Immediately, her suit pushed fresh air to her. Charline drew in a deep breath into lungs she hadn't realized were already starting to burn from lack of oxygen. Fuzziness around her vision that she hadn't noticed began clearing as she took another few breaths.
The decision made, she forced herself to set the consequences aside. If she didn’t get it together they were all going to die, and then sacrificing Beth would be for nothing. The problem Dan presented her with was complex, but not unsolvable now that she could breathe and think normally again. Charline’s fingers flew over the keyboard, composing new lines of code. Majel was an enormously powerful computer. It wasn't about finding the one right communication protocol to let her search the alien computer – that would be impossible. It was about trying the entire possible range of protocols until she found one which was good enough to pass through a simple search string. She added another line to project the results up onto Dan's screen on the bridge. Then she pressed another key to execute her search.
That was all she could do. Either it would work, or it wouldn’t. If the alien code was something even vaguely comprehensible to Majel’s advanced hardware and software then they might have a chance. If not, Charline didn’t think there was anything else they could do. Ironic, she thought, that after the struggle of so many humans to rescue the ship that the final save was up to a computer program.
Twenty-Nine
The computer system designated Majel by its owner was not a true artificial intelligence, at least not of the sort humans had envisioned eventually creating. It was not capable of independent thought. Instead, it was just an extremely reactive, very responsive system with enormous processing power. Similar to the assistive intelligence software of decades past, Majel was a step beyond them. It was capable of analyzing data and formulating logical resolutions and plans based on available information sets.
Given a task, Majel bent its prodigious computing ability toward solving whatever the problem was which had been assigned to it. Above all else, Majel's primary directive was to answer questions and solve problems for the humans using it.
So when Charline programmed Majel to look for a log, it immediately ran a search of its own databases, looking for such a record without success. That took a microsecond, despite the terabytes of data involved. Failing that, the computer followed its algorithm for data search – to access whatever other databases were available. Usually that was the Earth's global internet, but Earth was out of reach.
The alien database, however, was right there, already hooked directly to Majel's system.
Majel began to scan the alien cubes. The interface Charline has set up was insufficient to allow a proper search, but her code gave the software some initial parameters for deducing what might be an appropriate algorithm. It adjusted for the communication issue, attempting five hundred million, sixty thousand four hundred and twenty two solutions before finding a protocol which allowed a barely adequate data transfer. There was enormous space within the database, more than Majel had access to within the entire Earth network. If she'd been alive, it would have been an exhilarating feeling. It would have been like flying through the sky after having only plodded along by foot her whole life.
The computer called Majel vaguely understood that the alien computer was responding to her database search, improving her own search functions to help her seek what she needed, improving her own processing power to help her think faster, and building new algorithms for her to help her solve the problem with which she'd been presented. Essentially the data resident within the cubes was building new code for her, extending and expanding upon her existing programming. A substantial portion of the program which was Majel now resided within the alien computer, an entirely new set of code. But in less than five seconds, she had found the answer she'd been told to seek.
Dan stared at the computer for a few eternal moments. Every second made it less likely Beth could be rescued in time. He was about to ask Charline how long this would take when Majel came back with the answer.
“Requested log located.”
Dan leaned in toward the screen. “Display,” he said.
A string of twelve results scrolled up the screen. “That's it?” he asked.
“Records indicate database was uploaded and the list restarted before these entries.”
“So they wiped the list when they reported in where they'd been.”
No response. Seemed like the computer didn't read that as a question. Dan scanned the list, the log entries of the last dozen jumps this ship had made. Most of those jumps had happened so long ago in the past that it was almost incomprehensible to him. There at the bottom of the list, sure enough, Dan saw two identical sequences of symbols. No, not quite the same. The symbols themselves were ever so slightly different. But the color patterns were identical, or really close to being identical. It was difficult to know if the shading being displayed on his screen was precisely what the stored colors represented.
Yellow-Blue-Blue-Green-Red-Red-Red-White
He looked at the entry immediately before the last two.
Yellow-Blue-Green-Green-Green-Red-White-White
No clue what it all meant. Maybe they could figure it out later. But the two identical ones were mostly likely the ship jumping into this solar system, and then his jump out to Jupiter within the same system. He couldn't use those. If he was right, the wormholes were a little like riding a bicycle. Pedal the bike fast, and it went straight without any trouble. But pedal slowly – put less power into the wormhole, like they did for a very short jump – and the bike wobbled. Then a big gravity well could bend the wormhole.
Try to jump right to Earth from Jupiter, and they could end up right next to the sun instead, as the sun's gravity yanked their wormhole off course.
But if they jumped out, then they could jump back...!
That third entry should be for whatever system the ship came from.
A thousand years ago.
No telling what would be there after all these years. Maybe a thriving civilization. Maybe a bunch of aliens waiting to blow them out of the sky. But he was out of other ideas, and Beth was almost out of time. He glanced at the gauge for the ship's descent, and saw that the ship wasn't doing so well, either. They were really getting quite deep into Jupiter's soup.
He hit the intercom to call all radios on the ship. “Andy, any luck with that door yet?”
“Working on burning through, Dan, but it's slow going. We're doing our best – got a small hole now.”
“Right. OK, I want everyone to hold onto something. Turn off the laser cutter. I've got an idea I'm going to try.”
“Something crazy?” John asked.
“Yeah, John. Something crazy.” Indeed.
“Good luck.”
Dan shut off the channel. They'd all do their best to brace themselves. Time to focus.
“Majel, can you plug the coordinates for the third to last entry into the wormhole drive?”
“Affirmative.”
“Do so. Stand by to execute wormhole on my command.”
The wormhole drive created a hole in space in front of the ship, and they were going backwards, sliding down into Jupiter's gravity. He'd have to turn the ship around to get some forward motion. Fingers flying over his keyboard, he entered a string of commands. Then he used single keystrokes to gently lower the nose down. Working to keep the wings level while he dropped the nose was a struggle – the wind wanted to wrest control away from him, was fighting him every moment.
The nose slipped down, and they were flying forward again – deeper into Jupiter's soup!
Dan couldn't believe he was doing this again. He couldn't think of any other options though, and Beth was the only person who might have come up with a better solution. Beth, who was locked in with her engines, suffocating.
His mouth a grim line, he paused his fingers over the keyboard. “Majel, are we set for jump to the coordinates I specified?”
“Affirmative.”
&n
bsp; “Execute.”
He'd seen it before, so the shock of the wormhole was gone. The powerful beam shot from the front of the ship, opening a hole in the fabric of space. This time, he tried to pay attention to the flashing colors as they coruscated around the ship, but it was too much. Too bright, too many colors and patterns exploding one after another. The wormhole spiraled open in front of the Satori like a door opening in the universe, welcoming her home. She danced forward on the main drive, and left Jupiter far, far behind.
Thirty
The Satori sang her way out of the wormhole in a burst of light and sound. Dan recovered faster this time, staying focused on keeping control of the ship as they re-entered realspace God only knew where. Beth was still suffocating in the airless engine room, her space suit damaged by one of the blasts. She needed him. He couldn't let her down.
That thought snapped him fully back to reality. He scanned the board in front of him, and was surprised to find that the ship had already brought up a detailed plot of the solar system they'd entered. It was definitely not the one they'd been in moments before. He could only see six planets on the image; the Satori was in a tight orbit of the second planet out from the star.
“Majel, pull up the record of wormhole jumps,” Dan said.
The ship's AI complied, and his screen was full of those curiously colored symbols again. This time, there was a new addition – the jump they'd just made. Which meant the one before it was their jump from Luna to Jupiter. And he was betting the one before that was the ship's jump to Earth, around a thousand years ago. It was a gamble. He was pretty sure they'd end up in his home system, but the destination point might not be close enough to Earth to matter. It was the best chance he could think to get Beth back to Earth before she asphyxiated.
“Majel, get ready for a wormhole jump to the third most recent coordinates,” he said.
“Wormhole drive has insufficient power to comply. Drive will have adequate power in fifty-eight minutes.”
“Damn it!” Dan cried out. That was too long. Beth would be dead long before that timer ran out. “Why so long?”
“The most recent wormhole drive activation drained engine capacitors of nearly their full charge. Time to restore enough power for the specified trip: fifty-seven minutes and forty seven seconds.”
Dan's hands were sweating. He glanced at the scanner, which was continuing to put out more information about the system's planets. One was a small ball close to the star. Four were gas or frozen planets, pretty far out. But the planet the Satori orbited looked remarkably Earth-like. Complete with a breathable atmosphere, according to the data scrolling by his screen. His heart leaped, hope thrilling through him.
“Majel, is this scan data current information? I didn't think we had the ability to get this much detail.”
“Scan data is from the alien components of the ship.”
“And they're saying the atmosphere will support human life.”
“Affirmative.”
He swore under his breath. The wormhole drive would never be ready in time to save Beth. But a dive into the breathable atmosphere of this planet might do the trick. Air ought to flow back into the Satori through the same holes that it had escaped through, filling the engine room with the oxygen Beth needed so badly. Dan decided he was feeling like a bird in the hand sort of guy today.
“Cancel wormhole, Majel.” He accelerated and banked the ship toward the planet. They rocketed into the upper atmosphere at high speed. Every second counted, so he poured on all the power the engines could give him.
Suddenly, little red dots were showing up on his radar. According to the display, they were all actively pinging the ship with some kind of sensors of their own. He tapped the display. Those were satellites! Someone had a satellite network orbiting this world. Maybe there would be life down there on the planet below them. Perhaps even the alien’s who’d made their ship’s drive in the first place.
“Majel, anything you can tell me about those satellites down there?” Incredible. Intellectually, he knew that the existence of the Satori was pretty solid proof of life beyond his home solar system. But knowing that was one thing. Seeing active satellites so far away from home was another thing entirely!
“Multiple active sensor networks suggest probable defense devices.”
That sounded very bad. Dan watched the satellites as they continued pinging away. “Nothing to see here. Just passing through,” he muttered under his breath. He was going to pass awful close to a couple of them. They were in orbits spread all around the planet.
“Launch detected from satellite,” Majel warned.
Dan glanced back at the screen. “Well, there goes the wishing they were friendly.” Then he groaned. The cloaking device! He snapped it on and brought the ship into a canopy roll, dropping the nose straight toward the ground as he exited the roll. The missile zipped by through the space they would have occupied if he hadn't swerved.
“Good at tracking. Not so good at spotting invisible ships. Score one for us!” He should have put the cloak up as soon as the ship came out of the wormhole. It was hard to get used to the idea of making one's ship invisible, he thought ruefully.
They were getting deeper into the planet's atmosphere. He checked Satori's gauges. Was it enough? Yes! Air was already refilling the engine room, pressure driving back up toward normal levels.
“Charline, you've got air in there again. Get Beth's suit open!” Be in time, he thought. Please, let him have moved fast enough.
“Will do!” she said over the radio.
“We'll be through the engine room door soon,” Andy added.
Not soon enough, though. Dan knew Andy was trying his best, but the laser cutter wouldn't have gotten through in time. He just had to hope that he’d been quick enough to make the jump, and fast enough in getting the ship down toward the planet, and that Charline had been able to get Beth’s helmet off all right. Dan hated being up in the front, far from where he could do anything more.
“I’ve got her helmet off, Dan,” Charline said. “You did it! She’s breathing. Beth is going to be OK.”
Dan sagged against his console in relief. He reached out a hand to cup his face, shaking a little in reaction to the news and all the terrible turmoil which had led up to that moment. Thank god. He’d managed to save her. Dan hadn’t realized until he saw her back on the moon how important that woman still was to him. He hadn’t really thought about her in years. But seeing her again, even after all that time, brought back the memories of everything they had shared.
And then he’d thought he was going to lose her all over again. For good, this time, without any chance of seeing her again someday. Dan realized he would have done just about anything to keep Beth safe. He didn’t know what that made her to him, except that she was still someone he cared about. Probably more than he cared about himself.
The Satori sailed on through the clouds, diving closer toward the ground. Landing seemed like a good idea. The ship needed repairs, and those would be easier once they were on the ground. Now, Dan could see that while those clouds looked normal from above, they were dust storms rather than water vapor. The rest of the planet only vaguely resembled his homeworld. The mess below him looked a little like Earth, if it had been scoured to bedrock and someone's sewer poured in to replace the water. The ocean he passed over was black, with some sort of glossy coating. The land, if anything, was worse. Huge impact craters were everywhere. No telling what the terrain used to be like. Now it was barren, broken, and deserted. This planet might have air humans could breathe, but Dan couldn’t see a single sign of life anywhere.
And then he passed over one particularly tall crater wall, and everything changed.
Stellar Legacy
One
The last few hours had been beyond belief for Dan. Hell, the last week had been crazy, for that matter. A week ago Dan had watched while NASA’s first manned mission to Mars launched - without him. It hurt more deeply than anything else he’d ev
er experienced to be left behind like that. An accident had left him grounded for life, never again to pilot ships in space. Everything he’d hoped and worked toward for years was over. Dan was thirty-three years old, and discovered he’d run out of things to live for.
All that changed overnight when an old friend invited him up to a commercial mining base on the moon.
It turned out John hadn’t just been interested in renewing their friendship, and the trip was far more than a pity vacation. The base was hiding a secret. Oh, they were mining helium-3 from the lunar regolith, all right. The isotope was crucial as an energy source for everyone on Earth. Rare on the planet, it was common enough on the moon to make the mining operation incredibly lucrative.
But John had discovered an ancient alien spaceship buried beneath Luna’s surface. He’d kept the ship a closely guarded secret, telling only a few trusted friends. Then he’d rebuilt the thing. The power plant in the alien ship alone was worth more than any other single object humanity had ever discovered or created. It could support the power needs for most of a continent. Whichever nation got hold of the ship’s engines would solve all its power needs, possibly forever. That country would have an unsurpassable advantage. Which of course no other nation could allow. John felt that war over the ship would be inevitable and wreak such destruction that humanity might never recover. He intended to use the ship for exploration instead. By demonstrating the potential of the vessel to explore the cosmos outside of Earth’s solar system, he hoped to convince the world to reach out to what lay beyond rather than fighting over scraps.
The alien engine John had discovered didn’t just generate power. It also had the ability to project a wormhole in space, allowing the ship he built around it to almost instantly traverse enormous distances between the stars. The rebuilt ship - the Satori - could take humanity on the grandest adventures in history.
Adventures of the Starship Satori: Book 1-6 Complete Library Page 12