Free Excelsior by Jasper T. Scott

beside him a moment later, both of them now free of their helmets.
     
    Looking up, Alexander saw the rest of the crew climbing down the ladders from their stations. Some of them simply jumped down and landed with muffled thuds around him. Alexander frowned. That was against regulations, even in low gravity, but he wasn’t going to reprimand them now. They all had bigger problems to deal with.
     
    Once everyone except Williams was standing on the deck, Alexander turned and headed for the elevators at the back of the bridge. He felt light and bouncy in the ship’s half gravity, and he had to consciously watch his steps to avoid walking too fast and tripping over his own feet. After spending a week seated in their chairs with nothing but a few mandatory breaks to stretch their legs, walking felt like a strange new luxury.
     
    They reached the elevators and Alexander gestured for the doors of the nearest lift to open. The control panel tracked his gesture and the elevator opened with a whisper. Alexander walked in and selected one of the glowing green buttons, the one labeled ‘Officer’s Lounge (12).’
     
    The doors slid shut and the lift went up two floors to the lounge on deck twelve. The doors opened to reveal a circular room with a wraparound vista of space. Furnishings and decorations were sparse and utilitarian since everything had to be bolted to the deck. Holoscreens reproduced feeds from cameras mounted on the outer hull, providing a dazzling, panoramic view of space. The geometry of spacetime inside the wormhole subtly warped that view, as if they were looking out through a fisheye lens.
     
    “Go make yourselves comfortable. Once everyone’s here, we’ll begin.” Alexander walked over to the bar and took a seat on one of the stools. He idly glanced around the naked bar, wishing sorely for a drink, but they were all still on duty, and everything was still locked down in the cabinets. Couldn’t have whiskey bottles cracking together at 10 Gs.
     
    A waste of perfectly good Scotch.
     
    Damaging sensitive equipment inside the lounge was a secondary concern.
     
    After a few minutes Commander Korbin came and sat down beside him. “Sir,” she said.
     
    “You can call me Alex. We’re going to be off duty for a while, Sirena.”
     
    “I see. What’s this about, Alex?”
     
    “Morale. We lost half of the 61st Squadron out there.” He couldn’t bring himself to mention Earth.
     
    Korbin swallowed visibly. “So this is a funeral.”
     
    “A memorial.” One of the elevators arrived, and spilled out a group of noncoms. “Come in and take your seats,” Alexander called out to them.
     
    Another three lifts full of crew arrived before everyone was assembled and waiting. Alexander turned to them from the bar and cleared his throat. “Everyone, gather around.” Alexander waited as the crew came together. He saw Seth Ryder, the CAG—commander of the ship’s fighters and drones push to the front of the group to stand beside Lieutenant Stone of starfighter command. Seth was a burly-looking man with dark straight hair and laugh lines all around his eyes and mouth. But he wasn’t laughing now. His gray eyes looked glassy and haunted. Alexander scanned the rest of the crew and saw Seth’s expression mirrored on dozens of other faces.
     
    These people were like family to one another. With the exception of recent transfers, they’d all spent more time together than they’d spent with their real families. Alexander didn’t even need to do a roll call to know who was missing. Their faced left gaping holes in the assembled crowd. Even without bodies, a ceremonial funeral was called for, but they hadn’t had time to organize one yet, and Alexander wasn’t sure it would be a good idea to encourage mourning—not with Earth’s fate still so uncertain.
     
    Making a snap decision, he nodded to the crew and said, “We lost five brothers and sisters today. That’s enough reason to mourn without thinking