When Captain Traven suggested separate cabins for you both. Joe’s reaction was obviously not what you expected.” Now Jeff was almost pleading. “I felt you relax. You enjoyed me. You liked me restraining you. Otherwise, you would have screamed like hell for attention, or at least, tried to kick me.”
“Trisha,” came Joe’s voice, again.
“I’d like to make love to you again if you’ll let me?”
“Wow, Jeff. Nothing like pushing your luck… Don’t worry, I won’t mention it again. Unless, you’ve put me up the duff.”
He couldn’t help smiling at that.
“And I bloody own you from now on, is that clear?”
“Yes. I’ll always be here for you,” he replied. “Ready and willing,” he added grinning broadly at her.
“Huh.”
With that, Joe entered the Hydroponic area.
“Why didn’t you both answer your damn comms?”
“Ah, sorry, didn’t hear it,” Trisha said, putting on a distressed look.
“Perhaps it’s these lights, they Arc a lot,” Jeff suggested.
“Well, no matter what, we need you both at the meeting, now.”
“Lead on Joe,” Trisha instructed. Then Joe turned and headed back towards the control room. With Trisha following him, and Jeff following close behind her.
Trisha slowed, put her hands behind her back. Then grabbed at Jeff. She found what she wanted, and squeezed hard.
“Ouch,” Jeff cried out in pain.
Joe stopped.
“What’s the matter, Jeff?”
“Err, nothing Joe. I thought something grabbed at me. Carry on.”
Joe looked inquisitively at both of them. “You two are up to something,” he said.
“Don’t be silly Joe,” Trisha replied, trying to sound hurt. While feeling good for the first time since leaving Earth.
He turned and continued on down the corridor.
“Like I told you, Jeff. I own you,” she whispered softly to him.
“Even so, try not to grab me so damn hard next time.”
“You’ll be lucky,” she whispered back, with her eyes gleaming as she turned to glance at him. “I haven’t started on you yet.”
“Bloody hell,” was all he could say to that, then smiled to himself as they continued.
Then all three of them entered the control room and joined John and Paul, who were standing in front of the large monitor.
“Good. Everyone is here at last. Paul, it’s all yours.”
Paul inserted the data crystal into the player.
“We recorded this earlier. Look closely at the centre of the Pleiades cluster, in particular,” he advised them. Then pressed a tab and the recording started to play back.
The Pleiades star system slid into view. Then Paul zoomed in closer, bringing the Pleiades to dead centre on the viewing screen.
“Watch!” He ordered them.
They did, then, suddenly noticed the small blue star that seemed to be slowly moving across and in front of the others.
“See, it has to be much closer to the Acarea than the others, for us to be able to see that sort of movement,” Paul pointed out.
“Agreed,” Nick, verified.
“It’s different, though?” Steven pointed out.
“Correct. It’s not the same as the other blue stars. And, if you look closer, you’ll notice that it seems blurry.”
“So that’s not a focusing problem then?” Henry queried.
“No. Now look… See, it suddenly elongates… Then, it’s gone.”
Paul replayed the section again. “Now you see it. Now you don’t.”
“Wow,” Steven exclaimed. “You can’t mistake that. It must be a spaceship. This proves that Cedrick’s, or this Micky’s, version of events was correct.”
“And, whatever that ship was, it had to be faster than light to produce that elongation,” Traven added.
“Well, we’d better hope that was the ‘good guy’ out there,” Henry remarked as he copied the sighting recording to Acarea’s central memory core.
Chapter 21
Change-over
So far, the voyage had passed without any major catastrophes, even though the first year hadn’t exactly gone to plan after the fracas between Trisha and her husband, Joe.
Following this, Trisha had moved into Jeff’s cabin. Shortly after that, Captain Traven had nullified Trisha and Joe’s marriage. Then, on the same day, had carried out the marriage ceremony tying Jeff and Trisha together.
It was no surprise to anyone, therefore when shortly after that she announced that she was pregnant with Jeff’s baby.
The news was not a cause for celebration, however, as everyone had known that having children was a definite no, no, on this voyage. Traven was then obliged to warn the crew that this one child would be the limit on the ship. At least, until they reached a habitable planet.
The crew’s In-Stasis section was towards the front of the habitation section of the ship and comprised of two cabins. Each one with ten stasis chambers securely bolted to the cabin floor.
The chambers were coffin shaped. Measuring three metres long, and one metre in diameter. Access to them was via the thick transparent covers that lifted to open, at the top end of the unit. A small control panel was located on the outer casing.
The casing material was a gold plated alloy that was similar to brass. As, even though it wasn’t expected that they would have to stand up to any corrosive elements in the ship. Nevertheless, the gold plated casing offered better protection to the unit’s electronic controller and nutrient feeder.
The interior was full of embedded sensors, and an inclinable bed on which the occupant would lay. With their body held down by two small suction discs while the stasis bed was held in position by two small hydraulic arms.
Having a child on board had complicated things somewhat, as there were no spare stasis chambers available for the boy. They had decided that he would have to lay beside Tricia, in her stasis chamber. This, in turn, complicated things further as the chambers were designed for single occupancy.
In the intervening years, however, Tony Mears, the Stasis specialist and doctor, had modified a sensor and feeder unit for dual person use.
On crew stasis-changeover, this would be fitted into one of the newly vacated stasis chambers. This would then accommodate both Trisha and her son Brian, who was now nine-years-old.
It had never been done before, so, Trisha and Tony were both worried about her son’s chances of survival.
Ten years later, to the day, and it was time for Captain John Traven’s crew to take the next stint in stasis. However, unlike the rest of the ship’s crews who would be taking shorter stretches in and out of stasis. Traven’s crew would be in stasis for the next forty years. Then become active again for the last decade of the voyage.
At 14:30, the crew’s stasis countdown clock sounded, warning everyone that the relief crew’s stasis chambers would be opening in thirty minutes.
Time passed slowly as everyone waited, hoping everything would go as planned. Small noises could be heard, appearing to come from inside the chambers.
Then, at 15:00 hours on the dot, the crew finally heard a series of thuds as one by one the stasis chambers clunked into recovery mode.
As they watched, they saw the transparent covers starting to mist over. While unseen things could be heard whirling inside. All the time accompanied by numerous lights flickering on the panels of each of the ten units. All of them charting the progress of the person coming out of stasis.
After a short time, and almost in unison, loud hisses sounded as each of the stasis chamber’s covers opened, and the occupants started to wake up.
Everyone stood, patiently waiting for the crew members to become fully awake. While Tony Mears, interested to see how long it would actually take, kept checking his chronometer.
Just twenty-three minutes later and all ten crew members were now fully awake. Tony prompted them not to move f
or at least five minutes while the chamber’s automatic neuromuscular stimulation programme ran.
This programme would mimic the brain’s nerve signals to stimulate and metabolise the occupant’s muscles. Thus speeding up the recovery time for full movement of the body.
Tony checked each chamber’s computer display panel, to ensure all was as it should be. After which, the crew members were helped out of their stasis chambers by their counterparts.
However, even with this therapy, the men were quite weak and unsteady on their feet. While their speech was slurred.
The therapy was followed up with each member being given a multi-vitamin drink. An injection to counteract the residual toxin from the stasis process. Then, finally, an extremely potent pain relief drug, to relieve any discomfort caused by the initial use of the muscles and joints.
Within an hour and a half, they were almost back to normal. With everyone being relieved at how quickly the men had recovered from stasis.
John Traven looked around at everyone, all of them looking pleased and excited. Then went over to speak to their Captain.
“Captain Appleton. Jack, welcome back,” he said.
“Good to see you, John Traven. Glad, you’re still here.” Jack replied as they both shook hands.
“How’s your memory, Jack?”
“So far, so good. I assume we’re well on the way to Procyon by now, yes?”
“Don’t worry. We’ll brief you on our status after Tony and the medical droids have done their final checks on you,” John replied, then looked at his chronometer.
“I should think, in about an hour. In the control room. Okay?”
“Yes, that’ll suit me. By the way, I hope you’ve got something good for us to eat. After all this time?”
“No problem, Jack. Our hydroponics guy, Jeff, has worked wonders, in more ways than one.”
“H’m... In more ways than one, is an interesting comment to make” Jack said, looking intrigued.
Traven ignored this.
“We’ve already put most of our things in our lockers, Jack. And we’ve got temporary beds for you and your men to use until we go into stasis.”
Just then, a nearby medical droid started making irritated sounding beeps.
“Sounds good John. Oh, that droid’s beckoning us to follow. See you later.” With that, Captain Appleton and his men went off with the medical droid.
The briefing started at 17:20 hours. With Traven advising Captain Appleton about the change of course and the reasons behind it. While their counterparts were updating Appleton’s team on their own particular sphere of operations.
After which, they all enjoyed a pleasant meal, with the food being provided by the Hydroponic food production facility. The only minus point being the tablets everyone was obliged to take each day.
“This food is delicious, and the water’s excellent,” Captain Jack Appleton remarked.
“If it continues like this. It should help us to enjoy the next twenty years.”
“Yea, I’m glad we went for our turn out of stasis in one stint,” Russ, Jack’s pilot remarked.
Traven studied him a while before speaking. “You may be right. We did have some awkward moments, what with the sabotage attempt etcetera. Therefore, you may have some surprises in store for you.
At least, you know now that we’re not going to Procyon, but heading for Delta Pavonis instead.”
“Yes, we know that,” Jack interjected. “But, before you go into stasis, we’d all like to see this information that Cedrick gave you. And this star type thing that you recorded in the Pleiades cluster,” Jack insisted.
“No problem, Jack. Everything that we’ve done, or seen, has been documented and saved,” John reassured him. Even though he knew that he had deliberately left out the disable information relating to the navigation security lock that he and Henry had set up.
“Henry. Can you run the information for everyone to see now? And set both of the recordings, to run sequentially.”
“OK, Henry said as he went over to a console. Selected the recorded information from the system’s core memory and then set them to play.
Within moments, the video of Cedrick’s meeting with Micky, including the weapon-related information from both Micky and Cedrick, played on the large monitor screen.
After this section, Henry paused the recording.
“H’m,” Jack said thoughtfully. “I tend to agree with you, John. That weapon’s not of our time for sure.”
“Right, John replied. “Run our Pleiades sighting, Henry.”
Then, as the images of the Pleiades cluster came into view. A fuzzy blue object could clearly be seen moving slowly across and in front of the star-cluster. Then, suddenly, it elongated then vanished.
After this there was dead silence, so Henry replayed that section again and went on to the end of the recording.
After a few seconds, Jack spoke up.
“So John. If I understand the situation correctly. We’ve changed course because of this Cedric fellow, and Micky. Plus, we also have a weapon, arguably from the future.”
“No. Definitely from the future, Jack.”
“Well, on its own that would be debatable. Nevertheless, you have the advantage of having been able to talk to Michael, directly. And, now, we have this object going across the Pleiades cluster.” Jack added, then paused a while to think.
“On balance, I have to agree with you, John. Though, without this sighting, I would probably have poo-pooed it.”
“And now, sir?” Tommy asked.
“It would suggest; you’ve taken the only sensible route. But, you took a terrible risk changing course without knowing about this sighting, John,” Jack pointed out.
“But, that object elongating does it for me,” Thompson, Jack’s Astro department crew member added.
“I agree,” his Nuclear Physics crew member interjected. “That elongation must mean it went through the light barrier, or, it somehow created its own wormhole.”
“Ok, John. It seems we are all agreed. So, what’s left for us to go through?”
“Well, not a lot Jack. You’ve all seen how smoothly things are running at present. So, we don’t foresee any problems.” John answered, and then paused briefly, deliberating.
“However, we’ve given the next item a lot of consideration. We believe that, in two years’ time, you will be at the safest point to rotate the two external Rockets. Moving them into the right position to help us to slow the ship down for landing, when we arrive at Delta Pavonis.
I know it may seem early. However, we cannot see any dust in our path for that point in time.
But, of course, the observations you take as Acarea gets closer to that point, will be much more valid than ours.”
“Fair enough. So, let’s talk about your stasis stint. How do you want to play sleep time?” he asked John, a broad grin on his face.
“That’s easy. We took a vote and decided to go into stasis as soon as you were up to speed, and I think you’re pretty well there, now,” he replied.
Then turned to face his crew. “Are we still happy with the decision to go now?”
They all nodded, yes.
“Jack, do any of your men have any queries?”
“Anyone with any more questions?” Jack asked his crew.
The all shook their heads.
“OK. Then we’ll prepare ourselves,” Captain Traven finished.
Then Tony tugged at his arm and told him that Trisha’s chamber was modified to take her son. He just nodded his approval of this.
Jack stood and pondered for a moment. Then said, “John, you do realise that you’ll be waking up to see Captain Merance, don’t you?”
“Yes. I find that a slightly worrying prospect.”
“No, need. I know him; we met before the Acarea left Earth. You’ll like him.” Jack reassured him. Then shook John’s hand saying. “See you in fifty years, God willing.
With that, John Traven and his crew went off to p
ut the rest of their belongings into the storage lockers then headed for their stasis chambers, and, for a long, long sleep.
Chapter 22
Out of Sleep
Captain Traven attempted to open his eyes. He knew he was upright, and that someone was trying to steady him as he stepped unsteadily from the stasis chamber.
The person seemed to be talking, but he couldn’t quite hear him.
He was sure of two things, though. His memory was still intact. Moreover, this was the first, and, thankfully, last time he would have to wake from stasis.
Then he heard the man’s voice and was thankful, knowing that he hadn’t suffered from Stasis syndrome. As, even though his eyesight hadn’t fully recovered, he could move his legs and arms.
“John,” the man kept saying
“Are you Captain Peter Merance?” Traven asked. His voice sounding shaky.
“Correct. Welcome back,” Merance replied.
“Thanks,” Traven uttered as he slowly looked around. Then realised that everything seemed blurred.
This sent him into a panic. Then he remembered that it could take almost thirty minutes for the human brain to remember how to interpret the information coming from its body while recovering from stasis,
He tried to stay calm, and then remembered the boy…
“Trisha and the boy. Are they okay?” He asked.
“Trisha is. But the boy…”
John knew, from the way Merance spoke, the answer was bad news.
“The boy…Is he dead?” He asked already knowing the answer.
“I’m afraid so, John… Luckily, we managed to remove his body before Trisha was fully awake.”
“Grief. Was it that nasty?”
“Yes. The modified sensor and feeder array unit failed the child.”
Acarea. A Triumph or Disaster? (SpaceFed StarShips Series Book 5): A Novel by Gerry A. Saunders (SpaceFed StarShips Trilogy) Page 16