The Curanian Dominance: The Linda Eccles Series - Volume Three

by Robert Woodard

  Suddenly, white columns began to rise from the floor and slowly formed into two chairs with angled backs. They reminded Linda of the cheap plastic chairs that people back in the 21st century used to buy and place on their patios. A thought suddenly occurred to her.

  “Peggy, do you think the aliens who built this ship were color blind?” Linda asked.

  “I never gave it much thought before, but that would explain much, wouldn’t it?” Peggy responded.

  “I would think that if you never knew color, color would not be important in whatever you designed,” Linda said with a shrug.

  “Perhaps they have very poor eyesight, and the brightness of the white interior helps them see,” Peggy countered.

  “Perhaps. So, what happens now?” Linda asked while growing tired of waiting.

  “Beats me,” Peggy answered while looking around. “Maybe we need to take a seat.”

  Peggy plopped into the chair, and Linda watched the chair reform to match her figure. When Peggy leaned back, the back support came around to encase her shoulders. Nodding, Linda was impressed.

  “You should try this for yourself. It’s so comfortable you could sleep all night in one of these things.”

  Taking a seat in the other chair, Linda found the sensation of the chair forming around her kind of weird. The only way Linda could get her mind around the feel was to relate it to settling onto an air mattress floating in a pool. Her body seemed to sag into the chair while it molded around her. It felt a little unsettling, as if the chair would simply turn to liquid to dump her onto the floor.

  The chair finally solidified again. She was in such a relaxed state that Linda could have taken a nap if the excitement of the alien ship hadn’t kept her focused on her task. The chair then tilted forward ever slow slightly to give her a perfect view of the console in front of them without having to hold her head up.

  “If these aliens ever went into selling furniture, they could put all others out of business, really fast,” Linda said.

  “You got that right. In fact, I think I will take that very subject up with them if we ever meet those who built this thing.”

  Linda laughed softly as she studied the console in front of her. She found it odd that the ship would have one that was devoid of any controls. What did the aliens use it for? Was it there for the simple purpose of setting things on? And why have chairs for two people that look at nothing but a forward wall of white?

  “Hey, TR17, wake up!” Peggy yelled out.

  “How is the TR17 supposed to hear you with an environmental suit on?” Linda asked.

  “Beats me, but I thought it was worth a try.”

  “All you did was burst my eardrums.”

  “Sorry about that.”

  Linda looked over at Peggy, who had turned her head to gaze at Linda. Peggy carried a sheepish smile on her face. Linda had no problem seeing how much the young woman enjoyed what was happening, and Linda felt the same excitement flowing through herself.

  “They picked you to fly this thing, so perhaps you should tell it something and see what happens” Peggy said.

  Feeling it couldn’t hurt to try, Linda ordered, “TR17, make all preparations for exiting the planet.”

  The results were nearly instantaneous. The top of the console came to life. A round, brown, orb that clearly represented the Kracks’ planet appeared in three-dimension and slowly spun. It not only carried the peaks and valleys in surprisingly accurate detail, but the color seemed spot on, too.

  “Wow, that is the most advanced holographic imaging I have ever seen. Its details are stunning,” Linda said. The entire time it displayed, it didn’t crackle with inference or show any distortion unlike those she had seen before. In fact, the quality of those designed by her own race was so bad it had yet to be adopted into any ship’s controls.

  “I would love to have this kind of technology back at my lab,” Peggy replied. Her eyes practically glowed with excitement.

  The bridge suddenly became so bright that the glass on Linda’s helmet darkened to cut the glare. The curved front wall, making up the bow, became translucent. Linda stared at it in amazement. If she hadn’t known a wall had been there prior, she could have sworn it never existed at all.

  “Brontum is now operational. Awaiting further orders.”

  The response that came through the speakers of her helmet sounded tinny and robotic. It was as if the TR17 device had tapped into some voice synthesizer software along the way and was using it to convert electronic thought into sound.

  “TR17, can you hear me,” Peggy asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Absolutely amazing,” Linda said.

  “Clarify.”

  “TR17, to avoid confusion, we‘ll use the name of the person the communication is intended for. Understand?” Peggy asked.

  “Confirmed. Does Linda desire the Brontum to be sealed?”

  “Yes, TR17, please prepare the ship for flight,” Linda ordered.

  “Confirmed. The Brontum is now sealed. Does Linda desire the ship to be equalized?”

  “TR17, Clarify?” Peggy looked over at Linda when she asked. Linda shrugged in response to her questioning eyes.

  “The Brontum can equalize to your environmental suits.”

  Linda suddenly understood what the TR17 was saying. “TR17, are you saying you can make the Brontum’s environment suitable for Peggy and me to exist within without the need for our environmental suits?”

  “Yes.”

  “TR17, please do so,” Linda said.

  After a short delay, TR17 responded, “Confirmed. Brontum is now ready.”

  “Who needs a crew with such efficiency?” Linda said as she glanced at Peggy and smiled. Then chuckling, she added, “We’d better not let UMU get ahold of a device like this. They will dump all of us humans for drone ships.”

  Looking at the environment readout on the arm of her suit, Linda confirmed that the ship was indeed safe for human occupation. Satisfied with the readings, she reached up and unlocked the ring on her helmet. Removing it, she took in a breath. To her surprise, the air smelled clear and fresh. It lacked the stale, almost moldy, smell of the environmental units aboard most ships.

  Linda leaned forward to stand up. The chair's molded form softly melted off her to let her stand. When she was on her feet, Linda turned the controls off for the suit. She then removed the center locking ring that sealed the bottom of the suit to the top. She let the pants fall away so she could step out of them, boots and all. She then reached up to pull the upper section over her head. The rubbery texture of the suit grabbed her blouse and pulled it up, too. After dropping the suit to the floor, Linda quickly pulled the blouse back down to cover her slightly flabby stomach. Looking up, she was thankful to see Peggy too busy removing her own suit to notice.

  Looking down at herself, Linda was a little embarrassed to be dressed in Capri style pants and a pullover tee-shirt. It was not very captain-like, but it was better suited to slipping in and out of an environmental suit. Looking Peggy over, she was dressed in a one-piece jump suit. The pants of her suit were tucked into her socks to keep them from riding up after slipping them into each leg of the environmental suit. Peggy leaned over and pulled the legs free from the socks.

  Dropping her suit into the floor behind her chair, where she could quickly access it in an emergency, she watched Peggy do the same. They both returned to their chairs and waited as they reformed around them.

  “TR17, can you hear me?” Linda asked.

  “The Brontum contains sound collectors throughout the ship.” The answer seemed to radiate from all around the ship. It was like there was no single source that generated the sound.

  “TR17, what do we do now?” Linda asked.

  “Provide input for Brontum flight.”

  “TR17, can the Brontum detect the Auspicious vessel orbiting above?”

  “Yes.”

  To her surprise, the projected orb floating above the console now contained a flashing red
light. Then a miniature, but very detailed, image of the science ship appeared. The two, the red light and the ship, were aligned with each other as the Auspicious kept in a synchronized orbit over the Brontum.

  “I guess they aren’t colorblind after all,” Linda said.

  “Apparently not,” Peggy responded.

  “TR17, lift off from the planet and bring us alongside the Auspicious.”

  “Complying.”

  A blue circling line appeared around the blinking red light and began swirling upward. The line quickly spiraled like a tornado streaking for the sky. When it reached the perfect depiction of the Auspicious, it wrapped the ship like a spider ensnaring an insect.

  Without any internal noise or vibration to indicate the Brontum’s movement, the ship lifted smoothly out of the hole and off the surface. If it hadn’t been for the view out the transparent wall, Linda would never have known the ship moved at all.

  A projected image of the Brontum replaced the blinking red light as it slowly lifted within the swirling blue strings. Linda could see the logic of it all now. The spiral represented two points of origin with the Brontum as the starting point. The whirlpool like path between planet and science ship was already mapped out like a 3D tactical display, and she expected the Brontum would follow that path to reach its destination.

  The chair adjusted a little tighter around Linda’s body and tilted slightly backward, and she said, “Hang onto your lunch, Peggy. I think we are about to go for a ride.”

  Linda barely got the words out before the ship tilted upward and shot into the sky as if it was racing a streak of lightning. The ship passed through the atmosphere without even appearing to notice it. There was no shaking from the friction that Linda could detect. It was like the ship created a hole in the atmosphere and simply passed through it.

  The image of the Brontum quickly moved up the spiral as if it were an elevator. Out the transparent bow, Linda could see the Auspicious coming at her at an incredible pace. Just before fearing they were about to collide, the Brontum came to a stop directly alongside the much larger ship. The spiral dissolved from the hologram, leaving only the planet and two ships.

  “How in the world can a ship move that fast?” Peggy asked. “And another thing. The G-force alone should have crushed us.”

  “Alien technology,” Linda said with a shrug. “It’s clear to me their equilibrium technology is far superior to ours. We have got to get this incorporated into our ships.”

  “It makes one wonder just how fast they can move this ship between two points in space,” Peggy said. “Their technology may have moved past light speed and onto something more advanced than anything we could even dream of.”

  “That goes way beyond my simple mind,” Linda said. She then asked, “TR17, can you establish a communication with the Auspicious?”

  “Yes.”

  “Please do so, TR17.”

  “TR17 will comply. Communication link now open.”

  “TR17, how do I use it?” Linda asked.

  “Your speech will be received and transmitted upon your request.”

  “TR17, clarify?” Linda had wanted to say that back to the TR17 for the longest time now. She smiled at finally getting the opportunity.

  “Say aloud what you want transmitted and say transmit. TR17 will comply.”

  “Okay, I got it, TR17. Here is my message to the Auspicious. This is Captain Eccles. We are standing by awaiting your orders to dock. Transmit.”

  “Linda, this is Sylvia, where are you?”

  Linda looked over at Peggy and frowned with confusion. Linda said, “What do you mean? We’re sitting right alongside the Auspicious. TR17, transmit.”

  “We have established a visual now, but the Brontum is not registering on any of our tracking equipment. To the sensors, it’s like you aren’t even there,” Sylvia responded.

  “I sure didn’t expect to hear that,” Linda said to Peggy.

  “It must be the absorption characteristics of the hull that is preventing the sensor from receiving the necessary feedback to map the image. It doesn’t surprise me, though. The composition that makes up the hull is outside the scale of any material I am familiar with.”

  “Stand by to dock with the Auspicious,” Sylvia said. “The belly hatches are opening now.”

  Staring out the bow, she watched as the two hatches swung down to expose the underbelly of the science ship’s storage bay. They eventually came to a stop, and Linda waited for the confirmation from the Auspicious crew that it was okay for the Brontum to enter.

  “Brontum, you are cleared to enter the storage bay.”

  “TR17, descend one-hundred meters,” Linda ordered.

  “TR17 will comply.”

  The Auspicious seemed to rise before Linda’s eyes, but she knew it was the Brontum sinking. When the ship came to a stop and TR17 confirmed the ship’s maneuvering was complete, Linda ordered, “TR17, bring the Brontum in alignment with the storage bay opening.”

  “TR17 will comply.”

  “TR17, can you make the top of the hull translucent, too?”

  “Yes.”

  Nodding with satisfaction, Linda ordered, “TR17, please do so.”

  The top of the hull became translucent, allowing Linda to see the bay opening. She watched as the Brontum slide left and forward to come into perfect alignment with it. The movement continued to be so smooth that she could have sworn it was the Auspicious that was moving, not the Brontum.

  “TR17, ascend into the bay opening. Once you have cleared the deck level hold position to await further direction.”

  Linda tuned out the confirmation reply from TR17 and watched with fascination as the Brontum moved into the bay far smoother than any human could have accomplished. The ship came to a stop, but Linda waited for a few seconds to make sure the TR17 was done maneuvering the ship.

  “Auspicious, the Brontum is within the bay. You may close the bay doors. TR17, transmit.” Linda waited for the sound and vibration to reach her as the heavy hatches began to close, but she could not hear anything. “TR17, make the deck translucent?”

  Again, Linda ignored the response and watched as the floor shimmered like a pool of water and then disappeared altogether. The sight made her a little queasy to stare down at nothing, as if her chair was about to fall away. She could now see the hatches slowly swinging upward on each side of the bay to close. The sound of the hydraulics and any squealing of the hinges failed to carry into the ship. It appeared that sound didn’t penetrate the strange material that made up the hull, either. Once the bay doors sealed, Linda watched the heavier deck sections slide together, over the top of the hatches, to carry the weight of the Brontum.

  “Brontum, you are cleared to land. Environmental establishment is underway. Please remain in your ship until receiving confirmation that it’s okay to exit into the bay.”

  Linda said, “TR17, please land the Brontum.”

  “TR17 will comply.”

  She watched the deck as it seemed to rise up to greet them, while at the same time wondering under what conditions the TR17 would choose not to comply. The Brontum settled onto the deck without any sound or feeling. Linda was sure she could get used to having such a ship at her disposal.

  The display over the console disappeared. The transparent wall, ceiling and floor turned white and solid once again. The bridge fell into total darkness. Peggy spoke up first. “Hey, TR17, how about giving us enough illumination to see. We don’t have our helmet lights now.”

  “TR17 will comply and provide visual capability.”

  The bridge reappeared in its overbearing white, but where the light came from was a complete mystery to Linda. Scanning the walls and ceiling, she failed to see how the bridge area was receiving that light.

  “Brontum, you are cleared to exit into the bay.”

  Getting up, Linda and Peggy both headed into the center of the ship, which also illuminated as they moved aft. Peggy stopped and looked back into the bridge area.
>
  “What’s wrong?” Linda asked.

  “I was checking to see if the TR17 was going to provide us with that device again, but it appears not. I suppose we don’t need it anymore.”

  “I guess it completed its mission.”

  “Whatever that mission was,” Peggy said. “So, what was it like to be the first human to ever command an alien ship?”

  A smile came to Linda’s face at the question. “It’s way beyond fascinating. I could fly in this thing all day. I have got to get myself one of these. It sure beats the crap out of that hover-car I purchased.”

  “I thought you would like it. When the TR…”

  Linda reached over and grabbed Peggy’s arm, interrupting her. “Something’s wrong, Peggy.” Linda scanned the room trying to pinpoint what was setting off internal alarms.

  “What’s the matter?” Peggy asked.

  “Something’s changed. Either something’s missing or something’s been added. I can sense it.”

  Peggy looked over at her and frowned heavily. “Linda, there isn’t anything in this room. It’s like standing inside an eggshell.”

  “I’m telling you, something’s different. A Captain becomes attuned to her ship like a mother to her baby. I could have told you if a washer was missing on a bolt holding the Privateer together. It’s no different here. I can’t tell you why, but I can feel it.”

  Peggy seemed to take the warning and slowly scanned the room. Linda did the same. Peggy was right, though, nothing resided in this section of the ship but white walls, ceiling and floor. There wasn’t a single shelf, chair or cockroach to be seen. Looking down, she rubbed her chin while trying to decide what triggered her caution. Suddenly, it hit her.