by Simon Bown
The lift doors opened and Captain Lechlade appeared, smoking his pipe and rubbing his hands together. He was a small man in a pristine uniform, something totally unnecessary for a freighter but no one pointed that out to him. The crew called him Captain Leechlike due to his tiny stature and oily skin condition. “Good morning people. Are we ready for the transit to Desit?” He stood at the back of the bridge with his arms crossed and acknowledged the several confirmations. “Excellent. Mr Bec when you are ready please take us out of orbit and to the jump point.”
Automatic request and permission granted messages bounced between the ship and the orbiting traffic control station. Weedon moved the freighter away from the planet and on a course that would take them north of the planetary system. Piloting a ship as large as the Transvet VII was not an easy task. Despite having only one hundred and thirty crew the ship was a goliath even by Amalgam standards. Built to carry loads in excess of one billion cubic yards it took up fourteen orbital loading bays. Manoeuvring was difficult and if it wasn’t for Weedon’s reputation the local authorities would insist on their own pilot.
Captain Lechlade stood behind Weedon with his hand on his shoulder and watched his piloting. “Now Mr Bec I expect the same level of accuracy I am used to with your excellent skills. The company is going to pay us all a nice bonus at the end of the year if we keep moving ahead of schedule.” He patted Weedon’s shoulder twice and withdrew to the back of the bridge. The ship reached its designated jump position and the captain announced the imminent transition on the ship wide intercom. “Jump in ten seconds.”
Weedon checked that the inducers were charged at a high enough percentage and activated the gravity emitters. Space ahead of the ship twisted and stretched as the powerful gravity beams tore into the quantum substructure and cut a neat incision. The hole slowly widened to a size large enough to swallow the ship. Weedon pushed them forward using the large aft thrusters and moved the vessel into the wormhole. A red icon lit up on his small engineering display indicating a problem with the inducers. “Engineering are you getting this warning?” He called out.
The tall blond technician opposite Weedon scrambled across his large control panel as he tried to follow the problem back to its origin. “I think the inducers are overheating, it could be a problem with the coolant assembly.”
“I’m going down to the engine room.” Captain Lechlade announced. He disappeared into the lift.
Weedon and Carol exchanged glances. A deep, almost subsonic boom thumped through the ship. “We‘ve lost correct wormhole inclination, the ships moving out of the safe corridor.” Weedon shouted. He took hold of the manual controls as a jolt reverberated through the ship. Loud intermittent booms increased in frequency until the noise became difficult to withstand.
Carol joined him at the pilot seat. “Can you get us out of this?” She asked.
Weedon struggled to make himself heard over the continuous noise of the traumatised star-ship structure. “I don’t know. You’d better get everyone into stasis. The inducers are fried. We are going to fall out of the wormhole in a couple of minutes.” An almost animal groan resonated at severe volume throughout the bridge as a continuous violent shudder set in.
Carol moved away from Weedon and struggled to get across to the ship’s intercom. Despite the brutal juddering she got to the microphone and made the emergency announcement. “The ship has fallen out of the corridor, get to your stasis beds immediately.”
Most of the one hundred and thirty crew needed no advice on the matter and had already started their preparation. After swallowing a disgusting syrup sedative all that was needed was several seconds for the concoction to take effect and they could lie down and allow the stasis field to hold them unconscious practically indefinitely. A ship moving either way through the Faster Than Light barrier out of stasis would almost certainly leave them in a critical coma.
Carol waited for the last two bridge crew to depart and returned to Weedon. “You’ve done all you can. Even a pilot of your skill can’t save us from this. Get to your stasis bed.”
Weedon looked up at her and back at his main display. He activated the intercom to his quarters “Julie? Are you there?”
“Yes. What’s happening? Emily is terrified.” The strain on Julie’s voice was abundantly clear and the sound of his daughter’s fearful crying caused him actual physical pain.
“Get yourselves into stasis now, we don’t have much time.”
“What about you?”
Weedon barely heard her over Emily’s cries. “I’ll have to use the emergency bed at the back here. There‘s not enough time to get to our cabin. Look after Emily, I’ve got to go.” He activated the autopilot and got up from his seat. A massive sideways movement threw Carol into Weedon’s arms. He helped her get back on her feet and to cross to the emergency bed compartment.
The inducers finally collapsed and the ship dropped out of the corrupted wormhole. For Carol and Weedon the chaos around them immediately ceased and for only the briefest of moments their minds locked into a diamond hard thoughtless reality.
The ship tumbled through an unstable quantum transition into normal space. An unexpected calm settled on the ship. The horrendous vibrations and booming noises had stopped leaving the vessel to twist through the cosmos on a silent chaotic course.
Weedon looked at Carol, perplexed and worried. “We are out of the wormhole. How do you feel?”
“Apart from a slight headache I feel fine.” She replied.
“But shouldn’t we be in a coma?”
“The Faster Than Light drive might have failed? Remember I’m only the ship’s doctor.”
Weedon returned to the pilot seat and checked the main display. “The autopilot has failed. I’m going to try and get an exact fix on our location and settle us into a stable course. Carol can you check on the crew and see how many made it into stasis?” He took hold of the small joystick with one hand and manipulated the orientation thrusters with the other. The ship settled into a straight line and stopped its erratic spin.
Carol turned to him from her medical station and Weedon was immediately worried by her anxious expression. “I’m sorry Weedon only one of the crew made it into stasis. I’m afraid Julie and Emily are unconscious.” She said.
The thought of his wife and daughter condemned to a terrible coma held him for a short moment. He pulled himself out of his shocking trance and gathered his thoughts. “Who is in stasis?”
Carol checked her display. “Carl Jackson, the new engineer.”
“Where are the rest of the crew?”
“Some are scattered throughout the ship but most are in their cabins.” Carol tapped a few commands into her station. “They just didn’t get their beds activated in time.”
For the first time in the crisis Weedon was able to take in what had happened. The ship had dropped into an area of space perhaps many light years from help and his family were critically injured. It was the scenario of his nightmares to be lost in the great infinity of space. Destined for a slow death as the food dwindled to nothing and the life support systems failed. If he had dragged his family to such a fate he would not be able to contain his grief and despair. Everybody had fears when taking to space but they put them to the back of their mind. Weedon craved the great adventure of galactic travel and the threat of an accident was so remote he didn’t allow himself to dwell on it. He gripped his left hand with his right to stop them from shaking and looked at Carol. He needed to clear his throat before he could talk. “OK, first can we move my wife and Emily into stasis? Then we can wake up Carl Jackson. After that we should turn off the artificial gravity. That will make it easier to transport the crew from wherever they are into their stasis beds. Once they are all in a deep sleep cycle we can work out what we are going to do next.”
Weedon stepped over the two unconscious crew men on the floor of the eight man aft dormitory to reach Carl Jackson. The tall engineer’s six foot seven frame would have pushed his feet out beyond the
bottom of his stasis bed had it not been specially modified for him. Weedon looked down at his dark ebony face and tried to remember his personnel file. Seven years on freighters flying the dull Earth to Bloxmore run, a solid technical knowledge of propulsion systems and an interest in twentieth century music. Weedon had approved of his appointment as the ship needed a dependable, level-headed person in the engine room. Carol thought his profile described a boring individual but after some of the reprobates that had been quickly dismissed Carl Jackson was a breath of fresh air.
Carol checked the pulses of the two unconscious crewmen. “They are just like the others. In a deep coma.” She gazed down at the two men and frowned. “All the body functions seem fine it’s just that I can’t wake them up.” She leaned over Carl Jackson’s stasis bed and activated the waking sequence.
The tall engineer opened his eyes and blinked out some tears that had built up from the waking process. “Is it over?” He asked.
Weedon was surprised by the depth of timbre of his voice.
Carol checked both of his eyes with her pocket torch. “Yes. Stay where you are the effects of such a short stasis sleep can be a bit painful. The sedative hasn’t had a chance to work its way out of your system and can cause acute muscle spasm if you try to move.”
Weedon sat on the bed opposite. “Carl, we are the only people to make it through the collapse of the gravity emitters. Are you qualified to work on the them?” He asked.
Carl tried to sit up, grimaced and allowed himself slowly back onto his bunk. “Yes. I’m working to become licensed as an emitter specialist. I’ve just got to pass the final exam in a couple of weeks.”
“Good. When you are up to it the first thing I want you to do is to try and repair or replace the inducers.” He turned to Carol. “How long until Carl will be back to normal?”
“Two hours, maybe three.” She said.
“Well we have some crew to move into stasis.” Weedon said. “Carl, we are going to turn off the artificial gravity for a while, we’ll see you in a couple of hours.”
Carol sat at the medical station on the bridge and checked the physical report on each of the crew they had placed in stasis pods. One hundred and twenty-seven identical green icons crossed her display screen, she turned to Weedon. “Every bed is showing a green light. I don’t think there is anything else we can do for them.”
“OK, thank you Carol. Navigation software places us one hundred and forty light years from the nearest inhabited system. At our current velocity it will take us one hundred and sixty-eight years to get there. I’m going down to the engine room to look at the systems. Can you go and help Carl?” Weedon asked.
“Sure, we’ll meet you down there.”
A flashing red strobe light met Weedon as he turned the corner and approached the engine room. The protection systems had expelled the toxic gases into space and sealed the room in a vacuum to await a full safety inspection. Weedon peered through the small door window and used his command code to override the lock out. Fresh air blasted into the room through the atmosphere compressors and brought it up to the correct pressure. Even though the room had been exposed to space for four hours the smell of the burnt inducers was almost overpowering. Weedon pulled his crew shirt collar up over his nose and knelt down to open the coolant assembly casing. Steam drifted out from under the access door and obscured his view. He waved it away and was stunned by what he saw. The cabling to the inducer coolant plant had been purposefully cut. Somebody had sabotaged the gravity drive. He stopped still for a moment for this information to settle in his mind. He was angry and confused and felt he didn’t know who he could trust.
“Weedon?” Carol called from the passageway.
Weedon dropped the access door and allowed it to slam shut. “I’m over here.” He called.
Carol entered the engine room with Carl just behind her. The tall engineer had to duck to get through the door.
Weedon tried not to look worried by what he had discovered and shook Carl‘s hand. “Carl can you pull out a pair of new inducers and start fitting them straight away?” He asked.
“Yes sir. I’ll get right on it.” He crossed the compartment and went through a door into the store room.
When Weedon was sure he was out of earshot he whispered to Carol. “The coolant assembly was sabotaged. I’m going to let Carl fit the fresh inducers but I’m not sure we can trust him.”
“Why would anybody want to wreck the engines and dump us in the middle of nowhere?” Carol asked.
“I don’t know but I find it to be a bit of a coincidence that he was the only person to make it into stasis in time and he is one of the few crew who has the knowledge of how to wreck the inducers.” Weedon glanced over his shoulder at the storeroom door. “He is new here and we don’t know him, we have to be careful.”
The store room door opened and Carl appeared “I’m sorry sir there are no spare inducers, I’ve checked all the lockers and the storage bays. They’re not there.” He moved to the engine room terminal and brought up the spares manifest.
Weedon watched the engineers’ massive powerful hands move across the keyboard with great dexterity.
Carl scrolled down the list until he found the inducers. “There are four listed as spares in bay 3C.” He pointed to the inventory on the display. “But I’ve looked there and the bay is empty.”
A high pitched screaming alarm broke their conversation. Weedon took control of the terminal and brought up the security screen. “It’s a proximity alert.” He glanced at the window. “There’s something out there.”
“Something out there? But this is empty space.” Carl said.
Weedon went straight to the door. “We need to get to the bridge.” He ran the length of the passageway and entered the lift with Carol. Carl stopped at the doors. “Carl I want you to get into the store room and take it apart. Make sure there are no inducers stacked in the wrong place or hidden somewhere.” He said.
Four of the seven main bridge display screens appeared blank and showed nothing outside the ship. Weedon moved to the pilot seat and studied his sensor display. Something large was directly ahead of them. He fired the manoeuvring thrusters and pulled the vessel out of the direct collision course. Once again the stress on the ship’s structure manifested itself in a deafening groan. Forward thrusters automatically ignited to slow their velocity to a manageable zero point one sub light. The proximity alarm reduced in volume and finally cut off.
“What the hell is that?” Carol said.
Weedon looked at her and then at the display screen she was studying. “I’ve never seen anything like it. It’s too big to be a Human ship, it must be alien.”
“Alien? Are you serious?” Carol moved closer to the main display.
The enormous craft was at least ten times the size of their own. Instead of the smooth lines and clean sweeps of a human ship the alien ship had no noticeable engines, bridge or freight carrying sections. It seemed to be a miss matched, haphazard design with unfinished structural components jutting into space. The centre section was nothing more than a frame work with several small black spheres placed randomly amongst the confusion of metal.
No light or heat showed up on Weedon’s sensors and he was unable to locate any kind of radiation signature to pinpoint engines or thrusters. “It appears to be dead in space.” He said.
“Another coincidence?” Carol offered.
“What do you mean?” Weedon asked.
“We’re forced out of the wormhole and we find ourselves this close to an unknown wreck! If you think of the odds of this being a genuine accident? It’s just about impossible. Personally I can’t believe it.”
“But someone would have to know it’s here and we are so far removed from humanity I don’t think it could have been discovered in the first place.”
“Nevertheless, here it is.” Carol sat at the medical station and typed in some commands.
The intercom buzzed. “Sir would you come down to the engine bay? I h
ave something to show you.” Carl asked.
“Yes I’ll come down.” Weedon opened the arms locker with his command code and retrieved two plasma guns. He handed one to Carol and put the other in his belt behind his back. “Stay here, I’m going down. If anything happens seal off the bridge.”
Carol stopped Weedon at the door. “I’ve just checked Carl’s medical log. He went into stasis three minutes after the inducers started their collapse. That’s a full ten minutes before anyone else even started the procedure.”
“Ok I’ll be careful.” Weedon pulled the gun out of his belt and checked the charge on the battery. “You’d better seal the bridge now.” He stepped into the lift.
The lift doors opened and Weedon stepped out into the cramped passageway. He paused and put his hand up inside his jacket to check that he could retrieve the gun easily. The engine room door was open, Weedon put his head in and looked for Carl. “Hello? Carl?”
“Are you alone?” Carl appeared from behind the starboard inducer manifold.
“Yes. What do you want to show me?”
“The coolant system has been sabotaged.” He looked at Weedon as if watching closely for a reaction.
“I know.” Weedon put his hand in his jacket and gripped the gun. “Was it you?”
Carl looked confused and then smiled. “No. Why would I do that?” He was clearly amused by the suggestion.
Both men were suddenly knocked off their feet by a massive shock through the deck plates.
Weedon found himself lying against the wall with his back to Carl. Artificial gravity failed for an instant and resumed but at a level four or five times greater than the ship’s normal Earth standard. He rolled onto his back and laboured against the massive pressure to pull in each breath. The ship shuddered and a distant boom was followed by a continuous grinding noise.