Starcorp 1: Escape from Sol
Parting of the Ways

“Where is my son?” Wendy questioned in an insistent tone of address.

The young looking official, Ryan Gorman, showed no sign that he had been affected by the intensity of Wendy’s inquiry. He held his gaze and his posture as he had done several times before on this day. The job of soothing the concerns of parents with children recruited into the Space Force fell to him. Wendy and Daniel Beck was the sixth meeting he had like this in the past three hours.

“Your son is aboard the Orion,” Gorman explained with a bland delivery. “He’s unavailable right now.”

“Then take me to him,” Wendy demanded with an angry stare. “I want to see my son.”

Daniel had nothing to say during this part of the exchange. Over the course of the past five hours, his worry that his son had been shanghaied into the RG01 Space Force transitioned into the belief that he had joined of his own volition. There was nothing said or given to him by a government official that brought him to this conclusion. It was the weight of rumors and reports that many individuals had declined the same recruitment offer that Sawyer supposedly accepted. The most significant of these reports were the ones that came from Anthony and Rebecca. Daniel’s only motivation at this time was his desire to see his son before the Orion split off from the group.

“Your son will send you a video message as soon as he can, Mrs. Beck,” Gorman assured without expression.

“I don’t want a video of my son,” Wendy roared back at him. “I want my son.”

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Beck,” Gorman countered in a soft voice. “But that’s not possible.”

Wendy was made all the angrier by this reply. This report was the only thing she heard of late. The Dominion Administrative Tower was in turmoil. Everyone inside was doing something in preparation for the break-off the Orion. Everyone there that she had spoken to before this had no information about her son, but all seemed to know that it was impossible to get her on, or Sawyer off, the Orion. The young looking official standing before her was the first person she met there that was not deflecting her inquiry to someone else.

Wendy did not know if she should be pleased or angry about this. She had spent the previous two hours speaking with people that had no idea what was going on. The only thing they could tell her was that no one was getting on or off the Orion that did not need to be on or off it. When she demanded to be made an exception to this rule they always passed her on to someone else. This line of inquiry is what brought her to the official standing in front of her at this moment, and he was not referring her to anyone else.

“I want to speak to Director Sloan,” Wendy insisted after a moment of thought.

“Admiral Sloan is aboard the Orion, making preparations for departure,” Gorman reported with a succinct delivery. “He’s not seeing anyone.”

No part of Gorman’s response was untrue. He had been given this information so that he could dole it out to whoever came around to this inquiry. He knew little more than what the other people that Wendy spoke to knew. He understood that his job was to end her inquiry and not to resolve it. Working towards that end, he chose to respond to Wendy’s questions in the most bureaucratic manner that he could produce.

Gorman’s purpose did not escape the notice of Daniel. By this time in the conversation, he was convinced that he and Wendy had reached the end of the line. Now that he knew they would be getting a video message from Sawyer, he could think of no reason for continuing this endeavor. After a moment of thought behind Gorman’s last remark, he expressed this thinking with a concise remark.

“Honey, we should go.”

“No!” Wendy argued back at her husband. “We need to replace Sawyer. We have to get him off that ship, and we have to go back to Earth.”

Daniel knew better than to argue with his wife at this moment. He understood that her distress was governing much of what she was saying. He had no doubt that a challenge to her assertion would exasperate the situation. This reasoning was his motivation for backing away from this exchange once again.

“Do you understand that my son is just seventeen years old?” Wendy raged at Gorman. “He’s too young to be in a war.”

Gorman continued to display no reaction to Wendy’s rampage. He countered her declaration without hesitating to think about his reply.

“All minors were emancipated when they signed on. They agreed to this.”

“I don’t care what he agreed to,” Wendy yelled back at the official with a flail of her arms. “My son didn’t know that we’re leaving when we get to Mars. You should have spoken to us before enlisting our son into your war.”

Wendy’s animation caused Gorman to flinch perceptibly. Despite this movement, he held his ground and resumed his passive attention to his guest. He did not invite Wendy and Daniel to sit down even though they were standing a dozen feet inside his office. He did not want to give them the impression that he was interested in entertaining a prolonged conversation on this subject. And he wanted to give them every indication that he had other matters to attend to. At the end of Wendy’s outburst, he gave his reply with an erect bearing and with a minimal of movement and words.

“It’s his war too, Mrs. Beck.”

“No, it’s not,” Wendy disputed forcefully. “My son is a minor. This is not his war.”

Once again Gorman betrayed no indication that his argument or his feelings had been affected by Wendy’s words. His response was stiff and direct.

“Your son understood what he was doing when he signed on. Everything was explained to him.”

Wendy judged by this report that she was getting nowhere with this man standing before her. Despite this, she feared to let him go equally as much as she was annoyed by his responses. She knew that if she left his office, it would take her another thirty minutes to get to someone with the time and inclination to give her some attention. This worry motivated her to lower her tone and to make her request sound as reasonable as possible.

“I want to speak to my son,” Wendy stated behind a calm demeanor. “I want him to know that we’re going to stay behind on Mars.”

This report had the effect on Gorman that she wanted. He had no ready response for it and paused to reflect on it. Within a second of this reaction, Daniel gave expression to the effect that her words had on him.

“No, we’re not,” Daniel contradicted with a resolute shake of his head.

Wendy reacted to her husband’s repudiation with a sharp turn and an angry glare in his direction.

“You’re not making this decision for us,” Daniel continued with gently intoned defiance. “This is our home. Daphne and Adam belong here. This is where they want to be.”

Wendy’s anger was greatly abated by her husband’s reasoning. She suspected that her children would want to stay in the starcorp even if she did not. And she feared that they might do just that if Daniel chose not to leave with her.

“They want our son to fight their war, Daniel,” Wendy submitted with a wistful stare. “What happens if he gets killed? Are you willing to trade Sawyer’s life for this? Do you think Daphne and Adam want this?”

“No, I don’t,” Daniel answered with a look of regret. “But I think they would choose to stay if given a choice. And I’m not going to let you take that away from Adam.”

Wendy had no doubt what Daniel meant by his last remark. She understood that her prognostications were empty threats if Daniel did not follow her lead. Her instinct was to yell at him for not agreeing with her on this, but her intellect told her that this was a useless reaction. She knew that she needed his backing. Without it, the best that she could hope for is a division within her family.

“I can’t do this without you,” Wendy pleaded to her husband. “They’re going to get our son killed, Daniel. We can’t let that happen. We have to get him back.”

Daniel did not know how to reply to his wife’s plaintive request. He understood the depth of fear and emotion that was behind it. The last thing he wanted to do at that moment was add to her pain. Because of this conflict within him, he said nothing as he returned his wife’s gaze. Gorman seized the opportunity in his stead and pointed out what he knew to be the reality of the situation.

“It’s too late,” Gorman reported with a blank expression. “Your son will be leaving with the Orion.”

Overwhelmed by the weight of resistance against her, Wendy resorted to the last tactic available to the desperate. She began to shout.

“I want my son,” Wendy demanded. “You can’t have my son.”

With his usual straight-faced demeanor, Gorman gave his return to her assertion with an inflection of finality.

“It’s too late.”

Wendy took a moment to study the face of the official in front of her. During this time, she grudgingly concluded that this was as far as she was going to get. She then turned to Daniel and searched for his lead for the first time since leaving their apartment. Daniel took her by the hand and gently guided her out the office door.

Daniel was eager to hear and see Sawyer’s video message. He had no doubt that the message would be addressed to all the registered occupants within the home and routed to them individually. But Daniel did not want to see this video for the first time through his com-link goggles. He wanted to see it fully displayed on a wall monitor with all the nuances of his son’s expression clear to see. He was anxious for visual reinforcement of the pride he was feeling for Sawyer. This feeling had nothing to do with the fact that he was going off to war. It had everything to do with the idea that Sawyer chose to go off to war. Daniel could not help but hope that he would have done the same had it been him at seventeen years of age.

It took Daniel and Wendy fifteen minutes to make their way home. Once they were there, they spent the next four hours waiting for a video message from their eldest son. Daphne and Adam sat through this vigil with them. At the end of this time the video message they were waiting for beeped in on the com-links of all four. Daniel sent the message to a wall display with the voice command “Wand, transfer video message to living-room monitor.” The other family members used the voice command, “Wand, save video message.” to record the message. For five minutes the four members of the Beck family watched in silence while Sawyer explained his decision to join the RG01 Space Force. They held on to every word he said. They noted every gesture he made and cataloged every twitch.

In the message, Sawyer told his parents that he could not back away from this calling. He told them that he did this for himself, his family and the entire Star-Corp community. He explained how he was ideally suited for this task and how doing less than what he did would have haunted him for the remainder of his life. In the end, he said that he loved them all. And then he said goodbye.

Wendy replayed Sawyer’s message a dozen times more and watched each time with eyes filled with tears. Through it all, her brain continued to search for ways to separate her child from this course. The other members of her family gave her space and quiet. They believed she needed to come to terms with what had happened. As the time went by the apartment began to fill with a growing fear that this would never happen. This worry came to a culmination when a bulletin was E-mailed to all within the convoy.

“Oh my god,” Wendy huffed out after examining the message that was scrolling across her com-link display. “They’re taking my son.”

Daniel rushed to Wendy’s side on the couch. He took her hand to give support. She gripped his tightly as she looked at him with a terrified expression. A second later Adam accessed the wall monitor and directed it to show a live feed of the Orion Basestar. It was every bit as large as the biggest starship. It was designated a basestar because its purpose was to house all the accoutrements of war.

“They’re taking my son away from me, Daniel,” Wendy whimpered to her husband. “They’re taking my son.”

“We’ll see him again,” Daniel assured with a whisper. “He’ll come back to us.”

The Beck family watched as the basestar pushed away from the convoy. Ten minutes later it was a speck in the distance. Five minutes beyond that it was no longer in sight. Wendy spent most of the next hour sobbing into her husband’s chest. For the next two weeks, she stayed home from work. Depression and worry kept her in a perpetual daze. She awakened from this when a live video of Mars, and the three-hundred Star-Corp spaceships parked in its orbit, loomed large within the monitors of the RG01 Starcorp convoy.