by J. W. Kurtz
Chapter 5:
Time: 14:49 (Zulu)
This time, instead of taking the maglev fast transit back to the command deck and his quarters, Wray decided to hazard the walk. He knew when he set out on this 20-or-more-minute journey, that it could be hazardous for his nerves and overall health due to the stress of what he might discover. Regardless of the health risk he knew he needed to inspect his ship. The inspection needed to happen. So he took out a small datapad from a thigh pocket and proceeded on his way.
These necessary walks were taken by Wray to catalogue the seemingly endless maintenance issues that plagued the Belle'. He observed the faded navigation paint lines on the deck gratings as he made his way through a forward hangar hatch and into the central corridor heading to the bow of the ship. There were more than a half dozen navigation lines painted on the deck. Blue led to the central life support station. Red led to the primary magazine and armory. Following green would take you to the crew barracks, recreation, and mess of the Belle'. Currently, Wray was following the white line that led back to what was once referred to as "officers country," but was now just simply the command deck. The Belle' didn't really have officers anymore. The ship was supervised by department heads and the Captain-Boss-CEO of this operation one Tilman "Til" Wray formerly of the CDF.
Wray thought of the newer classes of modern warship and how they lacked painted navigation lines in their oh-so-well lit, wide, and straight corridors. In the modern ships you spoke aloud your destination into your datapad synched with the ships central computer and a 3D hologram was then projected before you to act as a "follow me" guide to your destination. The Belle' was far from being a newer class. Oh so very far.
Several years previous she was stricken from the rolls. Her days as the actively commissioned CDF Fast Cruiser 37 Ridley were over when she was sold by the CDF to a subsidiary of I2 for the commercial purpose of recycling thousands of tons of steel and ferro-ceramic plates that made up the scarred old hull inside and out. A hull that was first laid down at the start of the A.I. War, a couple generations before Wray was born on the overcrowded Earth. In her day the Ridley had seen plenty of action. First, during the A.I. War, and then in the following subsequent stellar and interstellar conflicts and petty squabbles of humanity.
The to-be-scrapped fast cruiser Ridley was then sold to another subsidiary and then sold again and again and again. She became "lost" in the corporate bureaucracy of I2, with her massive catalogue of assets, ledgers, and holdings spanning more than 100 light-years of settled space. The fate of the Ridley was far from unique as this was done on a regular basis, by I2 and her corporate rivals alike. It was a shell game, an exercise in duplicity, so that it wasn't readily apparent that the corporations continued to assemble their own fleet to further their own secret agendas of maximum security of assets, industrial espionage, and strong-armed corporate raiding. As everyone in the circle of interstellar commerce and industry knew, this was a tried and true practice amongst all commercial parties operating with heavy investments and great stakes outside the Sol system.
It truly was akin to the wild west beyond the reaches of Sol. The CDF existed really as a police force to keep the corporations in line and also to act as a destabilizer and deterrent in case the major corporations decided to unite against Earth and her protected colonies. Which was a real fear in the minds of the most clear thinking of officials and general officers whose minds had not been "clouded" by bribery.
Despite those with clear minds unaffected by the taint of corruption there was no real accounting as to the true number of former CDF craft, such as the former Ridley, now in privateer service for the corporations. If they were aware of the true number of hulls and overall tonnage they would be shocked. And most likely very scared.
When I2 purchased the Ridley, they also contacted the recently resigned Captain Tilman Wray. It had become known to agents working for I2 that the final commanding officer of the Ridley was looking for a new path after yet another falling out with the cloudy minded CDF brass. Wray was going to be assigned a desk job on a backwater colony, to act as a liaison between the CDF and local security constabulary forces.
He had crossed too many "movers and shakers," progressives that felt that change in CDF practices, practices that had worked and worked well for a hundred-years, needed to occur. These progressives were really only interested in fostering change to justify their positions and bloated department budgets. And of course far too many of them were motivated in furthering the agendas they were paid to pursue from outside the CDF.
Wray didn't cater to the whims of this new wave, and because he was in the way of "progress," he was being promoted out. The bill had come due and Wray was slated to pay. The ink was barely dry on the his resignation when I2 offered Wray an opportunity to not only retain the command chair of a ship, a ship he believed to be halfway near scrapped, but to own her as well.
Better yet he would be given an interest free loan to refit her for her new duties as well as hire on a crew to perform tasks assigned by the company. He would of course have new masters that would give him assignments but he was promised tremendous freedom as it was his ship and his crew. He jumped at the chance to be free of the corruptions and hypocrisies of the CDF and the Earth blocs. He immediately signed on the dotted line.
Signing on the dotted line was the first task. The second was the necessary evil of renaming her. It was well known to be "bad luck" to rename a ship, but it needed to be done. The rechristened name of Bellerophon was chosen because it would always remind him that hubris was often a mistake with mortal implications, as when the named hero believed himself to be equal with the Gods. He was then struck down by the thunderbolts of Zeus as penalty for his transgression.
Wray returned to the present with a sigh as he noted yet another leaking pipe, venting an unknown heavy vapor. He didn't believe the vapor to be of any significant danger, as the nearby sensor monitors were not signaling a hazmat alert, warning of dangerous levels of harmful gasses. But there was the ever present concern that the monitors themselves may not be functioning properly, and that the "harmless" vapor he was breathing was in fact slowly liquefying his lungs. Perhaps the vapor was radioactive in nature and his hair would begin falling out in short order. He moved this leak up the queue of work tasks to be sent out for the next shift. He also attached the task to an order to run a diagnostic on all the hazmat monitors on the ship as well.
*****
The three crewman sat around the table in the common area of the large compartment they utilized as their barracks, playing a game of cards that at least two of the three fully understood. Takashi Kurou, a cook and crewman assigned to other miscellaneous duties as required about the Belle', wasn't a card player by any stretch of the imagination but that didn't stop him from playing with the sharks that were skiff pilot Darius Protochenko and shooter Jason Petty. Takashi enjoyed the camaraderie the three shared, and despite consistently losing a discernable proportion of his pay share, he continued for no other reason than he had nothing better to spend his money on. Also, at least his gambling losses were going to a good cause in his friends, right? He joked with them that he wasn't worried about his losses because he saw they as charity cases anyway.
They were an odd group. A pilot, a cook, and a shooter. Shortly after signing on with the operation and coming aboard almost a year earlier the three immediately became friends and took up residence in what had become their clubhouse of sorts. The Belle' was full of vacant spaces, compartments, and former barracks perfect for such a base of operation. The space they currently utilized was designed to house more than a half-dozen so there was more than enough space for the three.
As luck would have it, all three were essentially the backups or the beta team to the first line operators, and because of this the three tended to work the same shift hours. This meant they usually shared common downtime and with nothing else available to do on the ship while on a hop they spent the downtime being social playing
cards, bullshitting, and of course drinking. One of the perks of being a private operation was that the dry boat regulations, adhered to so strictly on CDF (unless you were an officer or senior NCO of course), were entirely absent. As long as you're 100 percent fit for duty during your work assignments the boss didn't care what you did on your off-time.
"Shit, I didn't know you were from Sigma Draconis, Darius," Takashi said with real surprise. "The way you talked I thought you were a Soly like Petty and me here."
"Yeah. Well, you weren't listening then," Darius responded with amused annoyance. "Two cards if you will, please," he followed as he discarded the unwanted cards.
Jason Petty speedily ripped off two cards and pushed them over to Darius. Jason had to be watched, as he was rather proficient at the sleight of hand, and he wasn't above pulling what he called a "fast one" on his friends. Of course a casual observer would call the antics of Jason more "cheating" than a "fast one" because there was always money at stake. Both Darius and Takashi watched the exchange closely. There had been some talk about Jason not being allowed to deal when they played due to his sketchiness. They'd still let him play of course. He just wouldn't be allowed to deal is all.
"I thought you were from one of the moons or stations around Titan. What's it like," Takashi asked, "the Sigma colony I mean?"
"Yeah, what's it like?" Jason asked with a similar curiosity, "and I thought it was Triton...not Titan."
Darius smirked at his friends of almost a year. Both were from colonies within the Sol system and were thus dubbed "Solies" which offered an important label distinction in that everyone else was simply just everyone else.
"I was 16 when I moved with my dad, an NCO with the CDF, from Sigma Draconis to Tethys Station. Not Titan or Triton. Tethys."
"At least we knew it started with a 'T,' right?" Jason replied.
"Yes. Very good attention to detail. You got the starting letter correct. Well done," Darius said a manner like an owner would praise a dog for performing a trick. Not missing a beat, Jason panted like a dog and barked.
"Dumbass," Darius chuckled.
All three broke out in wide smiles at the table.
"Anyway...my dad got assigned to a local patrol boat stationed out of the Saturn local system. We setup shop on Tethys Station. An orbital piece of junk. A research and colonial housing station operated by Maddox and Tokev and the Russo Pan Asian Bloc. I loved Sigma but I didn't have a choice. When the old man got his orders, there was no questioning it. I wanted to stay with other family at home but I didn't want my dad to be alone so I went with him."
"That's rough, man. Living on a M&TT and RPA station when you're 16. Ouch," Takashi said.
"Yeah, it wasn't great. It was a dangerous place even with the CDF presence and embarked Marine unit. If anything the presence of those guys made it worse. Lots of tension between the researchers, company folks, colonial habitat, and the military. Glad I was 16 and not younger. I could handle myself just fine and I was left pretty much alone. I saw some bad stuff go down. Happy to avoid it," Darius shared.
"Well, let me be the first to welcome you my adoptive brother. Maybe 15-years late, but welcome to Sol nonetheless!" Takashi offered.
"Gee, thanks. You know, if you two were my welcoming committee 15-years ago...fuck it! I would've gone back to Sigma!" Darius replied.
"Ha! Funny guy," Jason began, "I'm not welcoming you. I'm pro hardline migration. Once you're out of Sol...you stay out."
"Asshole," Darius said.
"Yep."
"Okay, okay, so what was Sigma Draconis colony like? You know...the one that went missing. Did you ever visit the original settlement of 2128?" Takashi asked still brimming with readily apparent curiosity.
Darius resigned himself in having to share, and as he began his voice took on a distant, haunted tone that immediately altered the boisterous and joking mood of his two listeners.
"It was quite the thing. I mean it was like 150-years ago or something that they all disappeared. I think it was 500 original colonists at first planet fall in 2128. The original site is pretty much avoided by most everyone there now. They think it's haunted or a place of bad karma and such. Researchers and investigators visit the site from time-to-time to explore new theories, but nothing ever comes of it. Still, a big mystery how they all vanished. The logs of the colonial administrators have been studied forever it seems. It's just weird how everything in the colony was left behind, how all the logs and all the data feeds just stopped simultaneously, and how 500 people just vanished without a trace. I'm not going to lie...there is a weird energy there that really can't be described. Kids dared each other back when I was in school to spend the night in one of the original habs...I never did and I don't know many that did either. But, there are millions of folks on the planet now, settled all over the continents, and also throughout the system itself, to go along with a very large CDF presence. Sigma is as safe as anywhere else I suppose. No mass disappearances."
Both Jason and Takashi found they were holding their breath while Darius was sharing his tale of the lost colony of Sigma Draconis. One of the greatest mysterious in the history of more than 230-years of space colonization and expansion from Earth.
"I've watched some of the vids on the original colony," Takashi shared. "Mass exodus to avoid plague, harsh weather, or predators. Pirates. Aliens. All are explanations the documentaries offered. What do you think?"
"You watch documentaries? You ponce." Jason said.
"Asshole," Takashi replied.
"Yep."
"Well, I've heard it all too. Sigma doesn't have bad weather, any type of predators that would drive people away, and humans are immune to the native biologies there. None of the bugs there will make you sick. It's a pretty great place actually," Darius explained. "And as for the pirate and alien 'theories'...when founded it was the furthest colony out and a it was a VERY expensive expedition to mount. There weren't any pirates or raiders that far out yet, corporate funded or otherwise, and you both know the thing about aliens."
"I'm telling you, it had to be aliens. How else do the logs, data feeds, and even orbital satellites cease to record, all at the same time?" Jason argued.
"Yeah, but why and how? And to leave no trace?" Takashi responded. "There was nothing on the sensor logs, according to the docs and stuff, and then there were the dinners. That was weird shit right there."
"Dinners?" Jason asked.
"Yeah, when the second wave, the relief mission arrived 5-years after first landing, they discovered that there were meals set up on tables in most of the individual habitats," Darius stated. "There were no signs of struggle throughout the colony. No chairs tossed about. Nothing broken except for some stuff outside the habitats, explained away as damage due to a couple years of poor upkeep. Inside the habs it was like people were just sitting down to dinner and then...poof! Gone!"
"Oh. Shit. That's just creepy as hell," Jason whispered.
"Yeah," Takashi agreed.
An unusual seriousness had changed the atmosphere in the compartment as the three descended into quiet, temporarily lost in their own individual thoughts regarding the lost colony. Darius finally broke the silence in an attempt to return the mood of the bunch to that of their normal jocularity.
"Other than the Minervans, who've been out of the picture for something like 50,000-years, there's been no evidence of other aliens in explored space, despite your claims, Jason, of abductions and various probings that I don't doubt you enjoy."
All three, Jason included, laughed mightily at the barb and at the fact that Jason didn't deny the statement by Darius.
"Shit," Takashi said.
"Yeah, shit," Jason agreed.
"Well, shit. I call," Darius said as the three continued their game.
*****
After several more minutes of navigating the twists and turns of the maze that is the Bellerophon, Wray came to a patch of deck grating where the painted navigation lines at his feet suddenly disappeared. This
was perhaps the newest section of the ship. More than a year ago a junction station one deck above, regulating the flow of super-cooled liquid helium to the various energy weapon emplacements throughout the ship, suffered a local catastrophic failure. It was an expensive repair. But, had those energy weapons been active, and deprived of the necessary coolant, the result could have been fatal to the ship and crew, making the bottom line irrelevant. "Luckily," when the junction station failed, the Belle' wasn't involved in a ship-to-ship action, and the weapon systems were inoperative and powered down. Again, it was a very expensive repair.
When the failure initially occurred more than a year previous, jets of liquid helium, cooled to just 4 degrees Kelvin, sprayed and pooled on the steel deck. Even the high grade steel that made up the Bellerophon was made instantly brittle as glass with the heavy exposure. The heavy steel deck failed, as it could not support its own weight, and showered the deck below with more super-cooled fluid and debris. The crew had performed as well as could be expected, given the circumstances of being under crewed and under drilled in emergencies like this, and they managed to limit the damage to only three of the Belle's decks. Again luck would only see two of the crew suffer injuries, and they were both minor at that. The whole affair had been a financially costly repair, hugging the operation even closer to that razor thin line between the black and red on the ledger.
Wray had since assigned the young Chief Engineer James Callo to research ways and means to retrofit the cooling systems for the various systems requiring such. In the years since the Belle' had been launched there had been numerous advances in such systems. Wray hoped an affordable and speedy solution would be had soon. The continued use of liquid helium was expensive, due to the amount required for operations, and extremely dangerous.
New navigation paint lines had yet to be applied to this raw portion of the deck a year after the repair, and it probably never would be due to more pertinent matters on the maintenance list. Thankfully most of the crew could navigate the corridors and warrens of the ship without need of such assistance. And on the rare instance when they were transporting VIP's they tended to stay in their assigned berths and had an assigned escort.