Across an Ocean of Stars

Book : Black Tide Rising

by Robert E. Hampson

Genres: Sci-fi Action & Adventure; Hard Science Fiction; Apocalyptic

Synopsis

After the end of the world, a tropical paradise might just be the hardest place to survive.

The virus robbed humans of their higher thought processes, turning them into…well…savages. The Hawaiian Islands are separated from the rest of the world by thousands of miles of ocean, but that couldn’t stop the virus. Civilization fell, and it fell HARD.

Can paradise survive the end of the world?

High atop a dormant volcano, a team of scientists preserve the last remnants of higher technology. Off the coast of Kauai, a flotilla of survivors must decide whether to return to their island, or make their way to another location, risking pirates and nature on the gamble of safer shores. On the central plateau of the Big Island, a group of ranchers want to rebuild civilization… but to do that, they’ll need to reunite a people scattered Across an Ocean of Stars.

Release date: April 1, 2025

Publisher: Baen

Print pages: 336

Sample

PROTOCOLS

This mission of exploration is of the utmost importance to the human race. Only by expanding into space can we ensure the survival of humanity.

—M.R. van Der Venn, tech entrepreneur and philanthropist

 

 

Ham Forsyth woke up in the dark. Waking suddenly in the middle of his sleep cycle left him confused as to his surroundings. He tried to concentrate, to figure out what had awoken him. Then he heard the screaming. It took a few more moments for him to process the sound and he was halfway to the door of his quarters before his brain registered the shrillness of the voices and the fact that it was actually two voices screaming at each other in Portuguese.

Oh God, they’re at it again. He pulled back the folding door to his compartment and looked out into the Core of the habitat module. He saw closed doors with blue lights over most of them. Two doors did not—his own and one other. Everyone has Privacy ANC set except for Angel and Wily, and they’re the ones causing the disturbance! Christ, I wish they’d never come on this mission. I wish I had never come on this mission, and I’m the one that had to approve the crew! He unfolded the door, fitted it back into its seals, and thumbed the pressure-sensitive patch next to the seal. A blue light came on over his door, and there was a faint sense of white noise as all sound deadened in the room.

Ham hated Privacy ANC. The acronym stood for “active noise cancellation,” and it was an electronic system that exploited the physics of sound propagation and interference to mute sounds originating outside his quarters. It tended to give him a headache because the ANC worked by generating its own noise—tuned to interfere with outside sounds—and his inner ear interpreted the counter signal as pressure, almost as if he was underwater. Still, it cut off the noise from the rest of the hab—the “Hex” as it was called in the HI-SLOPE protocols—and suppressed any noise he made. He’d just have to deal with the discomfort.

Sitting in front of the small desk in his cramped room, using only the dim light of the ever-present Hex nighttime lighting, and the faint glow of a star field from the reinforced port behind his bunk, Ham opened the drawer containing his personal medication stock. Taking out two tiny pills, he dry-swallowed the pain reliever. Water was still short until Mugs finished the rebuild on the freshwater still, and

the crew was encouraged to conserve water whenever possible. Shit, it didn’t stink bad enough with inadequate air circulation, but add in twenty-five people who can’t shower and it was a surprise that more people weren’t yelling at each other. Eighteen months in this hole in space; at least eighteen more to go.

Now that he was awake and likely to have a headache until the meds kicked in, he might as well do some work. It’s not as if HI-SLOPE ran on a strict day-night cycle. There would be a watch crew in the Command Module and probably someone in the Commons over in Hex One. Oh-two-thirty, yeah, that was a problem. He risked running into the CO if he went to either Command or Commons. “Prancer” fancied himself one of those self-made “Big Kahunas” who didn’t require sleep to be at his best or most productive. He couldn’t be more wrong, but no one dared tell him.

Ham could head over to the greenhouse in Hex Four. It was quiet, and usually smelled good. Even if the XO was up and about, she understood the need for quiet time. The problem was navigating Cores and Tubes this late at night; his eyes could adapt to the dark, but not well. Also, exiting his quarters would subject him to the sounds of Angel and Wily—Gabriel and Ylene Luca—the Fighting Brazilians. That is, unless they’d progressed beyond the argument to the inevitable make-up sex. Then again, that often meant more shrieking and shouting than the preceding fight.

“Angel.” That was a laugh. Most of the crew came onboard with their own chosen call signs in violation of every custom, not to mention his own recommendations to Mission Control. Dr. Gabriel Luca styled himself as the Angel Gabriel. It fit his ego, just not his personality. “Devil” was more like it. Likewise, Commander Matthijs Rudolph van Der Venn had selected “Reindeer” as in “Rudy the Red-nosed,” but the crew called him “Prancer” behind his back. Ham thought he knew what the crew called him, and at least it wasn’t malicious. Or . . . he hoped it wasn’t.

No, he was awake and stuck in his quarters, so he might as well do some work. He touched a raised pad on the desktop and a screen slowly lit—adaptive optics gradually increased the screen brightness so that his eyes could adjust. A backlight keyboard appeared, seemingly within the smooth desk surface. He could tap the virtual keys, gesture in sign language, or even tap Morse code and the motion sensors would interpret the gestures into computer input for him. The Virtual Environment decoders had been van Der Venn’s great contribution to Society. They made his name a household word and earned him the money to finance this expedition.

Only the best VennSystems hardware for the Mission. If only he’d put as much thought into the crew. Ham grimaced with the irony of the thought. Crew selection was supposed to be the province of the mission psychologist.

If only.

A quick gesture with his left hand brought up his official mission log, and another activated voice entry. The screen now showed a slow pulsing red border that warned him that voice and video recording was active.

 

Hamilton V. Forsyth the Third, MD, PhD

HI-SLOPE Mission Psychologist.

Deputy Chief 

Medical Officer’s Record.

 

Ham made another gesture and a computerized female voice added: “Sol Five-Five-Zero. Mission Year Two, Month Seven, Day Three. Zero-two-fifty-one Universal Time.”

Once the computer completed the date and time stamp. Ham continued:

 

The Doctors Luca were engaging in behaviors again tonight that evidence a total lack of empathetic consideration for fellow crew. This makes the seventeenth episode I have logged since moving my quarters to Hex Two at the beginning of Mission Year Two. The fights and noise generally occur at night when most of the crew are in sealed compartments with privacy filtering. I seem to be the only member complaining, probably due to aversion to the ANC filters.

I have repeated my request to the CMO to screen them for evidence of heightened stress hormones, contusions, abrasions and the like, but he says that any such results could just as easily be attributed to energetic “mating rituals.” Doc d’Almeida turned quite red while making the comment; he really does earn his handle of “Cro-Magnon” at times.

With the CMO unable—or unwilling—to support my contention that the behavior is damaging to the couple physically as well as mentally, I am unable to escalate my concerns to Captain van Der Venn. It is unfortunate; I was explicitly recruited onto this mission for my expertise in closed crew interactions. The couple’s interaction with this crew is problematic and increasing stress, but van Der Venn won’t hear it. The Lucas deny any problems, and Dr. Gabriel Luca counters any objection from his own expertise.

There’s two problems with “Angel” leveraging his expertise. The first is, he doesn’t have any. He was recruited out of an academic physiology department—trained in neurology, not human physiology. He also claims to have experience equal to my own psychology PhD (ignoring my MD), even though I know that he only studied enough psychology to run animal behavior experiments.

The second problem is that the Doctors Luca are close friends of the captain. When the mission plan was developed, van Der Venn overrode my choice of a husband-and-wife physiology and biomedical engineering team, and chose the Lucas, even though Wily’s background is only peripherally relevant to actual mission

expertise. Their personal relationship is messing with the crew, and I keep getting ignored whenever I point it out.

In other morale issues, several crew members confided in me their disappointment that the captain did not allow any Fourth of July observations last month and is disinclined to allow Thanksgiving next fall. The CO did not feel that we should celebrate National Holidays for just a quarter of the crew, and said that another quarter are from countries allied with the British nation we Americans rebelled against. It made a certain amount of sense given the fight that almost broke out between our British XO and her Irish husband after the fiasco last November Fifth. Still, the CO insisted on a celebration for Dutch Liberation Day just three months prior, and Sissy Bolinger’s Songkran Thai New Year’s festival right before that. There is an increasing disillusionment with van Der Venn playing favorites among the crew, and it’s starting to show in work output. Until we reach our next mission objective, the crew is cooped up and festering. The lack of communications with Mission Control on Earth is especially trying. Even with a forty-five-minute communications lag, just being able to have some news from Earth would help.

 

Another gesture and the red border on the screen was replaced by green. The screen now showed a text translation and a prompt to approve the entry, save as draft, or discard. Ignoring the prompt, Ham spoke in a slightly different tone and pitch. “Hissy. Status of communications with Earth?”

The same synthesized female voice that had supplied the date, responded:

“The AE-35 antenna pointing processor is still malfunctioning, Dr. Forsyth. Mr. Burbey projects repair and restoration of the AE-35 unit sometime today.”

“Thank you, Hissy, and how long after the repair is complete can the crew begin personal communications with home?”

“HI-SLOPE mission has been out of communication with Earth for seventy-four days. Accumulated mission data, system telemetry, and logs will require approximately thirty hours to transmit. Personal communication before completion of mission-critical transmission will require Command override.”

Ham sighed. Even when communication was restored, they still would not be able to use the system for more than a day. Looking back at the screen, he swiped his fingers in midair, approving and dismissing the log entry. He then made the single-finger salute to bring up his personal diary. The entire screen turned a deep purple, and a small blue square lit up on the desktop. He pressed his

 thumb to the square and it turned the same color as the screen. Hissy’s voice spoke: “Privacy Mode One, Mission Protocols Deactivated.”

Sitting back in his chair, Ham relaxed slightly. For just a few minutes during Privacy One he could let go of the sham and ignore the Mission.

 

Ham Forsyth, personal notebook. I really don’t know why I let van Der Venn talk me into this farce. Simulated mission or not, we’ve been stuck in this plastic jail for a year and a half. Make-work jobs and scripted conversations are bad enough, but these pretend equipment failures are just not realistic. Tree Rat is pissed. He’s confident that he could have fixed the AE-35 in a day, but the Mission Plan called for an extended communications blackout. “To simulate real-world situations,” according to Prancer. Fuck that. In a real mission we could have boosted for Mars or an asteroid base and gotten there in less than the two and a half months of this latest charade. Hell, Tree Rat says he could stand on the hull, aim with a telescope, and get an omni signal if nothing else.

My own personal Hell is that I designed the personnel list and interpersonal relationship protocols, yet nothing I could create has been as stressful as the preprogrammed disasters that the VennSystems jerks came up with. Prancer plays nice with his cronies and ignores everyone else. The Bolingers have dinner in his oversized cabin every night and talk book deals and movie rights. The Lucas play cards with the CO several nights a week, and they always try to invite Wyvern or Legs as a fourth. They usually have to settle for me or Cro, though, and it’s pretty clear they don’t consider us as peers. That’s okay. We both detest bridge.

The rest of the crew acts like it doesn’t matter, and in some ways it doesn’t. The XO is professional and efficient even if her personal life runs hot and cold. She’s the one who is really in charge with respect to the mission, and it’s her debrief that NASA and the Mars and Beyond Consortium will use to decide how to construct long-duration missions. Everyone except Prancer and his cronies know that, but acting on it would be the next best thing to mutiny. As mission psych I find myself torn between counseling against it and leading the charge.

 

Ham paused, he started to gesture, and the screen displayed Erase? Confirm or Cancel. He paused, not responding to the prompts, and turned to look at the simulated deep-space view through his “porthole.” He considered his options for a moment, then gestured negation; the recording remained.

 

Abigail, I don’t know if you still have access and have unlocked these personal notes or are waiting on me to make the first move and reach out to you directly. If something goes wrong, and you’re reading these unedited, I just need you to know that things really aren’t as bad as

it sounds. I will have to move my quarters, though. I can’t sleep with the ANC, and I can’t sleep without it if Devil and Wily are screaming. Medusa says I can use the second half of the XO suite, and Cro said the same with respect to the CMO’s suite. I hate to take the extra space from Medusa. She and Red need the ability to pull out the partition and have their own space if needed. Twenty square meters is just too small for two people—even a married couple, as shown by the Lucas. That leaves my best option to move back to Hex Three and put up with Cro’s bad puns.

It’s only eighteen more months. We’re halfway there. I just need to think of the research papers! Well, that and the exposés. For now, it’s a good thing these are private notes to be opened only after mission completion.

I will tell you this, though. I miss looking at the stars. I know I can look out at any time during our “day” and see them, but frankly, I miss just going out into a field, far from the city, and looking up at all of those stars. That’s what I miss. Just you and me, Abi. You, me, and a literal ocean of stars.

I will make the first move, and I promise to send you a personal note the next time we’re allowed to send them.

I apologize. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have yelled, and I should have listened.

There, I’ve said it, but I’m afraid it doesn’t feel any better to think that you might not even see this. I really need to stop procrastinating and send you a personal message in the clear and not embedded in my log.

I didn’t really mean what I said when we parted. I felt then . . . I still feel . . . that you have so much potential, and I was hurt that you chose a path other than the one that would keep you near me. There is nothing inherently wrong in your career choice. It was just the sense of impending loss speaking.

Then again, your words stung . . . because they’re true. I was hiding. I am hiding from the world. I dreamed of space and thought that this was the way to realize that dream. It was selfish of me to drag you into this pale shadow of space exploration. Maybe with your choices you’ll actually get there. What’s sad is to think that you are more likely than I am to realize the dream. It’s just that I chose this path and this mission, and pride wouldn’t let me back down when Prancer screwed up all of my plans.

Pride goeth before a fall.

Please forgive me, Abi. Take care of yourself, I love you and I miss you.

 

Ham paused for a moment, hands poised, ready to erase the latest entry.

Why is it so easy to say that now that I may have lost you forever? Psychologist, heal thyself.

 

Notebook entry complete. Save; encrypt; lock entry against editing.

 

Ham stood up and the screen turned itself off. While he’d been at the console, the room lighting had gradually increased to something approximating twilight. Unless overridden, the compartment lighting would not return to full white light until the beginning of the simulated day. The low illumination was meant to ensure that he could go back to sleep at any time. Unfortunately, his head still hurt. He was also thirsty. Moving to the dispenser on the wall opposite the door, he placed a coffee mug under the spout and pressed the button for cold water. An amber light lit, the machine dispensed 25 ml of water, then the light turned red and the flow stopped. “Damned simulated emergencies.”

Drink it fast? Or drink it slow? Ham opted for slow, taking small sips. He got two more headache pills and took them with the last of the water. I should at least try to sleep. As he lay back down on his bunk, the room lighting gradually faded out.

 

CHAPTER 2

BREAKFAST CLUB

The irony of space travel is that THE BLACK is big, and ships are small. Orbital lift capacity and life support mandate small spaces and tight quarters. Only when we can duplicate a full planetary biosphere, and build it ourselves, can we afford elbow room in space.

—D.C. Gestner, construction engineer, HI-SLOPE

 

 

Ham grabbed a breakfast burrito with simulated egg and sausage and real hot sauce, filled his mug with coffee, and made his way back to Hex Three and Cro’s small office in the sickbay. He and everyone else tended to get out of the Commons as quickly as possible, and this morning it was nearly empty despite being the designated breakfast shift. The Commons was meant to be a social environment. Mission psychologists, meaning Ham and the human factors consultant team hired by VennSystems, had stressed the need to have a social interaction area large enough for all mission personnel to gather as one group, or many small groups, for recreation, entertainment, and exercise. Thus, Hex One had been designed with a large, open-plan space on the second level, with tables, chairs, and comfortable seating sufficient for twenty-five persons. Kitchens, exercise room, and a small conference room would be on level one, connected by not only the Habitat Core access ladders, but a small, powered lift for transporting food and dining supplies. It had thin-panel screens with simulated views of Earth, bright cheery colors, and simulated grass on the floor.

Unfortunately, the Habitat Design Team hadn’t figured on the ego of one Rudolph van Der Venn, tech billionaire and financial backer of the Hawaiian Island Simulated Long-Orbit Planetary Exploration, or HI-SLOPE for short. The Habitat consisted of six two-story hexagonal units and a three-story central unit. The concept was supposed to simulate a spacecraft with rotating habitation units around a central Command Module. Hexes Two and Five were devoted to personnel quarters, similar to Ham Forsyth’s own. Every other Hex except for the Air Lock/Garage also contained two modular compartments that could be used as quarters. Those were intended for the CO, the XO, department heads, and watch crew.

The problem was that van Der Venn wasn’t content with using both modules in Hex One for his expanded personal quarters. He’d indulged his ego by converting the entire first level into his own personal suite with large bedroom, office, private kitchen, private dining room with his own steward, and a private lift to the upper level. As a result, kitchen, dining, seating, exercise, and entertainment facilities for all remaining crew was relegated to half the intended space, all on the second level. The loss of the main kitchen also meant the loss of crew ability to cook their own meals. Condensing exercise and dining space unnecessarily limited 

exercise hours and sharing that space with entertainment options meant that the crew tended not to use the Commons to gather.

It also had one additional limitation. One hundred forty square meters looked like a lot of space on the floor plans but fitting all of the functions into that space meant either cramming in too much or leaving something out. Van Der Venn got rich by writing big checks, but then personally micromanaging each guilder. He chose to leave things out, and one of those was the hygiene compartment for the Commons floor. If anyone needed the bathroom, they had to go to the Core of the Hex, climb the ladder or spiral stair to Level Three, then traverse the “hamster tubes” across the top of the habitat to one of the other Hexes. Once that was done, it was much easier just to stay in that Hex and avoid the (now nonexistent) crowding in Commons. The greenhouse in Hex Four and “hangar bay” in Hex Six ended up as the most popular spots for small group socializing.

Commons was deserted this morning, as usual. The mandatory exercise rotation didn’t start until midmorning, and the thin-panel “windows” and entertainment screens had been shut down along with the simulated communications blackout. Sickbay was small, but thankfully empty most of the time. The crew was disgustingly healthy . . . physically . . . and Cro was good company despite his puns. They used an empty diagnostic bed as a table and the doctor’s precious vintage rolling physician stools for seating.

“Caveman.” Ham nodded and addressed the CMO as he entered sickbay.

“Shrink,” Anson replied, pouring his own coffee from an antique French-press coffee maker into a delicate china cup. The doctor justified the extravagance with a scientific report showing that the press-style was the best method for steeping coffee or tea in free fall, especially since it captured all of the grounds and leaves. He also argued that china and fine porcelain were lighter and stronger per gram than plastic, metal, or ceramic. How he had managed to continue to grind his own beans and tea leaves without violating the simulation’s weightless and closed-circuit air systems protocols was a mystery, yet somehow Cro always had fresh coffee and tea.

With a hulking frame, dark complexion, heavy brows, and five o’clock shadow within minutes of shaving, Anson Robert d’Almeida looked every bit the Cro-Magnon that his medical colleagues had bestowed as his mission handle. The problem was that Dr. d’Almeida always wore a white or pale blue button-front shirt, necktie, and white medical coat. The image of a caveman in a coat and tie always caused a bit of cognitive dissonance for Ham.

“Dude. It’s Hawaii. You don’t have to wear a tie.” It was an old argument. Ham had been trying to get Anson to wear a Hawaiian print shirt and lose the tie for months. The mission had preprogrammed “supply

drops” every six months, with allowance for ten kilograms each of personal cargo in addition to fresh food and consumables for the “mission.”

“No, Hamilton, we are in space. If I were to relax my standards, I am certain that someone would force me to wear spandex.” He had a point. The HI-SLOPE Mission Planning Board had pushed for simulated space uniforms for all crew. VennSystems had a beautiful spandex-and-lycra uniform designed that looked like something right out of a 1960s TV show. Fortunately, the mission parameters specified that the crew needed to be able to have personal items available, and Ham had been able to argue that regular clothing was an important “comfort item” essential to stress relief.

“Point,” Ham replied. “Not to mention that you’d look like Duke.” Anson just snorted and continued drinking his coffee. “So, Anson, buddy, about the spare compartment . . .”

D’Almeida looked up with a big grin on his face. “I knew you’d come begging. You’ve been there what, six weeks?” Ham nodded. “Right. Since the last supply ship.”

The mission plan allowed personnel to move compartments either by a direct swap with another crew member, or via planned rearrangement coinciding with the six-month “supply ships.” The most recent supply had come early, for some reason, but not been made available until it matched some astronomer’s computation of transit time from Earth. HI-SLOPE had been planned to fit twenty-five crew members—if not comfortably, at least adequately. The residential Hexes each had ten wedge-shaped compartments for individual occupancy, and two for hygiene needs. The Command Module had two compartments on its lower level to accommodate pilots or emergency personnel. The remaining three crew were allocated “officer” accommodations consisting of double compartments with a removable center wall. The commanding officer, executive officer, and chief medical officer quarters were sited in Commons (Hex One), Greenhouse (Hex Four), and Medical/Laboratory (Hex Three), respectively. While the CO had arbitrarily expanded his compartment and the XO was married—using both compartments with her spouse—the CMO didn’t use his second room. The compartment that would have housed the XO’s husband was vacant in Hex Two, but it was directly above the Doctors Luca and wouldn’t solve Ham’s need to escape the disturbance.

Ham looked down. “Yes, you did predict it.”

“Of course. You have classic acoustic hypersensitivity with a level-four psychosomatic tympanic response.” Anson poured another cup of coffee and pointed at Ham. “You get tension headaches and can’t sleep, then run around grumpy all of the time.”

“Psychosomatic? Are you analyzing me, Doctor?” Ham raised an eyebrow, knowing it would annoy his heavy-browed friend.

“Hell no, I leave the head-shrinking to you, Dr. Fraud.”

“That’s Freud.”

“You know what I mean. ...