The Arwen Book two: Manifest Destiny

by Timothy P. Callahan

  “I agree. You know what else I don’t hear? The engines.”

  “So, the entire ship is without power.” Commander Pippleton replied calmly. It seemed his frustration had been pushed aside. “Without power we can’t take the elevator. We might have to use the emergency stairs to get to any deck.”

  “Let’s not leave the bridge yet, this is still the command hub for the ship. If we can get power here we can figure out what else to do. Let’s just sit tight and think about this for a moment. What are our options? Bridge crew I’m up for any suggestions from anyone, this isn’t just a private conversation between me and the Commander.”

  “We should establish some sort of communication system.” Came a female voice, the same one who she was talking to earlier. Captain Cook remembered her name, Juliet Monrow.

  “Okay, Ensign Monrow, do you have any ideas how?”

  “Word of mouth would be the best way. You tell one person, they tell three people, those three people tell three people and within a few hours the entire ship knows.”

  “Messages could get miscommunicated,” Commander Pippleton said.

  “True,” Captain Cook replied. “I like it though. If we don’t have power in the next few minutes, I want everyone to go out and tell the crew what’s happening.”

  “We can use the service stairs,” Commander Pippleton said.

  “Never thought we’d use those,” Captain Cook said with a chuckle. The stairs were common on most older ships in the fleet. It was rare to lose power in space but fire was always a problem and if the bridge had caught fire, they would need to take the emergency stairs to get out as fast as possible.

  The sudden and loud pounding from the elevator door startled Captain Cook. “Who is it?” She asked.

  “Chief McFerren,” came the reply. “We need to talk ASAP; I can’t open this door by myself. I'm going to need some help.”

  “Commander, can you find the door?” Marjorie saw a black shadow move against a black background. It could easily be an illusion, her mind trying to make sense of the darkness and using the sound of the Commander moving as a clue as to what she should be seeing. The darkness and the quiet of the room threatened to engulf her. Being claustrophobic on a space ship was not something to take lightly.

  She heard several grunts as both Commander Pippleton and Chief McFerren struggled to open the door. Several other bridge members ran over to help. A beam of light shined onto the bridge and moved around erratically as the door inched opened. The Chief had a small light strapped to his head.

  With a final heave, the door flung open and the chief climbed onto the bridge, his flashlight temporarily blinding anyone who looked at it. Captain Cook squinted and asked: “How did you make it up here?”

  “Climbed the service stairs to the elevator shaft then climbed the ladder to the bridge.”

  Captain Cook felt a sense of relief knowing the Chief had worked his way up here. It gave her hope that his crew could fix the ship quickly. “Can you give me a report?”

  “Power is out throughout the ship. I’m lucky I could find a working light. I have my teams running around trying to determine exactly what the damage is but from what I can tell all the wires and boards are fried.”

  “All of them?” Marjorie asked.

  “Far as I can tell.” He said placing his hands on his hips. “We have enough spare parts to rewire the entire ship if we need to so don’t worry about that. We have other problems to worry about right now.”

  “Like what?” Captain Cook asked. She didn’t like the way he said it and liked it even less when it seemed as if he were slowing his speech down so she could fully understand what he was about to say. She knew he did this when the news was not only bad but was actually the worst news he could give.

  “We have no power, no engines, no shields, nothing and it’ll take us a few hours to get even the most essential systems working. When we went into orbit I had to make a minor adjustment to the bow force field. It’s something I do every time we make low orbit around a planet. I have the field deflect the upper atmosphere to reduce drag, making it easier for the engines to keep the ship in orbit. Right now, we have no force field, no engines, nothing to help reduce the drag.”

  Realization struck Marjorie like a punch in the gut. “The atmosphere is slowing us down.”

  “I don’t know how long we have before we start falling. We have enough momentum to keep us up maybe thirty minutes, but that’s just my best guess.”

  The bridge crew got very quiet with the news. It wouldn’t be long before The Arwen fell from the sky.

  Chapter five

  Professor Ricter slammed his fist into the dead computer screen in frustration. He was never one to lose his temper. He would use anger as a tool to get what he wanted, he would use anger to get people to leave him alone, and he would use anger just to see how people would react, but he was rarely as infuriated as he was now.

  Nothing worked. The computer, the screens, his radio, life support, nothing.

  The only way he could see anything at all was because the sun, which was between him and the planet, was reflecting off the planet’s massive ice caps as well as the hundreds of white clouds which floated above. He could see the Arwen clearly enough from his vantage. It looked as if it were in a low orbit, its shadow cast on a passing thunderstorm.

  The Arwen had noticeably lost some momentum and was steadily descending. The nose slowly changed colors, going from silver, to yellow, and then to red. It was heating up as it sliced through the thickening atmosphere. The Arwen was aerodynamic thanks to its dart shape, but it wasn’t frictionless. If it continued to fall it would gain some speed, that speed would heat it up even more, and if it continued the Arwen would become another shooting star streaking across the sky and that would put the Professor in a very bad situation.

  He could deal with the computer malfunction; he could deal with not having any lights and could even deal with the cold. He knew the shuttle enough to trust that eventually all the systems would come back on line. What he couldn’t deal with was the feeling of complete helplessness. He wanted to help the Arwen. He wanted to be on the ship trying to get things working. He didn’t want to be here, in a dead shuttle, watching the ship he has come to think of a second-home start a spiral of death.

  *****

  The thirty minutes the Chief guessed was pessimistic. Another, more accurate calculation gave them an hour before the ship fell from the sky.

  He was earning his pay and bolstering his reputation by running back and from engineering to the bridge to give the Captain updates and supplying her and her crew with working equipment. Thanks to the Chief everyone on the bridge carried a flashlight.

  The bridge was empty except for the Commander and herself. The others had left to give the news of what was happening, and what will happen, to other crew members to pass along. It would take a while before everyone knew about the danger. It was a big ship and there were a lot of people on it.

  There was nothing else for her to do but plan for the inevitable. She needed more information about the planet and the only one who might know that was Fran.

  Captain Cook walked up to the Commander; his light shined somewhere around her chest area. “Commander, I’m going to see Doctor Lipton to see if she’s got any useful information on the planet. Take over the bridge and try to help the Chief anyway you can.”

  The headlight moved up and down, signifying a nod or maybe a shrug, “Good luck, Captain.”

  She walked over to the emergency stairs and opened the door. She shined her light into the darkened space and looked up. The bridge was located in the center of the ship, Fran’s lab was ten levels above her. The staircase spiraled up and down like a DNA chain. Nature had provided the best way to get a lot of things into a small space, and the ship's designers copied that for the stairs. It was a tiny space, just barely large enough for her to fit.

  Her shoulder brushed against the wall as she ran up the stairs. It felt good to ge
t her body moving. The exertion made her heart beat faster and made her think with more clarity. She slipped a few times when she moved her light away from the steps to see what level she was on, but she managed to keep a steady pace to the level she needed.

  The door opened easily and as her flashlight passed down the hallways she saw several of her crew sitting on the ground. “Is everyone okay?”

  “Yes, sir!” Came an answer from a female voice. Captain Cook shined her light on the woman. She was young, and wore the uniform of a security guard. “What happened?”

  “We lost all power and we’re working hard to get it back. How many of you are here?”

  “Five. We finished working out and were heading back to our rooms. When the lights went out we got disoriented and didn’t know where we were, figured we’d wait until someone found us. We’d like to help anyway we can.”

  “I want you all the split up. Tell everyone you see we’re working on getting the power back and they should stay at their stations until further notice. You’ll need to give them some bad news as well. Tell them that the Arwen’s orbit is deteriorating and we could crash into the planet. I’m going to do all I can to stop it, but if it happens, I don’t want anyone to be surprised.”

  There was fear in the woman’s voice when she replied, “We’ll tell them, Captain.” Marjorie watched as the five crew members disappeared into the darkness. Their whisperers reflected their anxiety.

  Marjorie continued down the hallway toward Fran’s office. Occasionally, she met another group of crew and asked them to spread the word about what was happening. Soon the entire ship would know.

  The lights flickered on for a second. She stopped in her tracks and waited hoping the Chief fixed everything. After a few seconds, she gave up and continued toward Fran’s office.

  ******

  When the lights blinked out Doctor Fran Lipton was more annoyed than anything else. She had been talking to the Professor, he was in the middle of saying something when things just died. At first, she thought it was the lights but soon realized it was anything electric. It reminded her of an article she had read a few years ago about how solar flares would wreak havoc on the electrical systems of Earth before they figured out how to build the system so it wouldn’t be affected.

  She couldn’t tell how many minutes have passed, in the dark it seemed like hours, but she was sure it couldn’t have been more than twenty minutes. So, what could she do but wait? She couldn’t leave, wandering around in a darkened hallway seemed counterproductive.

  She jumped when she heard the knock from the door. “Fran, are you okay? I need to come in.”

  It was Captain Cook. She had done her best to avoid talking to the Captain, tried her best not to make eye contact during meetings. Why was the Captain here? Surely, she had more important things to worry about than how she was doing. The thought was nice though, maybe the first step toward rebuilding their friendship. “Come on in.”

  The door slowly opened and a beam of white light penetrated the dark. It moved around the room until it found Fran. “We’re in trouble,” Captain Cook said. Fran wasn’t able to see the captain’s face but she could hear the stress in her voice. “We have no power, no engines, nothing and it looks like we’re going to crash into the planet. I need to know all you can tell me about it. Every piece of information will help.”

  The news hit Fran quickly and she barley wrap her mind around at first. She just looked at the light, concentrating on it. The Captain was hidden behind its glare, waiting for her to say something. The question was vague; what kind of information did the Captain need? She could speculate but right now all she thought about was that light and the person behind it. “Captain, it’s hard for me to concentrate with that light in my eyes, can you take it off?”

  Marjorie pulled the light off and placed it on a table. The room glowed to where she could see the faint outline of the Captain’s face. She was grim, determined. For a moment, Fran understood why Kel followed the order which killed him. It was always hard to ignore Captain Cook when she counted on you to do your duty. Fran felt the need to impress the Captain so she started talking. “The planet is about three times as large as Earth, which means it has about three times the gravity of Earth. The planet is covered entirely with water. The atmosphere is thick and the pressure would crush an unprotected person in seconds. Nevertheless, the most fascinating thing about the planet is its ocean.” Fran really wanted to pull up a computer image to demonstrate the point she was about ready to make. “Because of the increased gravity the water pressure is so powerful at the deepest depth it doesn’t act like water, it acts more like a solid.”

  “What would happen if the Arwen were to hit the ocean?”

  “Can’t be too sure, I can only speculate. The water pressure, even near the surface, is eminence. We’re talking thousands of atmospheres of pressure.”

  “The Arwen can survive that with its shields at full, not sure how much we can survive without our shields. One more thing, before we lost power our sensor officer picked up a massive surge in the magnetic field of the planet, do you think that would have caused us to lose power?”

  Like a solar flare, she thought. But could a planet produce something like that? “Are you sure it came from the planet?”

  “We can’t be totally sure until we look at the records, but she was confident that’s where he detected it. Why?”

  “I can’t see how a planet could produce sufficient power to knock our systems out. Even with the best shielding if we were hit with a powerful enough solar flare it could destroy our system.”

  “Well, until we get power we can’t determine what knocked-out power. Is there anything else you can tell me?”

  “Not until we get power, and I can look at my readings; I'm sorry.”

  “Thank you, Fran. I have to return to the bridge now.”

  “Oh, Captain, what about the Professor?”

  Captain Cook shook her head, “I don’t know. We don’t have any communications, so I don’t know what happened to him. We can only hope he wasn’t affected, and if he was-“ She paused, leaving the sentence unfinished.

  Fran understood. The Captain had an entire ship to worry about.

  ****

  As Captain Cook walked back to the bridge, the lights flickered, then went out. In the darkened hallway she couldn’t help but notice the faint glow of a green light from the wall. As she approached she saw the light came from one of the ship's communication panels. She pressed the button. “Can anyone hear me?”

  Second later she heard an unfamiliar voice. “I can hear you.”

  “This is Captain Cook, who’s this?”

  “Engineer first class Carr. I’m working on getting the communication system working.”

  “Can you patch me into the bridge?”

  “Yes, patching you in now. Okay, you can talk.”

  “Commander, can you hear me?”

  “I can,” Commander Pippleton replied. “The Chief was up here a few moments ago, he told me he was getting things working. As you can see we have some communication, the bridge and a few other areas have lights. He’s still working on getting the engines working.”

  “Can you tell me what our orbit is like?”

  The Arwen shook violently enough to throw the Captain against the opposite wall. She didn’t need to hear the Commander say, “Captain Cook to the bridge!”

  She tried walking, but another bump threw her to the ground. Using the wall as support she stood and waited a second before continuing using the wall as support. She felt the deceleration and had to lean back against it to prevent herself from falling over again. How much speed were they losing? The Arwen was a strong bird, and she would protect her crew. The thought pushed Captain Cook onward. They would survive this. Her ship would make sure of that.

  Chapter six

  One by one the lights and computers onboard Professor’s Ricter shuttle came to life. He paid no attention to the life support as it hummed. Th
e systems were resetting themselves. The power had been restored by happenstance of engineering. Nothing the Professor did fixed anything. It was all automated. In the back of his mind Professor Ricter made a mental note to write to the people who designed the system to thank them. In the meantime, he watched the drama play out before him.

  He couldn’t understand why the Arwen made no attempt to stabilize their orbit. If his systems were coming back on line surely theirs were too. A voice in his head thought, ‘not necessarily.’ In his mind he pictured where he was stationed and where the Arwen was stationed. His shuttle was over the Arwen and directly between him and the planet. It would have taken the brunt of the attack, shielding him. Maybe he was only hit with about 10 percent of the energy from the planet’s discharge. Maybe even less. Whatever the case his ship now worked just fine.

  The computer he had been working on before losing power booted up again. He watched as it ran through the diagnostic’s, repairing any sectors that might have been damaged, uploading all the data which had been backed up. There would be a gap but hopefully not a big one.

  The communication computer turned on. As it finished he saw a message ‘trying to establish contact’ blinking. There was some hope it would connect to the Arwen but after a few minutes of watching and waiting, he gave up. The Arwen couldn’t respond.

  ****

  It seemed harder to climb the stairs as she approached the bridge than when she first started her journey. The hallway was dark, and the light attached to her head was the only thing that illuminated it. She was getting tired. It had been a long day, but there was no reason she should be sweating and panting no matter how many steps she took. With one level left she stopped to take a rest. Gravity, it was all about gravity. They were close enough to the planet when the power went out that the planet provided the gravity they needed. The closer they got the stronger the pull. That’s why she was having an issue; the planet was weighing her down.

  The door to the bridge was open to accommodate the constant traffic to and from the room. When the Commander saw her light, he walked over to her and started talking before she could even speak. “The bridge crew is back and the entire ship knows what is happening. Did you get any good information from Doctor Lipton?”