Prelude to Extinction

by Andreas Karpf

  “Well? Don’t avoid the question,” Nadya pressed.

  “Depends on how you look at it.”

  “What? You agree with him?”

  “No,” Kurt said incredulously. He took a moment to mop up some sauce with a piece of bread before continuing, “Don’s wrong of course. But think of it – he's just over anxious. The way he sees things, he’s finally about to start his real job. Jack’s wanting to push out our ETA by a few days was just a bit much for him. Especially since, as Don saw it, taking the slower, cautious approach to E-Eri-D was just to appease Palmer’s paranoia.”

  Nadya’s blank stare told him to continue, “Think of it; he’s been waiting for this for a decade. As far as he sees it, he’s just been biding his time with his ship-board research. On the other hand, we ... I mean Jack, you, me and the rest of the command and engineering staff ... we’ve been doing our primary job: flying and running the ship. As far as Don’s concerned, he’s been doing busy work. I just don’t think he can stand any more waiting. In a sense I can’t really blame him for that. It’s just that he doesn’t have a clue about how to get that across.”

  “I don’t know. It sounds more like you’re trying to make an excuse for him. It’s pretty obvious to me it’s a power play. He’s the chief science officer. Once we touch down on E-Eri-D, we will be fully in the science phase of the mission. He figures he’ll be in control. Plus, you and I both know he’s never been happy taking orders from Jack or Palmer. This little scuffle was his way of saying he’ll be running the show soon.”

  “Come on. Jack’ll still be in command of the mission – it’s not like Don’s going to be our boss. Don’ll just be coordinating the research. Anyway, how can you say arguing with Jack over our approach trajectory means this?”

  “Jack relented didn’t he?”

  “That’s not the point.”

  “But it is,” Nadya pressed. “Jack overrode Palmer and returned to the original approach vector. That’s what Don wanted – to show the crew that things would be adjusted to meet his requirements.”

  Kurt wasn’t convinced, and picked at his spaghetti as he tried to formulate a response. Nadya spoke first though. “Listen, I’d have agreed with you if Don didn’t start pushing the issue that the whole science staff agreed with him. You know, us versus them. Like he’d been discussing this with them behind Jack’s back, and had their backing to go up against him.”

  “I don’t think he did that,” Kurt protested.

  “I don’t either. But the point is, he didn’t have to. He chose this little battle carefully. You know that even if they don’t all agree with Don on everything, they’re just as anxious as he is to get to E-Eri-D. So, I’m sure they didn’t mind Don pushing that point, nor did they see the point in disputing his assertion that they, the science staff as a group, were united behind him. Then add to that Don’s saying that Jack was arbitrarily dictating terms...”

  “Yeah, but that’s when Jack started putting his foot down.”

  “Barely. Don still got what he wanted.”

  “I don’t know,” Kurt said as he finished his last piece of chicken. He got up, as much to end the conversation as to clear his plate, and said, “I just don’t know. I think this speculation is as pointless as Don fighting over shaving a few days off a ten-year trip. It’s not going to make a bit of difference in the end.”

  Kurt walked into the kitchen without waiting for an answer, and rinsed the remnants off of his plate into the food recycling unit. The machine hummed as it began breaking the scraps down into their basic other organic compounds, producing an unappetizing paste that would ultimately be used to fertilize the ship’s crops as well as grow synthetic meat. The thought stuck in his mind for a split second before he dismissed it. To the best of his recollection, simulated chicken tasted just like real chicken back on earth.

  He returned to the dining room completely distracted by food recycling when Nadya asked, “Do you think the science staff trusts Don?”

  “Huh?”

  “Do you think they trust him?”

  “That’s tough to say,” he answered softly. The eight-person science contingent was a diverse, international group from several different disciplines. To lump, biologists, planetary scientists, a botanist, an archaeologist, and a linguist together, and think of them as a coherent group seemed futile.

  “Well, what about Alex?” Nadya asked with some impatience, “he spends enough time with you and Jack.”

  “True, but the problem is, I don’t think that he even notices anything that’s going on. He’s a workaholic. When he does come up to breathe from his research, yeah he’ll go for a run with Jack and me, or play some tennis. But he never says a word about the others. He’ll either tell us about his newest experiment or talk about the latest baseball game he watched on the feed from Earth. And, that’s even after I’ve reminded him again that the game’s over ten years old.”

  Nadya pondered the point before saying, “I guess that’s true for most of them.”

  “And most of us in engineering too,” Kurt added. “Face it we’re all a bunch of geeks.”

  “Speak for yourself.”

  Kurt chuckled as he activated a computer display in the corner of the living room and brought up his afternoon schedule. “Anyway, it’s almost one-thirty and I’m supposed to meet Janet and Devon up in the IPV.” Formally known as the Inter-Planetary Vehicle, the IPV would be their home and main source of transportation until they set up base camp on Epsion Eri-D. The cramped craft was traditional in terms of spaceship design. Its smaller dimensions made it much more maneuverable, as well as capable of landing on the planet’s surface. “The pilots want to do a complete walk-through of their craft before we start using it. What’ve you got planned?”

  “I’ll be up that way too, but later on. Pierre and I need to test the propellant feeds and discharge grates on the IPV’s ion engines. Maybe I’ll see you then. Otherwise, I’ll be back here a few hours after engine shutdown – maybe around seven.”

  “See you later then,” Kurt said as he headed out the front door. Jogging at an easy pace toward the control center, he took in the bright daylight with its light breeze as if it were real. These were vastly different surroundings compared to those that waited for them aboard the IPV. Gone would be the comfort of apartments and walks in the garden. Instead, he and Nadya would share a room barely big enough to hold a bed, desk and dresser. Then again, it really was a small inconvenience once he took into account the fact that a few weeks down the road they’d be walking freely on Epsilon Eri-D, in real sunlight, and breathing real, fresh air.

  Kurt reached the command center and walked directly to a waiting elevator. “IPV bay,” he said. The elevator accelerated quickly to the top level. A moment later it slowed, letting him out into a short, stark-white corridor. A few meters ahead lay an airlock; its inner and outer doors were set in the open position to facilitate the ferrying of supplies to the craft. Kurt stepped through the narrow passage into the IPV’s equally narrow corridor. Its walls were lined with uniform, gray plastic panels. The pattern was interrupted every few meters by doors for storage cabinets or entrances to other compartments. A continuous line of white lights ran along the top of the walls, adjacent to the white, rubber coated ceiling. The floor was charcoal gray and made of the same surface as the ceiling, making it easier for one to push their way down the corridor in zero gravity. At not quite fifty meters in length, the IPV had just barely enough room to house its eighteen crewmembers, and provide them with the rudimentary lab facilities required of a field operation. The only additional equipment it carried were two small, three-person shuttles, intended more for use as runabouts than anything else.

  Kurt continued down the narrow hallway until he came to a small ladder. Climbing it to the IPV’s upper level, he followed the corridor a few meters further to the bridge. The dimly lit, circular room was a little over five meters across, and packed with control panels and workstations. He figured that it could
fit maybe eight people before they’d get in each other’s way. The room’s gray walls were interrupted frequently by the bright colors of computer displays, which contributed the majority of its lighting. A low ceiling hung only a few centimeters above his head, giving him the urge to duck with each step he took. Kurt looked across the room, past the captain’s command chair, to the two forward-facing pilot’s stations. Janet and Devon were working intently and hadn’t noticed his arrival. Walking closer, he overheard them discussing their recent test of the navigation system. After a few more seconds of eavesdropping, he said, “So, how’re the systems checking out?”

  Neither appeared startled by his sudden statement. Janet simply turned and answered, “Everything looks fine so far.”

  “How long have you two been at it?”

  “A couple of hours now,” she admitted. “We decided to get an early start on things here.”

  “So, is there much left to go over?”

  Devon answered this time, “Not really. Nav-systems were the last of the internal systems to check besides propulsion. And Nadya’s going to do that later.”

  “Good.”

  Janet looked to Devon, and said, “I’m ready for the walk-around if you are.”

  “OK, let’s go have a look.”

  Kurt let them lead the way off the bridge and then up a ladder that ended at a circular hatch in the ceiling. He climbed through it, into a small airlock above and locked the inner and outer hatches into “open” position, before continuing out onto the IPV’s smooth outer surface. Kurt felt dwarfed as he turned and looked back across the IPV’s white, delta-shaped body. The craft stretched out over half a football field in front of him. The bay-ceiling hung only a couple of meters above his head, accentuating the fact that he was standing nearly ten meters above the bay floor. His eye followed the broadening shape of the craft back until it ended abruptly at the engine housing. There was no tail. Its lifting-body design required only two short wings that were mounted two-thirds of the way back. They extended outward only a few meters before bending up and ending at his eye-level.

  Janet and Devon joined him on the outer surface, and walked to the back of the ship, carefully studying its condition with each step. Janet led the way down a ladder embedded in the aft structure between two of its engines. Once on the bay floor, Kurt looked back up and admired the massive, silver mesh grates that spanned the width of the IPV and made up the outer surface its ion engines. Tens of millions of volts would pass through them, helping accelerate ionized Xenon gas out into space at nearly the speed of light. The relatively small but high-speed wisps of gas would provide the thrust necessary to move the ship efficiently between the system’s planets. He trailed the pilots at a polite distance as they continued their inspection. The white surface he had admired from above continued down the curved sides of the IPV before ending abruptly at its black underbelly – not too different from the space shuttles from a century ago. Kurt walked beneath the left wing, and watched as the IPV narrowed while they made their way toward its rounded nose.

  Devon took a moment to inspect the front landing gear, while Janet stopped for a second look at the elevons on the ship’s right wing. He knew they were in good shape from his own inspections a day earlier, but it was the pilots’ prerogative to do the final inspection and make sure they were comfortable. He opened his mouth to ask Janet if she’d found anything when the Magellan’s warning buzzers cut through the air with a harsh, abrasive tone. He froze in his tracks. An automated voice announced, “Warning, emergency course change. Prepare for high-g deceleration. Deceleration of two-point-five g’s to commence in thirty seconds. Take the necessary precautions.” The message began repeating itself.

  His stomach dropped as he quickly scanned the room and spotted Devon sprinting for the ladder. Within seconds, the pilot was on top of the IPV, heading for the airlock they’d just used. Kurt knew he’d never make it up in time, and looked around the bay for other options. “The rear access hatch,” he said as it flashed into his mind. “Janet, over here!” he called out, and ran for the portal embedded in the floor near the rear of the bay. She started to follow, but stopped and instead made a run for the ladder Devon had just scaled. Kurt stopped in his tracks and shouted, “Janet, No! This way, there’s not enough time.”

  “Ten seconds until emergency course change. Take all necessary precautions,” the warning system announced.

  “Janet!” Kurt shouted again, but she didn’t answer. He couldn’t tell if she heard him, and took off in her direction. She wasn’t halfway up the ten-meter ladder when he reached the rear of the IPV and screamed, “Get down! You’re not going to make it!”

  Janet paused and looked back at Kurt.

  The computer announced, “Four, three…”

  “Jump now!” he shouted at the top of his lungs.

  She stared at him. Fear filled her eyes as the computer’s count reached one. “High-g maneuver commencing.”

  The Magellan shuddered as the engines kicked in to full power. Its super structure whined under the increased force; deep, resonating groans echoed around them. The pressure grew too fast, throwing Kurt backwards. He hit the floor hard, forcing the wind from his lungs. Gasping for breath, he began to panic before his chest muscles recovered enough to allow him to gulp in breaths of air. Reflexively he struggled to sit up, but the weight was too much. The best he could do was to lift his head slightly. He searched for Janet, but the ladder was empty. Pain gripped his head, and forced him to lie back down. The groaning and creaking slowly subsided as the Magellan’s beams and support struts reached a new equilibrium.

  The computerized voice announced, “Deceleration will continue for eight minutes. Take appropriate precautions.”

  “Precautions,” he spat with disgust. He forced his head up again to look for Janet, and spotted her collapsed form on the floor. “Damn it!” he shouted. It took all of his strength just to roll onto his belly and get up onto his hands and knees. Laboring under the weight of more than two people, he crawled to her, calling, “Janet, can you hear me?” There was no response; she just lay there motionless.

  When he reached her, he rolled her onto her back, and found a stream of blood running down the side of her face. He followed the blood trail up to her scalp: there was a small gash under her matted blond hair. Struggling to support his weight, he leaned over her face and checked her breathing: it was labored and shallow. “Computer!” he shouted.

  “What is your status, Lieutenant Commander Hoffman?”

  “Not good. Janet fell about five meters under two-and-a-half g’s. She’s unconscious and at very least got a concussion. There’s a gash on the side of her head, maybe a skull fracture too.” Kurt thought about her fall – the equivalent to a four-story fall in Earth gravity, and added, “There’re probably other broken bones too.”

  “I am informing the Captain.”

  “Good. How much longer until the engines shut down?”

  “We’ll have zero g in six minutes. The captain wants to know your status.”

  “I’m just bruised a bit and have a nasty headache. Janet’s the one to be concerned about. We’ve got to get her to medical.”

  There was a short pause before the computer answered, “The captain says not until we’re at zero-g. It is too dangerous to try and move her now.”

  “Damn it, that’s not good enough.”

  “I’m sorry Lieutenant Commander, but...”

  “Put me through to Jack,” Kurt shouted impatiently.

  There was only a brief pause before the computer responded, “Go ahead.”

  “Jack, what the hell’s going on up there? Janet’s in bad shape down here.”

  “Kurt, you’ve got to hold tight for now. There’s nothing that we can do. The sensors picked up a gravitational anomaly around E-Eri-D and the computer determined we had to abort our approach immediately.”

  “What do you mean an anomaly?”

  “We’ll talk about that later. Where’s Dev
on. I’m going to need a pilot up here asap.”

  “We were on the floor of the IPV bay when the warning sounded. He made it back into the IPV, but that’s the last that I saw of him.”

  “We’ll check in here for him. As for Janet, I don’t want to move her under these conditions. From what the computer relayed to me, it sounds like she’s stable enough for now.”

  “Jack, she’s bleeding from the head. I’m only guessing that...”

  “I know Kurt. But unless she’s in full cardiac arrest, moving her will only make things worse.”

  Kurt wanted to argue, but reluctantly answered, “OK.” The increased weight was starting to overwhelm him, and he gave in and lay back down. “What about Nadya, and the others?” he asked.

  “She’s OK. Most everyone else has checked in with little more than bumps and bruises,” Jack replied.

  Kurt breathed a sigh of relief while Jack continued, “I’ll tell Helena to get over to you as soon as we’re at zero-g. I’ll check in with you then.”

  Kurt didn’t want to wait that long for the ship’s doctor, but there was no choice. He lay still for a few seconds but the throbbing in his head kept him from resting. He ran his hand along the back of his own head, searching for the spot from which the pain emanated, until his fingers found a bump near the base of his skull. As his hand explored the area around it, he realized that his hair was wet. He yanked his hand back, and saw that it was dark red with his own blood. “Computer!” he shouted, “how much longer?”

  The machine answered in its eternally calm voice, “four minutes and thirty seconds.”

  “Damn,” he said softly. He tried to sit up again, but his strength failed him and he remained pinned to the floor. The room started to move around him; his hands went numb and he felt nauseous. He struggled to focus, and tried to call the computer, but couldn’t summon the strength to utter a sound. The numbness spread across his body and face, then there was only blackness.