He spent his teenage years working retail, he worked his way up as an engine parts salesman for light personnel craft. There he learned all about starships and what it took to make them move. He would've been an engineer, he was a genius, but then one day he saw that great hyperwarp engine left towering out of the wreck of a gunship that crashed in the middle of the city. It was not uncommon, Titan was often attacked by pirates, and the Federation grew weaker every day. They had spread out thin in their bloody Campaign with the alien Empires that threatened there extra-solar colonists. Sol had become crowded, riddled with poverty, overpopulation and crime.
Chase inspected every part of the hyperwarp drive, until he grew tired slept under it, using the wreckage as shelter from the storm that followed. When the salvage crew arrived, he hid inside, he knew it was his big chance. They found him sleeping one day in the cargo hold of the salvage ship. Refusing to return to Titan, Chase was offered a chance to join the Fenderation Galactic Navy.
Three years later, Chase was a junior navigation officer. Two years after working on a surveying ship, he was hand selected by nonother than Captain John Mautch, to be the senior officer to tactics on board an experimental starship called the frigate class FGN Lone Ranger.
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"Yes come in."
"Good evening, sir."
"How many times have I told you, I hate pleasantries, at ease lieutenant."
"Thank you sir."
He sat down on the opposite. Mautch was busy punching in some last final words in the log entry. Chase had something bothering him, he couldn't shake it off, but he was nervous about bringing up the main subject.
Mautch took a quick glance, and was clearly getting irritated.
"Well, spit it out man!"
"Sir, when are we going to use those reactionless thrusters, I've wrote so many algorithms in the simulators, they really are exciting."
Mautch stopped typing and laid down his pad.
"That's not what you came here for Chase, now spit it out, what do you want?"
He said coursely, in a very irated tone.
"Well....." He began twitiling his thumbs under the table and shaking his legs."...I've found my mother sir. She's on Virgil alpha.....and...."
"I see," responded the captain, looking down at his notes,"...yes." he said after a long pause.
Mautch noticed how Chase's face was hard and cold as a depressed marble statue. Clearly he was hopping Mautch to come up with some excuse about time is of the essence, but Mautch knew better. The man had never met her. It was time.
"Thank you sir, that's all I wanted to ask of you." Chase got up slowly and began walking towards the door never lifting his face from the ground.
"Bill, you know we'll only be in the system for a couple days for resupply. But..... according to my chief tactician, our targetting systems need a little tuning, so we might have a bit of a delay."
Chase didn't look at the captain, but smiled a little as he turned to face the hallway. Mautch knew he had made his day.
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Virgil alpha was a small planetoid, the entire planet was one big city. It laid on the outskirts of a brown dwarf approximately 10 astronomical units away. It was roughly the size of Pluto.
The LR landed on a massive floating platform that floated high above the city, it was connected to 4 other platforms via long thick masses of cables. A parking lot for starships.
Mautch and Salt accompanied Chase. They thought he could use the support.
His mother lived in an elderly home on the far side of the planet. It was supposed to be a nice place, Chase read that somewhere on a pamphlet he grabbed from one of the transfer stations. The planet was strict about manual transports, the planetary council insisted they took public transportation. In an attempt to seem inconspicuous, The men dressed as casual as possible - they even forgotten what it was like to be civilians again....perhaps it was a time to do so.
When they had arrived at the address, it was a huge old building with art decor and warm orange lights on the exterior. The building was clearly built for nostalgic reasons. The public shuttle landed on a sky walk nearby, and the trio stepped off into the square tunnel of dim lighting and red carpeting. This part of the mega city world was quiet. Nobody else left the shuttle.
Almost as if it was abandoned, they walked into a reception hall. In the corner of their eyes, they could see a the small receptionist lady, looking down on her monitor, tip tap typing away oblivious to the arriving party.
Chase stepped up, eager to find his long lost mother.
"Excuse me miss."
At first, she seemed to ignore him, but after a few seconds of pause, she raised her index finger, the one moment please gesture. Her finger fell back into the key pad she had been so busily typing away at.
They waited. And waited. Finally, she finished her sonnet of monotone key presses and looked up. With that, what are you still doing here look.
"How can a help you gentlemen?"
"We're here to find a Miss Bethany Finnegan."
"Of course, she's been expecting visitors, take the elevator down the left corridor, and get off on the 230th floor, room 230-9A."
"Thanks"
She went back to frantically typing. What could the lady be so busy about, there was not another damn living soul in the hallways, Mautch wondered.
They stepped into the elevator. Spotlessly clean and carpeted with the dim orange lighting as the rest of the place. Someone tried really hard to get this place to feel nostalgic.
All Chase could think of was what he would say to her. He was afraid of breaking into tears, wasting away the moment that he had been waiting for. To ask her so many questions, about her life, and his father. He had so many stories to tell her, so much catching up to do.
What bothered him the \most was weather she would even care at all. All these thoughts raced through his mind, he tried to drown it all out with the simple gratitude that his years in training, and breif few months in service had brought him this golden opportunity.
He was grateful for the people he worked with, especially the great invincibly luck Captain Mautch. Only five years as captain, and he's already made himself a great reputation. If it had been any body else, Chase knew he wouldn't have been so lucky.
The door opened, and the men stepped out.
"You ready?" Said Salt as he put his hand on Chase's shoulder.
"Yeah, thanks for coming with me."
"No problem."
Chase looked at Mautch, asking him a silent question with his face. Mautch understood, and nodded. Chase pressed the ringer on the door firmly.
A light lit up from the button to the center, and the door began slid open.
It was dark, a dim blue, green light took up the whole wall in front of him, and Aquarium. The dancing distortions from the waves cascaded all over the room. There was a silhouette of a woman, about 5 feet tall. Long white hair. Her pose didn't seem like she was old at all, her hair was like fine silk, no split ends or anything. If he had to guess, she wasn't old at all, her hair was just dyed white.
Chase hesitated to call her his mother, he couldn't believe a woman that appeared so young could be the woman that had given birth to him 23 years ago.
"William....I've been looking for you for a long time." She said. "I know you must be disappointed. I'm sorry."
"Who are you? I was given a message from fleet command that my mother was on this planet." He stepped forward, hoping for a profile of her face before she turned. He could see the ghostly reflection in the glass as her face was lit up by the water tinted light.
"My name is Irene. I am her clone." She turned her face slightly, and Chase could see her a little better. She was gorgeous.
"Our mother, William, was a brilliant scientist. She was one of the first volunteers of a deep space mission to find the source of life on our universe." She brushed her fingers through the hair on her shoulder, still not facing Chase fully.
Chase could recall some of the evolutionary theories on the subject from the academy. Life couldn't have begun without a special organism called the star seed. They planted life through out the galaxy. No one has ever been able to find one, because almost immediately after being exposed to a planetary atmosphere they disintegrate and reform into a form of life suited for the start of an evolutionary chain in that environment. Scientist theorize that this was the goal to true planetary teraforming. Not only could one bring the environment to a fully sustainable ecosystem, but also breed life completely unique from anywhere in the universe.
"Then why did you bring us out here?"
"If I had said I was your sister, there would've been too much explaining. And I couldn't be sure you would come at all."
"I would've come for my sister, you didn't have to lie."
"I need your help William."
She turned to face him, her face still unclear, darkened by the light from behind her. She touched her wrist, and the dim lights came on as she walked closer to him.
"We have to find her together, I need a ship that can travel into the New Greenland ice clouds. This trumps all priority, command has issued me as the lead scientist on this expedition. If you and your captain accept this mission, we'll be on our way."
"Captain Mautch, Lieutenant Salt."
The two entered the room.
"This is my....half sister Irene."
"Pleased to meet you ma'am", said Salt.
"It's very nice to meet you", the captain shook her hand next.
It wasn't much of an introduction, Chase was a little upset that his longlost sibling had lied to him on the first aquaintance. They all sat down. Chase and Salt interrogated Irene as Mautch thumbed through the orders, eyballing evry little detail.
"You're Dr. Sterling! Wow, you've got quite a reputation of extra solar explorations and research. These are orders from Admiral Johnston, how'd you convince him of this?" said Mautch.
"One of the earlier colonist worlds were having troubles with their teraforming equipment, nature fought back, and they're now just decades away from total evacuation. The Admiral deemed that it was time to reopen the case of the missing FEV Stiletto. The reason why it was closed 20 years ago was because the ship had gone missing in a hostile environment in the middle of the neutral zone. The rescue ships never returned."
Mautch always had a soft spot for challenges, and he couldn't pass this one up.
"Tell me about mother, why did she leave us?"
Irene was clearly a few years younger than him, by about 3 exactly. She explained how his mother raised him until he was 3, gave birth to her, and was given a lead on the star seed. She sent the two home to Earth, the ship that carried the two was attacked by an enemy vessel, the entire crew died, and they were the soul survivors. Chase had no memory of it, he was badly injured, and froze in space. He was dead. But death in space wasn't so bad since it was one death that scientists had figured out a way to reverse. Chase was brought back to life, his memories of his mother and sister gone, but the pain was always there.
"So, it's up to you William."
He didn't even hesitate. "Captain, we should cut those repairs short, let's leave first thing tomorrow."
Mautch nodded, and they left. On the way out Chase asked,"Why here of all places?"
"This is our home, where mother's last residency before we left for Earth."
Chase wanted to ask one more question, about his father, but he felt that she wasn't quite ready to share that. She didn't have a father, unless the laboratory needle counted.
They boarded the first shuttle out, returned to the Lone Ranger, and departed.
