The Council of Hhearn Trilogy Box Set

by P F Walsh

  The Zakarian land car came to a stop inside the warehouse as the overhead door closed after it. Beztl-Tor was sitting at a portable table about twenty-five paces away, with one empty chair. Kastm’n, stepped out of the land car and walked toward the table.

  “He’s bigger than I remembered, good thing I have the sniper keeping a bead on him.” Beztl thought as the Zakarian sat down.

  “You asked for this meeting, what can I do for you Mr. Ambassador?” queried Beztl.

  “I assume you know of Captain Flynn’s successful effort to get his planet admitted to Membership. I am aware that this event is not what you and Tamn-Kar had planned, would that be correct?” The Zakarian said with confidence.

  “Well,” replied Beztl, “I am certainly not going to acknowledge such a statement, but I will say I am not pleased. There are certain business expectations that will have to be abandoned you might say, and that displeases me.”

  “Then we are in somewhat of an accord with regard to Captain Flynn. There is little that can be done now about their membership, with or without Captain Flynn. In my case, I have an unsettled blood matter with him that I am required to handle personally. I cannot use any Zakarian resources for this. Therefore, I must book passage on a freighter going to Earth under the guise of being a ship hand. Once on Earth, I will disappear and pursue my mission. I know yours will be one of the first freighters to make the trip, is that not so?” Kastm’n asked. Beztl immediately knew what the Zakarian’s mission was and didn’t have any hesitation on being part of it and picking up a handsome passenger fare. Passengers who wished to travel in these kinds of circumstances always paid triple, and he knew this one would too.

  “Kastm’n, we must wait until the charter is signed before we can approach Earth as a member state with free access. Anything other than that will attract a great deal of attention, which I assume you would like to avoid?”

  “Are you prepared to wait for another lunar or two?” Beztl asked.

  “Yes, I can wait, here is my pocketcomm number you can call to reach me.” He handed Beztl a small card.

  “I will need two rotations notice. Have someone call and just leave the name of the ship and its departure time when you are prepared to make a run to Earth. I will be there before you leave.” Said Kastm’n.

  He then threw a bag of kalt coin on the table, got up and proceeded to leave. Beztl emptied the bag on the table and a quick count showed five times the normal passenger fare. Beztl smiled and nodded to his guard to open the overhead door.

  “Damn, it’s cold in here.” Doris said on the commo, “I just looked at the temperature gauge on my suit, and it’s just like outside the ship, no heat at all.”

  After the inner airlock door had opened fully, they were able to step into a ready room with multiple space suits and unknown devices ostensibly intended for exterior work on the ship? Doris still had her stun gun out as Sean snapped pictures with his pocketcomm to relay back to Allister to file, although Allister was likely recording the videos from the helmet cameras he was getting.

  The room opened onto a corridor that seemed to run the length of the ship. The walls and ceiling were painted white, typical color for a space ship so that even minimal light during power interruption would help a person to see. The floor was a grey, non-slip type of covering that resembled diamond plate but was flexible and gave slightly when stepped on.

  It was at that point when Sean realized that the ship’s gravity system was still operational since they were walking without magnetic boots being required. The corridor had multiple doors lined up on both sides, but none were open. They decided to head for the bridge and start there. It took them a few minutes to walk the length of the ship toward the bow and came to a very heavy-duty door, larger than the ones that lined the corridor and a bit taller.

  “This must the bridge security door Doris, I’ll try to figure out how to open it while you keep an eye behind us, OK?”

  Doris acknowledged with a simple “Ten-four.”

  She raised her handgun to a straight up position with her elbow bent, and ready to bring the gun down to firing level faster than from a hip position.

  Allister broke in on the commo, “Captain, I am being queried from the ghost ship. It is not a hostile break in, but it is downloading huge sections of my language files. I believe the ship’s AI wishes to communicate, please stand by, and I will try to establish communications when it finishes the language files.”

  Sean and Doris stayed in their positions while Sean ran his hand over the top of the door and illuminated the bridge door latch panel. Pressing the blue square did not open the door.

  “Looks like we’ll have to wait for Allister to give us a go ahead before we can open this up.” Said Sean. Doris nodded in her usual laconic behavior, not needing to say anything. The waited for about fifteen minutes until Allister told them to try to communicate verbally with the Ship’s AI.

  Sean decided to try an authority approach.

  “Captain Flynn of Seeker ship number Eighteen requests entry to the bridge.” He said out loud through his commo speaker on his helmet.

  There were a few moments of silence and then,

  “You are not ship’s master” voiced the onboard AI

  Sean answered quickly,

  “That is true, we have boarded to conduct a rescue. State ship’s status, crew, fuel, power core, and damages.”

  A shorter wait time this time as the AI read out the ship’s status.

  “Crew inactive and non-responsive.”

  “Fuel state 61 percent”

  “Power cube on survival standby”

  “Ultra-Drive power conduit ruptured by unauthorized incendiary device. All other systems on survival stand by. Hull and engines secure.”

  Sean asked,

  ’’Status of life support and state mix of gasses.”

  The ship reported that life support was operational, but on minimal duty since there has been no life source consumption, the mix was slightly richer than Earth’s air mix and closer to Hhearn’s. Sean looked at Doris as they both realized all aboard must be dead.

  “Sean requested “Ship, bring the Power cube back to operational stand by, activate life support up to operational status including gasses and temperature.”

  “Acknowledged, activating.” Neither Sean nor Doris could feel any result from the assumed activation, although the lights started to become brighter until the corridor was now well lit.

  “Ship. How long has it been since there were life forms active on this ship?” Sean asked.

  “It has been one hundred and fifty-two annuals since I have had instructions from the crew.” The AI answered.

  “What were those last instructions” Asked Sean.

  “The last instruction set was...” pause, a different voice was then used. Sean immediately thought it must have been an emulation of the Captain’s.

  “Secure the ship from running, and enter into standby on all systems.”

  “Await Rescue and permit access. Transfer command to the Senior Rescue Officer.” Announced the AI.

  After a minute’s hesitation, Sean said,

  “I am the Senior Rescue Officer. Transfer command to me, Captain Sean Flynn.”

  “Command verified with rescue ship, command acknowledged, transferred command to Captain Sean Flynn.”

  “Open bridge door” Commanded Sean. The door seal cracked and the thick security door began to move outward and then to the side. The lights in the bridge came on and Sean and Doris could see figures still in their chairs.

  The figures were humanoid, but completely desiccated. It appeared likely the crew either ran out of food or decided to end their lives facing hopeless travel within ‘no-space’. After one hundred and fifty-two annuals, they were finally rescued by the accident of one ship bumping the other in ‘no-space’ Statistically impossible, as the crew must have known, and yet it did happen a century and a half later. Sean began taking pictures of each crew member at their bridg
e stations. Each wore a name tag in writing similar to Arabic on Earth.

  “Captain, I am sensing several systems on the ghost ship powering up. I am also sensing that the ship’s AI is becoming fully active and awaiting commands.” Allister sent to his commo.

  “Acknowledged Allister, Doris and I are going to take a tour of the ship and then we will come back to discuss all this. Please request a download of the ship’s log and run a translation so I can read it later. There is a deceased crew on board. We will talk about this when I get back on board.”

  “Acknowledged Captain. I recommend not operating any devices other than doors until we know more about the dangers, if any, are on board. We do not yet know what mission it was on. I also want to inform you that decontamination tents have been set up in the Engine room airlock. It seemed advisable.” Said Allister.

  “I agree.” Said Sean. He turned to Doris and said,

  “Let’s take a look around. I think you can put the stun gun away now.” Doris nodded her head and slipped the gun back into her belt compartment.

  Including the man in the Captain’s chair, there were six crew members on the bridge, four at stations and one more in the observer seats at the back of the bridge. It looked as though they all expired at the same time, or it appeared that way. Sean and Doris began a search of the ship opening every door they came to as they went toward the aft section of the ship finding additional crew but not many more. They passed by four openings which had stairwells leading both up and down but they did not leave the deck they were on, finally ending in the cargo hold which contained multiple crates. Each one had identification tags on them, but written in an unknown language. Might be food supplies, collection of artifacts from alien planets, or even delivery of some interplanetary freight? Sean realized that there was a staggering amount of unexpected, new information to discover and learn. The last month or so had been brutal, and now it wasn’t going to let up on the mental demands he was going to have.

  Sean and Doris returned to the airlock and were preparing to go back to the Seeker when Sean added some commands to the ghost ship.

  “Ship, this is the Captain. Resolve the flight posture to synchronize with the rescue ship and prepare to travel with us. Also, how many inactive crew members are on board?”

  “Navigation command acknowledged Captain, there are twelve inactive crew members on board.”

  “Ship please transmit to the rescue ship protocols for disposal of deceased crew members.” Doris looked a bit startled at this last command, but then realized it was essential to know how the crew would wish to be set to final rest. After the ship acknowledged the last commands, Sean informed the ship he would be on the rescue ship for reports and any notices the systems would generate that were high priority. They walked to the airlock and pressed the button to open the inner door.

  After Allister had determined that there was no apparent danger of contamination or disease, it took one Earth day to remove and prepare the deceased crew and launch them towards a nearby star after holding a committal service. They made certain it was all video recorded. Someday, Sean hoped that he could connect with the civilization that spawned the ship and its crew. At that time, he could hand these records, as well as the Captain’s log, to their archives, for surely by now they had been completely forgotten. He had not yet read the ship’s logs, unwilling to read their last decisions which may have been voluntary termination. He would do that after he was done with Earth’s issues.

  He knew under Earth’s Maritime law, since they were now in Earth’s domain, an abandoned or lost or critically damaged ship generally became the property of the one that found it and secured it for recovery. In addition, the command had been turned over to him as the original Captain had ordered. Sean asked Allister to record his find under The Law of Finds in Earth maritime law when they reached Earth despite it was very likely those laws had not been amended for space ships.

  Allister had sent drones over to the ghost ship and had a new section of conduit installed on the Ultra drive system. The ghost ship’s systems check then showed all systems reporting ready for transition again. Sean noticed on his tour that the ship had self-repairing machine shops and 3D printers that Seeker had, but not the resources to rebuild that unique and critical energy conduit which contained rare earths and exotic materials. Otherwise, the crew could have repaired their own ship and completed their mission which Allister now knew to be exploration. There was no way to discern why the conduit was sabotaged or by who.

  Allister told Sean the ship’s home planet location was hidden in the navigation system and unreadable by Allister. Safeties were in place to prevent downloading or copying and would result in memory destruction. It was possible for the ship to return home though, by calling up the address name which was Denknish. When that name was input on the Nav console, no navigation information was displayed, but it displayed as a valid destination the ship go to. Allister suspected that it may be at the far end of the galaxy according to what he was able to determine from the Captain’s log of planets they visited, some of which Allister recognized in his own database.

  Sean could not pronounce the original ship’s name in English, and he wanted to rename the ship they were always referring to as the ‘ghost ship’. He decided to rename it ‘Discovery’ rejecting other names such as ‘Jacob Marley.’ He felt this name not only represented the most recent events but the ship’s presumed original missions.

  Now they were ready to resume the trip to Earth. The Discovery synched its navigation with the Seeker offset by one hundred miles, The Discovery was now in ‘fleet’ mode and the Seeker was the command ship.

  No one knew if the Discovery would be lost in ‘no-space’ like it was before, or if it would arrive alongside the Seeker as instructed.

  Sean wanted to make the remaining part of the trip in the Discovery and spend time going through its unknown cargo, but was persuaded that his presence at Earth was critical and traveling in the Discovery was experimental at this point. Sean demurred to those opinions and they all rode in the Seeker for the final jump to Earth.

  Both ships arrived outside Earth’s solar system and joined up. The Discovery reported that all systems functioned as programmed except a power junction for lighting in the aft quarter failed. The ship’s maintenance drones were repairing that small failure. Both ships then proceeded to their parking location near Ceres so Sean could send a coded message to the President.

  Sean marveled that a century old ship would still function even though it appeared to be in the same condition that it was when lost, that anxiety and the counsel of Allister and Doris discouraged Sean from riding in it through the transition. Sean wondered if being in ‘no-space’ suspends physical deterioration since there is believed to be no mass. He didn’t understand all the technology involved, but it seemed likely to him. Further suggestion of that belief was the condition of the crew. Desiccated, but otherwise unaffected including their uniforms.

  When both ships parked at Ceres, and after he had gotten off his message to the President, Sean rode over to the Discovery to set some protocols for his absence. He instructed the ship’s AI not to allow anyone else but him to enter and set a seven-digit entry code. If any other parties try to gain forcible entry, the ship was to immediately get underway at maximum speed out of the solar system, transmit its randomly selected destination encrypted to the Seeker which would store it in the Captain’s private files. Then, Discovery would transition to a location twenty million miles away, and power down to the lowest ‘stand by’ for minimum signature. If the ship was located there, repeat.

  He took a long walk around Discovery and even found the Captain’s cabin. He went in and began to look through the personal effects of the previous Captain. There were images in translucent mag cubes of family members or friends, he couldn’t tell which. Years and times lost so long ago. The Captain’s closet was neatly arranged for all his uniforms and a couple of jumpsuits, all bearing the symbols of his ran
k. It looked like the Captain was about the same size as Sean.

  He wondered what kind of service career did the Captain have? He suspected that those records would be within the ship’s files, and he would read all those much later when he had time. He decided he would arrange to have a plaque made with the translated names of the original crew placed in the dining area to remind everyone who would see it that others gave their lives in exploration and service. He would pack up the Captain’s personal effects later and store them for return. He would need some help on that project, there were also other deceased crew members to deal with.

  Plus, now he owned an alien starship,

  “What was he going to do with that?” He mused.

  “Mr. President” a young staffer interrupted the President as he was walking to the Executive Office building for a meeting.

  “I have a message marked ‘most urgent’.” He said.

  “Well, stop shaking and give it to me.” The President said. The aid handed him the folded note. The President stopped, opened it and read,

  ‘You owe me a case of American Honey Bourbon!’ It was signed ‘Flyboy’.

  The President broke into a huge smile and said,

  “Cancel the damn meeting, something just came up.” He turned around and fast paced back to his Office where he got on the phone to the Secretary of State John Lewis and read him the note. They both started laughing, a laugh of joy and relief. After a bit the President said,