Klyber, who stood in his familiar, rigid pose—hands clasped behind his back, legs spread slightly wider than his shoulders—spun to face me. His cold, gray eyes warmed quickly, but he still looked tired.
“Lieutenant Harris,” he said. “Permission granted.”
I saluted.
“That will be all, seaman.” Klyber dismissed the man who had escorted me.
“Perhaps, Lieutenant, you would like a tour of the ship.”
“I would love a tour of the ship, sir,” I said. “I’ve never seen anything like her.”
Klyber smiled, pleased to have his work appreciated. “I am rather excited about her,” he said, sounding both proud and humble.
Having never visited the bridge of a capital ship, I had no point of comparison for the bridge of the Doctrinaire. When completed, the bridge would look more like an office complex than anything else. Rows of desks and computers stretched from wall to wall. I saw nothing even remotely resembling a joystick or a steering wheel.
Klyber led me out of the bridge. “The biggest difficulty in creating a ship of this size is finding a source of power. We needed dual cold-fusion reactors just to power the electrical systems.”
“What about the engines?” I asked.
Klyber laughed. “That is another story entirely. That’s not a function of size, it’s a function of capacity and efficiency. We talked about making engines that were five times larger than the RAMZA engines used on Perseus-class carriers, but they’re too inefficient. We have ended up allocating two-thirds of the ship to carry fuel.”
“Is this a one-ship fleet?” I asked.
“Quite the contrary,” Klyber said as he led me up a flight of stairs. “I will require a massive fleet of support ships to keep this juggernaut rolling.”
We entered a glass-enclosed dome that Klyber identified as the observation deck. The outer skin of the tiny deck was one continuous window. I could see every corner of the ship from there. Engineers and builders in noncombat space suits stood on the scaffolding on the other side of the glass. I watched three men in weighted suits pulling a wagon along the top of the fuselage. Standing on the observation deck, I felt like I could see forever.
“I think I would be scared to come up here during a battle,” I said.