Star Runners

by Clayton J Callahan

  “It should have been an easy job.”

  Robishaw folded her arms. “And what do you mean by that?”

  He demurred, “Well, you see, I have six PhDs in some of the most challenging sciences known; Physics, Engineering, Chemistry, Electrical Science, Astronomy, and Hyperspace Theory. I never even bothered with the soft sciences like anthropology or psychology because, well, they were just too simple. I did some research and found that to be an officer on a space ship only requires a Bachelor’s Degree. So I figured since there wasn’t that much to it, I’d…”

  “You’d find it so ‘simple Simon’ that a genius like you could just waltz right in and do the job better than people who’d logged millions of kilometers in spacecraft over decades.”

  Looking up at her sheepishly he answered, “Well…yes.”

  “And what do you think, now that five shipmates are dead and six more horribly wounded? Manly was as good a spacer as I could have asked for and Harrigan the best damn doctor in the service. They gave their lives for the honor of the Confederation, it’s true. But were they necessary deaths?” she asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  She regarded him with a mixture of scorn and pity as he squirmed in his chair. “No, you wouldn’t know because you didn’t bother to learn. It takes two years of post-bachelor academy training to make an officer and years of service to make a leader. You thought you could just waltz in and take command, that it would be a piece of cake. Well, what do you think now?”

  VanDer paused, looking like he'd bit off more than he could chew and now choked on it. “I think I am in way over my head.”

  Getting up to pace off some of her anger, Robishaw looked at him and said, “And you’re just now figuring that out. Brilliant, Einstein. That’s just brilliant.”

  “Oh, not just now, I had time to think about it after Lady Nastya took me prisoner.”

  Robishaw’s eyes smoldered like candles over a grave as she stared at her withered excuse for a captain. The little jerk had failed every test of command, but he had one saving grace. He’d helped drag Manly off the field of battle where the man could at least die among friends. And when she thought of that, she realized just how much she pitied the sad sack that was Captain VanDer. All his life, the little schmuck had probably been told how clever he was. Growing up in grad schools where his closest peer was likely ten years older than him must have had an effect too. Yet, here he stood; the dumbest smart guy on the whole ship.

  “The mission is over,” she said. “We’re going home. Captain VanDer, I am relieving you of command under charge of incompetence. If you wish to contest that charge, I will call for Chief Sanchez and Second Officer Yu to provide testimony as per Explorer Corps Regulations Section One Point Nine Point Seven. Otherwise, the matter will be settled by a Court of Inquiry back on Earth. Do you understand what I’ve just told you?”

  He nodded. “The mission is over.” Putting his head in his hands, he added, “It may have been over weeks ago, but for Doctor Ben.”

  She blinked. “What do you mean by that?”

  “Doctor Ben passionately wanted to use his jump drive to reunite the human race. It was the reason he’d worked so hard all his life on the project. It meant everything to him. He felt a special urgency about it. So he drew up the orders and presented them to the council, but those orders were never approved. In them, he specified that the Yang-He would conduct an extra-solar exploration of the lost colony worlds as soon as the drive proved successful.”

  The headache was returning. Robishaw felt it shoot across her forehead and down the back of her neck at the same time. “And these orders…that were never approved…were written on paper with Confederation water marks?”

  “Yes.”

  The anger that blossomed within her was unlike anything she’d ever felt before. Almost a half dozen fallen shipmates for a mission that they were never expected to conduct in the first place, all for the sake of a dead scientist and his naïve protégé. Words failed her. Locked in anger, she stood rigid as stone. Then, as the rage deepened, her body began to shake uncontrollably. She tasted the bile in her mouth as revulsion welled up in her gut. Fortunately, VanDer’s office had a small lavatory adjacent.

  Dashing into that tiny room, she shut the door behind her and puked her guts into the little toilet. When she’d finished, Robishaw reached for a paper towel, wiped her face and looked herself in the mirror. Looking far older than her years, Robishaw only hoped that John would still see in her the young Helen he’d once fallen in love with when she returned home—and not some traumatized space veteran who’d retired years too late.

  Exiting the lavatory, she locked eyes with her former commander. “As I already said, sir, you are relieved. You are also confined to quarters. I will have your meals brought to you. That is all.”

  She marched herself out of his office without another word.

  ***

  Her crew did not take the news of VanDer’s removal hard. In fact, Robishaw had to suppress the celebratory mood of the crew lest it spoil respect for all officers in general. That task proved easier, however, when Yu directed the memorial service and the mood turned somber. It was as interfaith as it could be with each crewmember given the chance to say a few words before jettisoning the bodies of Manly and three other crewmen into space.

  Robishaw didn’t cry. Spacers should never see their captain cry. It helped that she kept her own words short and to the point. “This has been a challenging voyage. It has demanded more of each of us than we thought possible to give. And in truth, we mourn those shipmates who made the ultimate sacrifice, and will not return home. Friends die in service, this we must accept if we are to carry on with the duties that lay before us. Yet these heroes, our friends, will never be forgotten, but remembered with love and honor until the stars burn cold.”

  VanDer had been released from his confinement for the service. He said nothing, simply stood respectfully as he listened to each and every crewman’s eulogy. Robishaw’s eyes regarded the diminutive man dressed in a in the green uniform that still sported captain’s rank. She knew he heard every word but more importantly, she knew he understood them. He understood and respected what they were going through. And he understood it was his fault.

  Then came the work of factoring the next jump toward Earth. By mean calculations, Robishaw estimated that it should take three jumps for the Yang-He to get home. Two would be in the vastness of interstellar space, and the last would be within the solar system itself from Io to Earth.

  At her direction, Yu’s people did a thorough inspection of the jump drive. Somehow the lack of a shudder at the last jump had put her on edge. But that’s the nature of fear; it’s what you don’t actually perceive with your senses that scares you, not what you do.

  “Captain, I honestly don’t know what shudder you’re referring to,” Yu said while scratching his head. “I never felt anything odd at jump myself. But, like I said, the Engendering Division has been over the thing from stem to stern, and everything is up to specs.”

  She put aside her pen and looked up at Yu from across her desk. “I understand, Mr. Yu. Give my regards to your people for a job well done. So much has gone wrong on this voyage that I suppose I’m now hyper-vigilant—looking for trouble where there’s none.”

  Yu took a seat in front of her desk. “It’s definitely been one for the books, though; a successful test of the new jump drive, assisting a distressed colony in time of plague, rescuing crewmates from savages on the frontier. The news media is going to gobble this stuff up.”

  Robishaw nodded. “And the courts are going to spend the next ten years tearing VanDer up. His one claim to fame was an understanding of the drive Dr. Buganda invented. And how did he spend his time in command? Meddling in the social dynamics of colony worlds he had no understanding of. I’ll grant you that neither of those scenarios were easy, an officer with years of experience would have struggled with them. Hell, I sure did. But still, we lost people we sh
ouldn’t have, and we can’t get guys like Manly or Harrigan back.”

  “Too true. They were good men. But that’s behind us now that you’re acting captain.”

  Letting out a mirthless chuckle, Robishaw replied, “The job I always wanted but not the way I ever wanted to get it.”

  Yu rose to his feet. “Well, I promised to let Sanchez teach me how to play chess, and he should be done preparing lunch by now. Request permission to be dismissed?”

  “Yu, I thought you knew how to play chess?”

  “I do, but don’t tell Sanchez. He’s been having a hard time since Gaulish, and I’m hoping to give him a distraction.”

  For the first time in days, she smiled. “Good idea. Give the Chief my regards. Dismissed.”

  ***

  She sat in the captain’s chair on the bridge for the first time. The crew occupied their usual stations, but there was little she’d describe as usual anymore. Too many personnel changes in too short of time left her disquieted. But it ended here, and it ended now. Today they’d jump out of the Alpha Centaury system for deep space, and then a leisurely three-day cruise by ramjet would put them at the next jump point toward home.

  In a clear, authoritative voice she said, “Stations report.”

  Chief Medic Bronson replied, “Fourth Officer, Medical, go.”

  And it was Chief Sanchez now who answered, “Third Officer, Supply, go.”

  Yu piped up, “First Officer, Engineering and Operations, go.”

  She drew in a deep breath. “Fine,” Robishaw replied. “Initiate the drive.”

  And once again the Yang-He disappeared from one region of space and reappeared in another after having passed through a completely different universe in no time at all. She checked her panel, every light flashed green, and all was as it should be. Then she felt the rumble as the ship shuddered beneath her feet. “Mr. Yu, report.”

  Yu busily poured over his screens when he answered, “All systems still registering in the green, Captain. I felt it too, but there’s no indication of any problem.”

  With the entire crew present, Robishaw decided now was not the time to have a detailed discussion of the countless things that could go wrong on a spaceship. Besides, everyone aboard understood the risks when they signed on and there was no need to rub it in. “Thank you, Mr. Yu.” Then turning to the crew, she said, “Stand down from jump stations. Resume normal ship’s operations.”

  One by one the crew drifted in zero gravity to float off the bridge. When they were all gone, she turned to Yu. “I don’t care what it takes; send men out in space suits if you have to. Find out what caused that rumble. You have three days until our next jump.”

  “Will do, captain. Will do.”

  ***

  The next few days were passed in the ever exciting endeavor of Confederation paperwork. From her stateroom/office, Robishaw plodded through screen after screen of reports, log entries and manifests to catch up on all that VanDer had left undone. The man had only completed the bare minimum of recordkeeping inherent in command, and she knew that wouldn’t fly when the ship faced the inevitable inquiry back home.

  True to his word, Yu scoured every inch of engineering for anything that might be amiss. A mere twelve hours from the time of their next jump, he knocked on her door. “I think we got it,” he announced.

  Looking up from her fuel report, Robishaw asked, “Got what? I mean, what is it?”

  He plopped a burned out swivel connector upon her desk. “This bad boy was still functioning in the normal range, although on the bottom end of it. We think it might have been exposed to too much torque when it was installed and the associated friction caused the scorch marks you see there. My people replaced it, but it took the whole hazmat crew to do it.”

  “Why?”

  “Well, you know Crewman Al Jabbarie?”

  She nodded. “The prince from the Arabian Republic, right?”

  “Yep, that’s him; he was deep under the manifold when a noxious odor erupted from under there. When Al Jabbarie denied he smelled anything, the hazmat crew got called in to find out if we had a methane leak or something, but there turned out to be nothing to worry about because the prince’s fumes didn’t react with anything.”

  Knowing she’d regret this, Robishaw asked, “Why not?”

  “Because when royalty farts, it’s a noble gas.”

  “Out!”

  With a smile and a wave, Yu replied, “On my way, ma’am,” and gently sealed the door behind him.

  Robishaw just let herself slink down in her chair and asked the empty room, “Will this voyage ever end?”

  ***

  “Stations report.”

  “Fourth Officer, Medical, go.”

  “Third Officer, Supply, go.”

  “First Officer, Engineering and Operations, go.”

  Hoping like hell that Yu had actually solved the problem, she said. “Fine, initiate the drive.”

  Yu once again turned his key, and the ship entered hyperspace, only this time, it stayed there. Out of the canopy, Robishaw could see nothing but swirling blue and orange fire, and the ship skipped and bumped violently. Unlike their previous, instantaneous, transitions, the Yang-He had stalled in that alternate universe where our laws of physics simply don’t apply.

  She shouted, “Shut down the jump drive!”

  Yu grabbed the key, but it wouldn’t come out of its socket. “Negative function! Trying back up.”

  He reached under his control panel, and a moment later stars appeared in the canopy—only to be replaced once again by fire. Robishaw’s screens suddenly became a Christmas tree of warning lights and alarms. Turning to her chief engineer, she shouted, “What’s happening?”

  “The jump drive keeps cutting in and out apparently in a random cycle. We’ve somehow transited to the next jump point, but we keep getting dragged back into hyperspace.”

  Stars reappeared, and Robishaw again checked her panel. Something wrong caught her attention right away. The calendar date in the upper corner of her screen was off by eight weeks ahead of where it should be. She turned to Yu. “Looks like we’re back in normal space can you…”

  But before she could finish her sentence, the Yang-He was dragged back through the jump point and into hyperspace. The fire now burned green and amber as the ship shimmied and shook like a toy in a monster’s paw. “Yu, plug in the coordinates for the next jump point and engage.”

  “Yes, Captain.”

  Robishaw hoped that by transiting to the Io jump point, they would be able to break the cycle and pop back into reality for good. Yu punched up the program, turned his key, and the jump drive blasted them light-years away to that small, dense spot in Io’s orbit where Jupiter’s gravity tugged ever so gently upon its moons. The stars suddenly appeared, only this time to be dwarfed by Jupiter’s beautiful countenance. They were back in the Sol system at last. She dared to breathe a sigh of relief. “We did it.”

  Just then hyperspace reared its ugly head upon the fragile spaceship once more. Fire again replaced stars as Robishaw cried out in rage, “Oh, come on, give us a fucking break!”

  Home lay but just a few million miles away, a leisurely ten-month journey by ramjet. She looked once again at her calendar; another two months had passed. Apparently, whatever tempest they were being tossed in affected time as well as space. The ship took a hard knock on its port side and would have knocked her out of her seat if not for the safety harness. “Yu, can you at least stabilize the ship before we’re buffeted to pieces?”

  “I’ll try, Captain, but this is over my head.”

  “Shit.” She felt the old headache return, but there was no time to take anything for it now. “Chief Sanchez, Go to the captain’s quarters and bring VanDer here with all possible speed.”

  “Yes, Captain.” Sanchez shoved himself out of his seat and rocketed out the hatchway.

  The stars returned only to be replaced by fire again and again, each time in different hues that meant nothing to her
. She activated the ship’s radio systems and recorded a message, “This is the Confederation ship Yang-He, mayday, mayday, mayday. We are experiencing a drive failure. Any ship in the area, please provide assistance.” And when next the ship popped back into normal space she shot that message out in a single burst before hyperspace could drag them back.

  Moments later, VanDer arrived on the bridge with Sanchez right behind. “You need me?”

  She motioned him closer. “Your damn right I do. You know hyperspace theory better than any of us. Sanchez has briefed you?”

  He nodded.

  “Good. What should we do?”

  “It’s the drive itself that’s pulling us back into Universe-B. The ship is constantly cycling through its exit protocols, but the jump drive is acting like an old-time sea anchor and will keep dragging the Yang-He back. The only way to survive this is to separate the bridge from the drive. And even then, it must be done while in Universe-A or we’ll be trapped in hyperspace forever.”

  “Shit.” What VanDer had described was easier said than done. “Yu, can you disconnect the causeway that connects the bridge to the rotating habitat from your station?”

  “Negative, Captain, that’s something the designers never planned for.”

  “Fine, scratch one idea.” Her headache was pounding by now, but she functioned anyway. “Sanchez, do we have any explosives to blast the causeway?”

  “No, ma’am,” he answered. “We have enough chemists aboard that could perhaps make up something from supplies on hand. But we never had any readymade explosive charges to begin with.”

  The stars returned and for a minute or two, Robishaw could almost discern the distant blue dot that was Earth. Home and John and their children waited for her less than a light-year away. But her vision of Earth was soon obscured by the varicolored fire of a universe-not-her-own. The awful shimmies and bumps returned as well. “Damn it! If we don’t find a way to end this turbulence the ship’s going to fly apart.”