The Arwen Book two: Manifest Destiny

by Timothy P. Callahan

  “Excuse me?”

  “Captain Cook asked me to figure out where we are. The computer can't figure it out and I was hoping maybe there was something in you scans that would help me.”

  “Well, aside from a strange gravity reading I haven’t picked up anything useful, sorry.”

  “Okay,” he yawned, then walked away. She watched as he sat down and looked at his screen, rubbing a stubby beard growing from his chin.

  He did ask a good question, where were they? And, more importantly, why didn’t the computer recognize where they were? As she tried to think through the problem, she heard the door to the bridge open. Robert walked in, chipper and awake. “I’m ready to start my shift. Thanks for covering.”

  Juliet, distracted by her thoughts, said in a distance voice, “Sure, no problem.” She stood over Derek. “Derek, can you get me in touch with Commander Pippleton or Captain Cook?”

  “You want to talk to the Captain?” Derek replied, his voice emphasizing the word Captain.

  “Yeah, it might be important.”

  “Okay, I’ll page them. What do you need to ask them anyway?”

  “I want to use the hologram room, maybe I can figure out where we are.”

  *****

  Captain Cook laid on her bed exhausted from her shift. It was easy to ignore the tiredness and the pain when she was busy giving orders but when things were dull it was much harder to ignore what happening to her. She imagined her nerves slowly shriveling up and dying. She pictured the white blood cells in her body dissolving into her blood, useless. These were images that would pop into her mind as she sat on the bridge looking at reports.

  She closed her eyes. Just as sleep was about overtake her, there was a knocking on the door. She opened her eyes and looked over, maybe they would think she wasn’t here if she ignored it. Realizing a Captain could never hide from the crew she sat up and asked, “Who is it?”

  “Captain, we need to talk.” The voice was from an unexpected source; it was Doctor Lipton. Marjorie wasn’t purposefully trying to avoid her, at least she wouldn’t admit that, but they hadn’t talked outside of work since she boarded.

  “Come on in,” Captain Cook said while turning the lights on. She was still dressed in her uniform, the act of removing it was too much.

  Fran walked in. The look on her face told the story. Marjorie saw the beautiful woman behind the weak eyes. She saw the confident woman Kel had fallen in love with. She saw that woman standing in front of her, but it was behind a look of fear, frustration, guilt and worry. “Fran, I’m sorry we haven’t had a chance to talk about Kel. I wanted to but-“

  She held up her hand to stop her. “Captain, thank you, but that’s not why I’m here. I don’t even know if I should say anything.” She started pacing about the room, babbling. “I don’t even know why he came to me, why he felt he needed to tell me this. I don’t want anything to do with the politics of this ship, but I think what he said was right, but what he wants to do is wrong.”

  “Doctor Lipton,” Marjorie said automatically falling into the pattern of calling by her title. She stopped and restated. “Fran, please take a seat, slow down and explain to me what you mean.”

  Fran stopped her pacing. She pulled up a chair and sat across from Captain Cook. “Captain, a few weeks ago Commander Pippleton came into my lab very angry and frustrated. He told me there were things going on that he didn’t understand, he felt you were hiding something from him and that upset him.”

  “There are things he doesn’t need to know,” she replied. Her left hand felt as if it were starting to tremble, and she tried to will that away.

  “I understand that. Heck, Kel used to tell me all the time. There were things he didn’t know, and he trusted you enough not to tell him what he didn’t need to know. However, this is different. Captain, he thinks you’re having an affair with the Professor.”

  Marjorie didn’t even try to hold back her laughter. She was relieved to see Fran smiling as well. “That was my reaction too.”

  “Thank you for bring that to my attention, I’ll be sure to set the record straight with the Commander.”

  “That’s not what I wanted to tell you. He also said something about taking over the ship if you weren’t doing your duty.”

  “I see,” Marjorie replied coldly. “I don’t think it’ll come to that.”

  “But, it might.” Fran replied. “Captain, even I’ve noticed it. You’re not the same. You spend all your time in your room and when we’re at meetings, I can see you trying to stay awake and-“ she pointed to Marjorie’s hand, which was twitching. “I looked it up and I think you have Fullerton’s dieses.”

  “I know,” Marjorie pressed a button on her desktop. “Professor, the cats out of the bag, can you meet me in my office.” She looked up at Fran. “The Professors been helping me.”

  “That’s why you’ve been seeing him?”

  “Yes. Thank you for coming to me with your concerns. I know we’ve drifted since Kel, but I always thought of you as a friend.”

  “We still need to talk about that,” Fran replied. “I have questions only you can answer.”

  “I understand. It's hard.” The door opened and Professor Ricter walked in.

  “Took you long enough to notice,” The Professor said to Fran. “I assume she figured it out just like I did?”

  “She took it one step further; she told me what I had.”

  “I see,” he said with a smile. “Well, how can I help you now?”

  “I’d like you to take me to the doctor. I think I’ll need someone there, or at least someone who’ll be certain I make it there. I’m still not sure I like this idea.”

  “It’s for the best,” Professor Ricter said.

  Her computer chirped. “Yes.”

  “Captain, this is the communication officer. The sensor officer would like permission to use the hologram room.”

  “For what?” Marjorie asked.

  A female voice answered. “Captain, Ensign Monrow. I’d like to use my down time to see if I can figure out where we are.”

  “Isn’t that the job of Navigation?"

  “He told me the computer was having an issue pinpointing where we are. I know the Professor and his crew are busy so I figured I’d give it a shot. I’m off duty so it won’t affect any of the bridge personnel.”

  She looked at the Professor who gave a casual shrug. “Okay,” Captain Cook said. “Go, see what you can find out.”

  ******

  Juliet stood in the middle of the hologram room looking at the stars around her. It all looked familiar and yet she couldn’t say she recognized everything. Almost like meeting someone you think you know, but you’re not sure if they just look like someone you know, or whether they actually are someone you know. She stared at it, studying the star formation. It was right there. She knew it. There were thousands of stars all within the same section of the sky. Juliet placed her hand under her chin and squinted, trying to focus on the pattern, trying to see what was there. It was a star cluster. Star clusters were pretty common and mostly found within the arm of the galaxy, so she knew they were at least still within the Milky Way. Was it a Globular Cluster?

  What do I remember about them? She thought and searched her memory trying to remember Astronomy class. Globular Clusters were very large collection of stars, from ten thousand, to a million. Most were concentrated in the hemisphere centered on Sagittarius, which would make them close to the center of the Milky Way and since she couldn't see the center of the galaxy this wasn’t a Globular Cluster.

  She couldn’t help but notice most of the stars seemed blue and fuzzy, as if she were looking at them through a haze. “I probably am,” she said to herself. The blue told her these stars were young, the haze told her they were still forming. That would make this an Open Cluster, fewer stars, spread out more than a Globular Cluster. Not really gravitationally bound to each other the cluster gradually drifted apart.

  What open clusters did she how
? “How about the closest?” she asked herself. “Computer, can you overlap an image of the Hydes Star Cluster over the stars in sector seven B?”

  The cluster appeared and she could tell right away it wasn’t a match. The stars were too far apart and didn’t line up with what she was looking at. “Well, how about the most famous? Computer, do the same thing with the Pleiades.”

  There they were, Sterope, Taygeta, Maia, Caleano, Electra, Merope, Alcyone, Pleione and Atlas. Something was wrong. “Where’s Atlas?” She asked. “Computer, can you match the sisters to the star cluster we're seeing in our scans?”

  The computer labeled six of the stars. Atlas still wasn’t there. It was gone. “Okay, that’s interesting. Computer, can you zoom in on where Atlas is supposed to be?”

  The computer zoomed. She saw something there. Atlas wasn’t gone. It was covered by something. “Computer, max zoom.”

  The imaged moved closer. Juliet saw what it was. “It can’t be,” she said then had the computer send a page to Captain Cook to come down to the hologram room immediately.

  ********

  “Now, keep in mind Captain, I’m not an astronomer,” Juliet said. “But I did get a high grade in the astronomy and astronavigation class.”

  Captain Cook nodded. “I don’t care what kind of education you have, if you know something important tell me and let me decide if it’s credible or not. I never want my crew to think I’m judging them based on what they did in school.”

  “Okay. Computer, run the program.”

  The hologram turned on and floating over both of their heads was a large star cluster. “This is a live feed from outside the ship. What you’re looking at is the Pleiades star cluster.”

  “I only see six sisters,” Marjorie said. “Are you sure?”

  “Yes, I checked it against the background stars, and it’s the Pleiades all right but as you noticed, one of the stars is missing.”

  “Atlas,” Marjorie said.

  “Right. That’s probably why the computer was having a hard time determining where we were, when it didn’t see all seven sisters it didn’t know it was looking at the Pleiades.”

  “It still should have figured out based on the other stars in the cluster. Missing one star shouldn’t have thrown the computer off by that much.”

  “Yes, I thought that too and if you look carefully you’ll see that’s not the only missing star. From what I can determine there are about fifteen to twenty missing stars from the cluster.”

  “Are you sure? I can’t see all those stars going nova at the same time. If they did we’d still see them as nebulas.”

  “I’m 100% sure. We’re about 10 light-years from Pleiades, which means we’re about 430 light-years from Earth.”

  “That's pretty far.” Captain Cook replied. She felt relieved to know they weren’t so far away from Earth it would take years to return; she didn’t know the exact math in her head, but she knew she would return within a relatively short amount of time. “So, what happen to Atlas and the other stars?”

  “Computer, zoom in on where Atlas is supposed to be.”

  The image zoomed in and slowly Marjorie could make out why Juliet had called her down. It looked like a giant gray ball. White beads of barely discernable lights encircled the sphere. It took her a few seconds of study to realize how large this object actually was. There was only one thing she could think of that this object could be. “Is that a Dyson Sphere?”

  “We won’t know until we get closer but I think it is.”

  “Those can’t exist. They're just a puzzle engineer think up to keep them busy. No one ever thought we'd found one.”

  “And yet there is it. I would really like someone else; someone more qualified, to look at this.”

  “I’ll have Professor Ricter take a look.”

  “There’s one more thing,” Juliet said. “I back tracked the ship that's coming toward us and I believe it originated close to the sphere.”

  “The ship that’s coming to meet us came from there?”

  “I’d bet good money on it.”

  “Thank you, Ensign; you’ve given us some valuable information. I’ll be sure to make a special note in your record.”

  The beam on Juliet’s face was more than enough to make Marjorie pleased and; for a moment, she forgot how much danger they were really in.

  Chapter fifteen

  Captain Cook walked onto the smoky bridge of the Valentine. In front of her was Payton Cook, her ex-husband who died two years ago. It wasn’t possible for him to be here. She knew she was dreaming but the image was so vivid she had to question it. The smoke filled her lungs, and she started coughing. People lay dead around her and when she stumbled over one of them she almost fell. She braced herself on a chair. The feel of the leather was uncanny.

  Payton turned. “Marjorie, what are you doing here?”

  “I’m not sure,” she replied, confused. He looked exactly as he did the last time she saw him. He was standing in front of her; he was solid, and he was real. She reached out to touch his uniform. Her hand moved against the cold metals on his chest. She looked, astonished. “You can’t be real.”

  “Neither can you,” he said. “Get out of here!”

  “I can't; this is a dream.”

  “Then you had better wake up.” He turned to face a man who was standing next to him. “Commander, get the Captain out here!”

  A man walked up to her and she pulled back. He was much taller than her. His hair was dark and neatly parted on the left side. His eyes looked at her, then through her. Power ebbed from this man and Marjorie felt afraid. “No, I will not leave the bridge.”

  The Commander stopped and tilted his head, then grinned. With speed she’d never seen before he slapped her across the face.

  Her eyes snapped open and she found herself in the familiar surroundings of her bedroom. The smell of the burning bridge stung her nose and her heart raced. She rubbed her cheek, amazed it was actually throbbing with pain. She sat up, threw her legs over to side of the bed, stepped down and walked over to her mirror. The lights in the bathroom automatically turned on when they sensed her. After her eyes adjusted to the light she looked at herself in the mirror. Her cheek was fine, no red marks, no sign she had actually been hit yet it still stung.

  The bottle of pills were in front of her and she picked them up, reading the label carefully, looking to see if vivid dreams were a side effect. They weren’t and she shrugged. She went back to bed formulating the story she was going to tell Professor Ricter when she saw him. He of all people would find her dream fascinating.

  *****

  The Dyson sphere filled the screen as they came out of wormhole space. The computer quickly calculated it was about 1.5 AU’s from the central sun, the sun that it encased like an eggshell would encase the animal inside. A Dyson sphere absorbed all the energy from its star, nothing was wasted and nothing leaked into space.

  Its gravity well was massive and the navigator had some trouble at first adjusting to it. Stabilizing engines ran at near full power just to keep the ship was falling into the well.

  Captain Cook, along with half the crew, had crowded onto the observation deck to try and grasp just how large the sphere was. They were still almost two light years out and ship dominated their view. It was the only thing they could see when they looked at it. Its horizon was unseen. It was looked like and wall which had infinite height and length. The Arwen would never be able to get close to it, the gravity would pull them in and the Arwen would be a very tiny wreak on an impossibly large surface.

  She was happy when the ship they were following approached a small platform. A tiny island orbiting a never-ending ocean.

  “Captain,” The communication officer said, “we are being contacted.”

  “Is it Captain Ruzoto?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay, put him through.” Marjorie paused until the communication officer nodded. “This is Captain Cook.”

  “Captain!” The voic
e said, still no image on her monitor. “It’s good to finally talk to you live. How was your trip?”

  “Fine,” she replied. “Are you on that platform?”

  “Yes I am! I’m so excited to meet you. Tell me Captain, how many years have passed on Earth?”

  “You might be shocked, are you sure you want to know?”

  “I know it’s been a long time so I’m ready for just about any answer.”

  “It’s been about 400 years.”

  He let out a loud sigh, and then in a cheerful voice replied. “Not as bad as I thought. Well, I look forward to seeing you. You should be at my station in about three hours.”

  “Captain Ruzoto,” Marjorie said. “We came all this way and I’m afraid it wasn’t for a social visit. Can you tell me anything before I proceed? We’ve been in space for months and are all eager to get back home. So far, all we have to go on is your word.”

  “I understand,” he replied. “I’ve been here for a very long time and I’ve learned an awful lot about the Handlers.”

  “The Handlers?”

  “Oh, my name for the aliens that are holding me here. They tried to tell me what they call themselves but it didn’t translate into anything I could say so I called them the Handlers."

  “Are they my enemy?” Captain Cook asked. Her instincts were screaming to leave. If they were the enemy she needed to know them and she needed to get information back to the Corp.

  “I really can’t tell you anything more right now. Please, come see me and I’ll explain.” He turned the radio off.

  ******

  Captain Cook found herself in a room, empty except for a table and two chairs. The walls around her were white. The ceiling was white and seemed to be the source of the soft light.

  A door opened from a seamless wall and in walked a man. It was the same man who had slapped her in her last nightmare. He wore a navy suit with a red, white and blue tie. His pants were black. He carried a clipboard in his left hand and a pen in his right. He looked up at Marjorie and smiled. The smile did little to defuse the alarm sounding loudly in Marjorie’s head. She took a step back, looking for a place to run. “Please, have a seat, we need to talk.”