Chapter Four
Eight months had passed since Hades’ departure from Earth. The date was October 15th, 2027. 6 puffy orange sleeping bags had been attached to the wall of one of the ship’s aft compartments. Only three of them were occupied, at the time.
Richard, Sophia and Max slept, while Callum and Jack were manning their stations in the cockpit. Jack Sanders had been assigned the task of being Callum’s co-pilot. He was a short, scrawny man with curly red hair and freckles, who looked to be in his late teens, but was actually in his mid- thirties.
When Callum had first met him and learned that he would be sharing the cockpit with him, he was instantly discouraged, because of his lack of experience. However, after numerous simulator ops and test flights, Jack not only proved to be a worthy candidate, but almost as good a pilot as Callum, as well.
Callum and Jack were going about their business and following their respective checklists, when all of a sudden, Jack stopped what he was doing and motioned for Callum to look out of the ship’s massive front windows.
When Callum looked up from his instrumentation, he saw a small planetary body, floating alone in the vastness of space. Callum smiled and turned to Jack.
“Not bad, right?” Callum arrogantly asked.
Jack rolled his eyes and replied, “What do you mean? We’re almost a whole day late.”
They laughed as Callum unstrapped himself from his seat.
“Take the reins, will you? They need to wake up and see this,” Callum boasted.
Jack nodded and promptly turned his attention back to his control console, while Callum pushed his way through the cabin, towards the dimly lit rear compartments of the ship.
As he floated into the sleep chamber, he noticed that Simone was missing. He sighed with frustration and climbed through a narrow tunnel above him, which led him into another compartment, directly above the sleep chamber.
When he reached the top, he found himself in front of the medical station hatchway and turned left to reach the partially open hatchway, leading to Simone’s private work station. He entered and found that the room was completely dark, aside from the light from a small desk lamp, strapped to a table at the far end.
Simone was asleep at the table, barely levitating over her work bench. He could hear somber sounding piano playing in the distance. It was the same music that Simone played whenever she found an opportunity to be alone and listen for the voice.
As Callum made his way over to her, he could hear that she was once again following her daily routine. Simone had her music coming out of one set of speakers and the vocal transmissions from Charon coming from another. On most days during their eight month voyage, Simone would shut herself away from the others for hours at a time and listen to the unpronounceable words of Charon’s mysterious tenant.
Callum reached over Simone’s head and turned the music off. She then instantly woke up and gave Callum an angry glare. Callum chuckled, as Simone then lowered the volume of the vocal transmissions.
“What do you want?” she asked in a harsh tone.
Callum smiled, as if to mock her, and sarcastically replied, “Well your majesty, I just thought you’d like to know that we’ve arrived at our destination.”
Without a moment’s hesitation, Simone sprang up and pushed Callum to the side.
“Move!” she shouted, as she descended down the tunnel and entered the sleep chamber.
“Everybody up!” she yelled at the top of her lungs.
Sophia, Max and Richard slowly awakened and unzipped their sleeping bags. One by one they followed Simone towards the front of the ship, to see what all the commotion was about. Simone then barged into the cockpit and took a seat behind Jack.
“Are we in orbit around Charon?” she hastily asked him.
Jack cautiously replied, “No, ma’am. We’re actually just coming up on Pluto now.”
He pointed out the window, drawing Simone’s attention to the lifeless orb of rock and ice, which was only one thousand or so kilometers from Hades.
Enraged, Simone whipped herself around to face Callum and the rest of the crew; still groggy from their rude awakening.
“Does that look like Charon to you?” she asked Callum, condescendingly.
“No ma’am,” he replied with a sly smirk. “I just thought you might want to see the show.”
Simone was not amused. “Show?!” she yelled. “Do you think this is a game, Commander?”
Callum promptly replaced his grin with a more sincere expression and dutifully replied, “No, ma’am. I do not.”
“Good,” she said. “I would hope not.”
She then pushed her way passed the crew and before leaving the cockpit, ordered that she was not to be disturbed until the ship was ready for orbital insertion above Charon. She then made her way back to her private chamber.
“I still don’t understand why they put her in charge,” Max said to Callum.
“Like it or not, she is,” Richard interrupted.
“He’s right,” said Sophia. “Like it or not, we’re just her chauffeurs in this scenario.”
“But that doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy the view while it lasts,” said Jack.
The crew couldn’t help but exchange smiles; watching in awe, as Pluto passed in front of their windows.
Once Pluto was out of sight, Charon was revealed behind it. It was very similar in appearance, aside from being about half the size of Pluto. Callum ordered everyone to strap themselves in to their assigned seats.
“Prepare for burn,” Callum ordered Jack.
Jack then activated the ship’s forward thrusters, which were pointed away from Charon, on either side of the cockpit and began counting down from ten. After ten seconds, the crew burned the thrusters long enough to bring the ship to an almost full stop. They were then at the mercy of Charon’s gravitational pull.
“Nice job,” Callum said, as he patted Jack on the back.
He then unstrapped himself from his seat and said, “Take the reins, people.”
Everyone then promptly went about their various tasks, as Callum left the cockpit.
Jack then turned to Richard and asked, “Has she even said one word to him about anything that happened back home?”
“Nope. Not one word,” Richard replied.
“But how much you want to bet, he’s on his way to get himself some more punishment right now?” Sophia chimed in.
Sophia was a nearly pencil thin, but attractive, olive skinned woman, with blonde hair; always tied back in a ponytail. She had always been outspoken with a thick southern accent, was proudly immature, and had taken a keen interest in Richard, since the ship’s departure.
“Just drop it,” Jack said to her in a stern tone of voice, defending his commander. “We’ve had this conversation way too many times already. It is what it is.”
Minutes later, Callum cautiously entered Simone’s compartment, to find that she had undoubtedly been expecting him; her arms crossed and senses sharpened.
“Are we ready?” she asked.
“You should’ve been strapped in for that burn, ma’am,” Callum scolded. “Just concerned about your safety.”
“I appreciate your concern,” Simone replied. “But I think I can handle a little turbulence.”
Callum seemed as though he wanted to say something else, but remained silent.
“What is it?” Simone asked him.
“You know what it is,” he replied.
Simone rolled her eyes. “We’ve been over this a million times, Callum,” she sighed. “You know what my answer is. I just…”
“I know,” Callum interrupted. “You just can’t talk about it.”
There was an awkward silence, followed by Simone once again, pushing her way passed Callum.
“We don’t have time for this,” she muttered. “Let’s go, Commander.”
Callum obediently buried his emotions and accompanied Simone back to the coc
kpit. Charon was then only a few hundred kilometers away, and it was time to make the burns and course corrections necessary, to bring Hades into synchronous orbit with the moon.
Upon returning to the cockpit, Simone actually sat in her assigned seat and strapped herself in, along with the rest of the crew.
Callum ordered Jack to put the ship in orbit around Charon and he did so, almost effortlessly. Callum chuckled and turned to face the crew.
“After everything Mandrake said, I can’t believe it ended up being this easy,” he boasted.
“Exactly,” said Max, as he looked over his readings. “Pluto and all satellites appear to be perfectly stable. There’s nothing out of the ordinary going on here.”
Simone then turned to Max and gave him a familiar look of disapproval.
“Really? You can’t think of anything strange going on here at the moment?” she asked him, sarcastically.
Simone then turned her attention to Callum.
“Turn it on,” she ordered.
Callum hesitated for a moment, then flipped a red switch, over his head. The crew then fell silent as the voice from Charon began to play over the ship’s intercom.
“It almost sounds like he could be speaking Mayan,” Sophia suggested.
“No,” Callum said. “They’ve sent these transmissions to every language expert on Earth and the only thing they could agree on was that he’s speaking a language they’ve never heard before.”
“But it is a language right?” Max asked, jokingly, with a smile, as he turned to Simone. “Like, it isn’t just gibberish, right?”
Simone then gave him a stern look and harshly replied, “No, Max. It is not just gibberish.”
“He could just be really sick,” Richard suggested. “Who knows how long he’s been there, or how he even got there. He could have a brain tumor or a parasite even. Or he’s just going insane.”
“Well, we won’t know anything by just sitting up here,” said Callum.
He turned to Simone after checking his readings. “How recent is that last transmission you were listening to?”
“It was only sent less than 24 hours ago,” answered Simone. “So we are operating under the assumption that he is still alive,” she continued.
“Very well,” said Callum. He then turned his attention to Jack.
“Jack, we’re going to have to stay sharp,” he said.
Jack nodded and remained focused on his instrumentation. Callum then turned to Max and Sophia, who were manning radar displays, while Richard was using his console to search for heat signatures.
“Is anyone picking anything up?” Callum asked them.
“Nothing, yet. It’s like a tomb down there,” answered Max.
Although everything appeared to be running smoothly, Max was noticeably nervous. His fingers trembled, as he handled his equipment. It was completely silent in the cockpit.
After a few moments, Max looked up to see that everyone was staring at him. “What is it?” he asked.
“You tell us,” Callum answered.
Sophia started laughing to herself. “You’re not going to throw up again, are you?” she asked Max, as she caught her breath.
Max did his best to ignore her, but got everyone laughing, as he began to blush. Even Simone cracked a smile, much to everyone’s surprise.
The ship had been orbiting Charon for close to an hour, and the crew had yet to find anything of any interest. Hades was equipped with giant spotlights on either side of its nose, which were brightly shining down on the moon’s surface. Nothing of consequence was happening in the area and there had been no further transmissions.
Simone was becoming more and more agitated and decided to hover over Max, Sophia and Richard, as they continued to scan the surface. Callum and Jack kept the ship on course and were both doing their best not to showcase their disappointment. After a little while, Jack broke the silence and nudged Callum.
“This is one hell of a party,” he said.
“Yeah, really,” muttered Callum.
“We should at least set down and walk around for a bit, just so we can say we were here,” Jack suggested.
“That’s enough,” Simone barked from behind them.
“Well can you blame us for being a little disappointed?” Callum asked her. “This rock isn’t all that big, you know. I just think if your boy was still alive, we would’ve found something by now.”
“Our orders are to remain here for a minimum of twenty four hours before signaling for an abort,” Simone angrily replied. “So for the next twenty three hours, your job is to keep your mouth shut and your eyes open. That goes for all of you,” Simone snapped as she turned to the others.
The crew remained silent and attentive to their duties.
Another hour had passed. The mood aboard the ship was extremely tense. The cockpit was completely silent aside from the humming of the ship’s engines and the miscellaneous beeping of electronics.
Callum was mindlessly staring out of his window, when suddenly, something seemed out of place to him. He quickly turned to Jack and tapped his arm. Jack was startled, as he had clearly been day dreaming.
“How many times have we gone over this sector?” Callum asked him.
Jack checked his readings and replied, “This is the third time now.”
Callum turned his attention back to the horizon and pointed out the window, while yelling, “What the hell is that?”
The crew leaned towards the window and struggled to see what Callum was referring to.
“What are you talking about? What are you looking at?” Simone asked him.
“That, right there!” Callum shouted.
In the distance, the crew could see a thin stream of gas rising from the moon’s surface.
“So, what?” Jack asked. “It’s just a vapor trail. We’ve seen several of them and there’s nothing new on the scanners.”
“Oh, yeah?” Callum asked in a sarcastic tone. “Then why is that vapor trail coming from a crater that wasn’t there on our last two passes?”
As the ship came closer to the trail, the crew could clearly see a small crater on the moon’s surface that was in fact the source of the gas being vented out into space. Simone squinted, as she struggled to see what was going on. She then turned to Richard and asked him to focus his instrumentation on that specific area of the moon’s surface.
“There’s nothing,” he said. He then turned to Max and Sophia, who had the same reaction.
“Are you sure it wasn’t there before?” Simone angrily asked Callum. “You probably weren’t even paying attention on the last two passes,” she sighed.
Callum whipped around in his seat and gave her a hostile glare. “Don’t even go there, Simone!” he shouted. “I know what I saw! That crater wasn’t there 45 minutes ago.”
“It could’ve just been hit by a meteor,” Jack suggested.
“No,” said Max. “It would’ve shown up on the scanners. If Callum says it wasn’t there before, then there’s no way it could’ve gotten there unless…”
“Wait!” Richard shouted. “There’s a heat signature down there! It’s massive!”
Simone quickly made her way to Richard’s console.
“That’s impossible,” she began. “Why didn’t it show up before?”
“I don’t know,” Richard answered. “But it’s there now.”
Simone then made her way back to Callum and Jack, who were both getting very anxious.
“Well Commander, it looks like you have your target area,” she said to Callum.
Callum nodded and began looking for an adequate landing site.
“Over there looks good,” he said to Jack, as he pointed to a relatively flat clearing to the left of the vapor trail.
“It’ll have to do,” Jack quickly replied. “Everyone get strapped in!” Callum shouted. “We’re on the ground in twenty seconds!”
Hades made a series of quick thrusts and adju
stments before deploying its landing gear. Four mechanical arms gripping small steel platforms extended from the ship’s underbelly; two from the forward section and two from the aft section. The four feet, as they were referred to, locked in place in perfect unison, as a single engine fired from the center of ship’s underbelly. This slowed the ship’s descent, as it gently touched down on the surface of Charon.
“Honey, I’m home,” Callum boasted, as the ship touched down, just twenty feet away from the target crater.
Simone quickly got out of her seat, as soon as she heard the landing gear make contact with the surface.
“Did I tell you to unfasten that belt?” Callum asked her in a harsh tone.
“I didn’t ask,” Simone sternly replied. “I’ve already wasted enough time waiting for you people to get your act together and find this place!”
Everyone then fell silent and expressions of bitterness came over the entire crew.
“Ma’am with all due respect, we did our job. We did our job well,” muttered Sophia.
Simone completely ignored her and kept her attention on Callum and Jack. “We have a job to do,” she said. “So, let’s do it.”
She then turned to face the rest of the crew. “It’s time to suit up,” she began. “We need to find the survivor and get some answers. Let’s move!”
The situation was becoming more and more uncomfortable, as Simone continued to badger the crew with her harsh orders and blatant lack of gratitude for their efforts.
Jack and Sophia had been assigned to remain aboard Hades, in order to monitor the ship, as well as the crew, while they carried out their mission on the surface.
The others had moved into an aft compartment of the ship, next to the airlock. Callum nudged Simone and motioned for her to follow him into another room, while the crew put together their pressure suits in preparation to leave Hades.
At first, Simone was hesitant and utterly annoyed, but her desire to keep everyone focused on the mission persuaded her to allow Callum to have his say. She followed him into the next compartment and an uncomfortable silence ensued.
Callum’s eyes conveyed a sense of pure hatred, but Simone knew that his aggressive behavior was merely a mask, hiding years of heartbreak and confusion.
“What is it, Commander?” she asked him, in her most professional tone of voice.
Callum was boiling over with rage, but decided to use his own professional tactics, as the ships second in command, to bury his true feelings.
“I just thought you should know that those people out there are some of the finest officers I have ever had the privilege to serve with,” he began.
“Whether you want to accept it or not, we’ve all done a first rate job here. Do you think they wanted to be stripped away from their families for sixteen months, knowing full well that they might not make it back?!”
Simone scoffed, as she brushed her hair from her face.
“I don’t have time to listen to this,” she said. “We only have enough food, water and fuel to barely get us through the next eight months. You’re putting our survival more and more at risk, every moment we stand here arguing.”
Callum leaned in closer to Simone, with no further intentions of holding back.
“Bullshit!” he boasted.
Simone then backed away, while giving him a bewildered expression.
“Excuse me?!” she gasped.
“You’re not fooling anyone,” he began. “I know you. I know when you’re hiding something.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” she asked.
Callum looked her directly in the eye and with no hesitation replied, “I think you know who’s down there.”
Simone kept her eyes locked onto his. “I’m done listening to you and your paranoid brain,” she said. “I have no idea who’s down there. But what I do know is that he could be dead right now, because of the time I just wasted listening to your bullshit!”
She then quickly left the room, as Callum recovered his composure and followed behind her.
A few more minutes later, Callum, Simone, Richard and Max were wearing full, all black pressure suits, along with large dark gray backpacks, which contained their oxygen tanks. They entered the airlock one by one and sealed the massive pressure door behind them.
Their hearts were racing, as the door clicked shut and they heard the sound of the oxygen being quickly sucked out of the room. Callum then turned on his radio, using a control on his wrist, as the others did the same.
“Can everyone hear me?” he asked. They exchanged nods and were successfully communicating via radio.
Jack and Sophia appeared on a monitor behind Callum and Simone.
“You’re at zero pressure,” said Jack.
Callum nodded to him and motioned for Richard to unlock the ship’s outer door. Richard then firmly gripped a handle on the door and turned it clockwise, until he felt it click.
“Outer door unlocked,” Richard said, nervously.
Callum turned back to Jack and Sophia on the monitor.
“Looks like it’s now or never,” exclaimed Callum.
“Godspeed,” Jack replied.
“We’ll be with you the whole way,” Sophia added reassuringly.
“Copy that,” Callum relayed, as he turned his attention back to Richard. He then signaled for Richard to open the outer door.
Richard reluctantly did as he was instructed, and the crew became exposed to the vacuum of space.
Callum met Richard at the outer door and peered out at the vapor trail, which was still slowly venting from the crater in the moon’s surface. They exchanged awkward glances.
“After you Commander,” Richard said with a smile.
“Thanks,” Callum sarcastically replied, as he bent down and gripped the bottom of the hatchway. He then lowered himself onto the surface of Charon.
“Don’t be shy,” he said, as he looked up at his crew.
Simone, Richard and Max slowly followed behind Callum and lowered themselves onto the surface. Max was the last one out and resealed the outer door behind him. The four of them then slowly made their way towards their target area.
Ten minutes later, they were standing in the center of the small crater, directly on top of the pocket of venting gas. Richard then revealed a small, black handheld device, which he used to examine the gas, as well as determine the source of the previously recorded heat signature.
“This can’t be right,” he said, as he held the device up to the gas.
“What is it?” Simone eagerly inquired.
Richard gave the others a baffled expression and replied, “I don’t know how this is possible but this is oxygen.”
“Oxygen?” asked Max.
The four of them exchanged puzzled expressions.
“Yes,” Richard began. “According to these readings there’s a boatload of breathable air, coming from the source of the heat signature.”
“And how far down is this heat signature?” Callum asked.
“It’s a massive cluster of multiple heat signatures, actually. It’s all coming from about one hundred feet down, directly below where we’re standing,” Richard expertly replied.
“Look at this!” exclaimed Max, as he peered down into the gas vent. The others crowded around the vent to see that a perfectly rounded out hole had been carved into the rock and ice.
“That looks man made,” Callum said.
“Yeah,” Max concurred. “It looks like it was done with a huge mining drill or something. There’s no way anything natural could’ve done that. It’s too perfect.”
Simone was growing more and more eager by the second and could no longer contain herself. She shined the flashlight attached to her sleeve, into the hole. It appeared to be bottomless.
“Well, it looks like we can easily fit through there,” she said. “We’re going down.”
She then quickly and assertively made her way back to the ship a
nd opened the outer door to the airlock. She promptly located a roll of thick black cable attached to the bottom of the hatchway and began unraveling it. Richard and Max walked up behind her to help her feed the cable into the hole in the crater.
Callum felt more and more uneasy by the second and put his hand on Simone’s shoulder, as she was about to begin lowering the cable into the darkness below.
“Now wait a minute,” he began to say.
Simone completely ignored him and began lowering herself into the vent. Her descent was slow, due to the extremely low force of gravity on Charon. The venting oxygen began to engulf her, as she looked back up at Callum with arrogant and impatient eyes.
“Are you coming or not?” she asked in a sassy tone.
Callum, Max and Richard exchanged expressions of uncertainty and reluctantly lowered themselves down into the vent.
“I’m going to regret this for the rest of my life,” said Max.
“You and me both, buddy,” Richard replied.
Jack and Sophia looked on, as their four shipmates disappeared into the venting oxygen. Jack flipped a switch on a monitor, which displayed their four heat signatures descending into the darkness below.
“I can’t believe we’re really doing this,” said Sophia.
“This guy better still be alive,” Jack replied. “We need to get some answers.”
“Screw him,” Sophia snapped. “I just hope we make it back alive, ourselves.”
Together, they continued to observe, as the four red bulges on the monitor, representing their fellow officers, continued to descend into black nothingness.
Then just as it seemed as though it would never end, a massive red blob appeared at the bottom of the screen, indicating a massive heat signature, just below the crew. Jack then excitedly grabbed his radio and flipped to Callum’s channel.
“You’re right on top of it!” he exclaimed.
Sophia and Jack could only hear crackling on the other end of the transmission. Sophia then tapped Jack on his shoulder and directed his attention back to the monitor.
“Look at that, Jack!” she shouted. “Whatever it is, it’s producing an unlimited supply of breathable air. It looks like there’s a self-sustaining, earth-like atmosphere down there.”
“Callum, are you reading this?” Jack asked, as he began to panic. “What are you seeing?”
There was no response. Jack and Sophia exchanged worried expressions, as the image on the monitor suddenly turned to static. The radio channel had gone completely silent. They had frantically searched every available frequency, before realizing that their contact with the rest of the crew had been completely severed.
The Drellic Saga: Books One, Two and Three Page 6