Sidereal Quest

by E Robert Dunn

  "Lead on," Capel gestured toward the lift’s glide tube with the data pad. His features had softened in respect to appreciating Nicraan's point-of-view on the situation.

  The two were in the midst of their repairs when a loud hum caught their attention. Looking up from a nest of cables and hardware components, they spied on a communication holoset the magnetic field induced phosphorescent glow surrounding the ship's shuttle as it approached Base Camp.

  "They're back from the outer perimeter," Capel said.

  Nicraan nodded, wiping sweat from his forehead with the back of his right hand. "Hope Retho and Moela were able to retrieve all that equipment that comprised the sensory array."

  The recon shuttle skimmed over the flatlands on the thermals rising from chasms between the tall basalt columns that lined Base Camp. Retho piloted the shuttle himself, holding the controls in his articulated hands as he watched the skies with his set eyes. Beside him, strapped into her co-pilot seat, rode Moela. The gloomy light penetrating through the overcast spread long shadows across the desert.

  Moela leaned forward to the communications panel.

  "Eland to Pioneer," Moela's singsong voice played across the air.

  Capel tabbed his uniform's commpin. "Go ahead, Moela."

  "Mission accomplished. We're preparing to dock."

  "Excellent," Capel called back. "Have the bay's robotics unload and stow the sensory array. Retho, you supervise."

  "Understood. Tee-Minus ten micronodes to shuttle bay," the baritone voice of the scientist came back. For Nicraan, it was a smooth resonance that played across the membranes of his ears.

  Retho cocked his head to peer through the curved viewplate. With learned precision, he then brought the recon shuttle in a parallel parking course, aligning it with the gap alongside the Pioneer's upper deck's port hull that denoted the hangar bay.

  Nicraan and Capel stole a few more moments and watched out the upper deck’s bowport as the ovoid-shaped shuttle banked to the Pod's port; its antigravity engines' characteristic hum filled the flight deck as the small ship docked primly within the ship's upper deck-positioned hangar. The clang of moorings and intership robotics disembarking cargo, further reassured the two senior officers that the science team's mission had been successful. Plus, the stream of paragraphs that captioned a manifest on Nicraan's data pad helped ease some anxiety.

  "Back to work," Capel said, eyeing the hand-held pad.

  The commander was referring to the exposed maintenance access crawlspaces of the podship’s Mid-Deck. Ingress to this service deck came in two avenues; one was through the ceiling planks of the lower utility deck, the other through the floor panels of the flight deck. Here between the Upper and Lower decks lay the Pioneer 4’s environmental control systems as well as conduits for defensive weapons including all deflector-defensive shield grids and sensor-scanner arrays, navigational guidance system relays, RCS thruster quads for the podship’s nine conventional yaw-pitch-retro and braking control field generators, computer and communications components, artificial gravity trajectors, water and food recycling units, fuel refinement processors that extracted and refined spatial hydrogen ion from the podship’s nacelles before delivery to Engineering.

  Under the astrogator, a spatial theodolite computed the angular direction of an incoming signal thus pinpointing the location of its source. Within the port deck’s framing, maintenance AI operating systems for the lower deck’s garage and for the shuttle bay, stowed robotics awaited instructions before emerging from their compartments and rendering service when needed -- as the Eland hovered in for a landing, circuits were activated and appendages quivered.

  As Commander Capel and Major Nicraan finished with the upper level’s maintenance, they moved on to their next objective: the lower deck. With data pads in hand, the two knelt to pull back the service crawlspaces’ plates of the Sub-Deck, thus gaining access to the Pioneer 4’s drive systems including its antigravity drive. It didn’t take long for the males to find entry to the ship’s deutronium annihilation drivers where photons of energy were created through deutronium annihilation in Pioneer 4’s hafnium carbide reactor chamber located in the center of the lower region of the craft. The generated energy photons would radiate through the antigravity drive’s concave projector’s fins.

  While Perezsire and Nicraan worked, the lights flickered weakly, then came on and stayed on brightly. Satisfied, Matasire finished reconnecting waveguides.

  Moela stepped through the shuttle bay airlock, onto the flight deck, climbed down the rung ladder and on to the lower utility deck. The scene was pure chaos: dismantled instrumentation deck panels were strewn everywhere in an uncharacteristic manner while Nicraan and Capel examined each component for flaws and then hurriedly pieced them all back together. She sighed as she cautiously navigated over exposed cables. The sight was more than a little depressing. The countdown continued to tick away, and the ship's appearance gave little doubt that it would make a launch. Well, she told herself, at least her science station was fully operational.

  She gingerly passed by Capel, who was reclining prone on the deck beside Nicraan, his weight resting on one elbow, scowling down at a panel of bared circuitry beside BeeTee’s circular regeneration platform. Since the outside camp had been packed up, Moela's next duty lay with checking on the overall ‘health’ of the podship. The gray and white padded threshold of Engineering framed a hatch; it slid obediently aside at her quick approach.

  "Should I reset the breaker now?" Capel asked.

  "Not yet," replied Nicraan, a bit absent-mindedly. "I just have one more graviton inverter transcapacitor to stick in." He was lying on his abdomen, propped up on one elbow, leaning over the opened underdeck access panel. He stared down into the morass of wires and cables and circuit boards for a moment or two, then reached in and pulled another of the fist-sized power-shunt transcapacitors. It took a good solid yank to pull the device out of its socket. He held it up and scanned his techcoder over it for a moment, then read the results. "Ancients, did this get melted inside." He set it to one side. "Commander, please hand me a spare."

  Capel handed him the last of the transcapacitors BeeTee had gotten by cannibalizing one of the Pylon Crater's faster-than-light drive derelicts. Nicraan plugged it into the socket, and then reconnected the power shunt board to the main EmDrive sublight engine circuit. "All right, Commander," he said to Capel. "Activate the re-set."

  Perezsire stood with his data pad in hand and activated its circuit breaker interface link-up with the ship’s Main Computer. He held his breath and brushed a thumb across the ON contact point. There was the slightest of pauses, and then a green status light came on. Capel breathed a sigh of relief and then turned to his colleague. "It worked, Nicraan. We have antigrav and EmDrive engines back on-line."

  Getting to his feet, Nicraan began setting a floor panel back in place over a breaker box. Fastidious to the last, the pilot dusted off the fabric of his duty uniform as he smoothed out its wrinkled fabric. It was a small thing, but it got Capel’s attention.

  Perezsire moved into the lower level’s auxiliary control cabin to complete his work at a command console’s control panel. “Everything checks out here,” he said to Matasire as he joined him. “I am getting positive feedback from the power supply subsystem.”

  Looking over the panel’s SitRep screens, he went on with an elation in his voice, “Two power inputs confirmed from telemetry and communications and data encoder subsystems, also twenty-two inputs from sensor arrays.” Another screen proffered an additional report, he continued, “Confirm thirty digital inputs from the podship’s computer command subsystem, fourteen inputs from navigational guidance subsystem, four power inputs registering from cabin pressure subsystems. Two inputs from engine command sequencers as well as attitude control subsystem.”

  An attention signal grabbed the commander’s focus and Perezsire said aloud as new data floated from a holoset, “Four power inputs for temperature control subsystem and two power
inputs for pyrotechnic stabilizers register.” Satisfied, he smiled and cocked his head toward his second-in-command, “If I may say so, I believe that should do it for launch systems.”

  Over the ship’s PA system came the electronic beep of the onboard computer.

  “Control regeneration program complete. All systems’ diagnostics report no faults,” the computer announced uncaringly. “Minus two nodes to lift-off.”

  They had two nodes in which to regain total launch readiness -- before the planet would become too hostile to exist on and the stars in which it orbited detonated and made their escape out of range for Pod 4’s drive capability.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE:

  As ordered, the crew had assembled outside the podship. Curious expressions were held by all as Perezsire joined them.

  “No one goes any closer to the ship than where they are now…” he instructed, “until you get a clearance from the flight deck. Is that understood?”

  Everyone nodded in unison.

  “First we’ll test the ascent and retro-field projectors, then the main antigravity drive.”

  “Full power?” asked Retho.

  “I’m afraid not,” Capel smiled. “Just enough to lift the ship into launch position on its landing gear.”

  He got smiles all around. Turning, he made his way up the airlock ramp and into the main part of the flight deck in a few determined strides. In the command apse he found Nicraan already prepping for the lift off test.

  “All systems go?” Capel asked.

  Matasire turned away from the flight board with his traditional lopsided grin, saying, “Your wishful thinking is showing. The power systems are Go.”

  Perezsire nodded and followed the pilot into taking their respective contoured acceleration chairs. His muscles ached for release from the agony they suffered, keeping him upright. With all his mind and body he longed to rest, to drift once again in weightless Space, away from the hellish world they had been marooned on.

  Without pause, Nicraan made deft touches to his control board. “Power on,” he reported.

  “Phase cycle four thousand and steady,” Perezsire chimed in, reading holographic gauges. He continued to test the controls. They were back to normal. All, at last, was as it should be.

  “Check,” Matasire smiled. “We’ll hold it there.”

  An almost forgotten whirring could be heard in the background sound envelop building. Both pilots were smiling.

  “How does it sound to you?” asked Capel.

  “Music!” Nicraan almost laughed with joy. An indicator on the piloting board illuminated and he announced, “Flickfire on starboard coming up.”

  “Hold your breath.”

  “We’ll try a two-micronode thrust on ascent now.”

  Controls were touched and activated. The whirring grew in intensity as the podship pilot began activating the antigravity engines. A cool white light began to form around the Pioneer 4 that brightened the bowport.

  “Advancing phase cycle to one million,” Nicraan reported, looking over his shoulder at his commander. “Ready?”

  “And waiting,” Capel’s smile broadened.

  The gauge holograms showed the increase in power surging through the Pioneer 4’s propulsion system. With each advancement on the indicator, the whir magnified; the outside light became phosphorescent.

  “Systems are working!” Nicraan exclaimed.

  “Seal the ship and take it into position.”

  Matasire nodded and ran his right hand’s digits over the appropriate controls. Instantly, the upper deck airlock sealed, the landing ramp retracted, and the hull vents released any internal residual atmosphere. He punched more weight-sensitive controls and the section holosets around and above their heads glowed to life. Collectively, they showed the massive antigravity bulb filling nearly the entire view of the 3-D screens.

  Outside the podship, the watching crew moved instinctively backward, away from the Pioneer 4’s antigravity engines’ periphery that might at any moment erupt into life. The magnetic field had the potential to burn them to ash. As anticipated, they watched the podship’s mighty antigravity field belch forth its concentric ring of power.

  “It’s working!” gasped Moela.

  Rising to task and resembling the proverbial phoenix emerging from fire, the podship ascended like a free-standing elevator from its earthen prison. Dust and debris swirled in an air displacement ellipse around the climbing Pioneer 4. The watching crew raised their arms to protect their eyes as they stepped further backward to avoid the churn; yet, every face held a gleeful expression.

  “Extending all landing struts!” Perezsire called out, touching his flight board.

  A new sound filtered in with the ever-present hum of the antigravity engines. Having been in various stages of descent at the time of the emergency slideout, the three-point landing struts seemed to stretch out for solidity in one accord. There was a definite ‘clunk’ as their latching mechanisms engaged.

  “Struts locked in place.”

  Matasire nodded and then reach both hands to commence the next phase of the test. He narrated as he moved his hands over the control membrane.

  “Activating retro fields, decreasing ascent thrust,” he said. “Phase cycle nine thousand… eight … seven … six …”

  The podship seemed to freeze in time and space, its landing gear fully extended. The decline of the sound envelope’s drone matched the pilot’s countdown, with each diminishing phase the acoustics adjusted. A background bone-vibrating cacophony went to a purring to a resonating hum to a hiss… and, then, to a barely perceptible murmur.

  Following suit, the podship descended back earthward. Ever so slowly at first, the radiance from the antigravity drive’s magnetic force fields obscured a clear view. The watching crew stood stoic as the podship grew larger.

  “It’s coming down!” Dara spoke slowly in exaltation.

  Retho and Moela gathered around her, their faces shining with fresh hope. Unexpectedly, it seemed as though they had won another round in the struggle of survival between them and the dying world they had crashed on.

  “…five … four … three… two … one thousand,” Matasire called out. “Steady phasing into powering off.”

  Almost as if an echo, the podship drifted down like a feather, settled neatly on its struts’ jacks just as the audible revolving swirl faded, the drive’s glare dimmed as its motors cut off. Pioneer 4’s landing had dropped into the oval of scorched sand and earth, blasted clear of all debris by the flare of its unitectic antigravity projector. Clouds of dust and stones that were sent up into the air dissipated.

  Dara raised her field communicator to her lips and spoke into it. “What’s happening in there?”

  Matasire looked sharply at his co-pilot. “We did it!” he exclaimed.

  Perezsire glanced at the pilot, his face set in a new expression of determination. “Minus one node, forty-five till launch,” he simply said. “All crew return to stations.”

  The bowport showed an elevated view of the horizon and landscape. On the control board a strut airlock indicator winked on with a monitor revealing an anxious crew filing through.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO :

  The cabin was small, with a single free-formed table dominating the center. Holographic portraits of various alien landscapes decorated the walls, along with a framed copy of The System charter, and there was a musical rain sculpture shifting and chiming softly in one corner. Subtle perfumed scents subliminally caressed the airways with hints of cinnamon, apple, peach, and spicy herbs.

  The seats were also free-formed, lush and comfortable, but they could do little to ease the tenseness of the two Aidennians who now sat in them. At one time, this cubicle had belonged to the youngest member of the expedition -- Lunon. Months since gone, taken prematurely by death on this planet, the personal articles that were not buried in memorial to the youth surrounded Retho and Nicraan. Another bitter reminder of what reality had given to them for tests to pass o
r fail. Moreover, the recent destruction of the ship's astromech syntheform had cast a dire cosh over the entire launch proceedings.

  The stateroom had the demeanor of a meditation suite; it proved useful as a diversion from the harshness this planet served up when the small, compact gymnasium came up short for recreation. The two had snuck away from duties for a few moments of privacy. The need to rest and be with each other somehow took priority over the impending doom looming visibly on the horizon.

  Nicraan took his hand and placed Retho's within it, squeezing gently to get a response from the tired partner. "Things will be just fine," he smiled.

  Retho nodded, and grinned weakly in response. "So much has happened, so much has changed. Lunon should be here, and now with BeeTee gone..." he sighed, both from mental and physical exhaustion. His eyes were half-opened, and his head bobbled forward.

  "You're not falling asleep on me, are you?"

  Retho opened his eyes fully and contained a chuckle that tried to push from his throat. "I could never fall asleep on you," he cooed.

  Nicraan smiled and turned to the young scientist just in time to see his head slowly roll to the right until it came to rest against his shoulder. Throaty purring sounds accompanied the nestling nudges of Retho's head, and then there was only the steady, deep rhythmic breathing of sleep.

  Careful not to disturb Retho, Nicraan lifted his arm and wrapped it about Retho's shoulder, protectively drawing him to his side. The warmth of his body suffused the layers of fabric separating them. He closed his eyes, a smile playing on his lips. This had become a feeling that he had easily grown accustomed to.

  When he was sure that Retho was deeply asleep, Nicraan slowly removed himself from their embrace and made a reluctant exit.

  Outside, on the lower utility deck, Nicraan caught sight of the computer-checked schedule of repairs report on the annex command console. They were behind, and the telltale bulletin pointed a finger at Moela.