The Colony Ship Vanguard: The entire eight book series in one bundle

by John Thornton

  “So there are no corridors or hallways from the habitat to the needle ship?” Gretchen asked.

  “The transport tube system crosses over at the center constituent joint, from what Tennard has said. Other passages are somewhere, but this constituent joint obviously is just struts and bracings. There must be parts which decouple when it comes apart, but I am not sure where those would be,” Brinley said. “I imagine for security reasons the connections could be retractable, sort of like the bridge on Inaccessible Island.” It was obvious her mind was working to understand all the engineering aspects of this. “There is so much I need to learn and to tell Tennard….”

  Brinley turned to Gretchen and gave her a huge hug. With tears running down her face, Brinley said, “Without you two, Tennard would have died as well. He is all I have for family, and…well… he is not really a relative… but… he is like a father to me. Thank you!”

  Gretchen patted her back and held her close. “You lost a lot with the massacre.”

  Brinley pulled away. “Sorry about that.” She looked at Paul. “Thank you too Paulie.”

  The carriage now reached the scaffolding of the constituent joint and again the alteration of gravity’s pull was felt. Now the scaffold felt like it was down.

  “The floor of this carriage must have gravity manipulation generators in it,” Brinley observed. “That would make sense for transporting things, like people, that do better in a gravity field.”

  Crossing between the cylinder and onto the needle ship went swiftly. The carriage shifted back onto the hull of the needle ship and now up was what had been down not long before. The carriage made its way in a more winding manner now that they had reached the needle ship. They passed several junctions where the tracks led in two or more different directions, but the carriage continued along at its steady pace, taking various turns at those junctions. There were house size protrusions and some things that looked like storage tanks, antenna arrays, as well as the myriad of giant pipes, tubes, boxes, and objects of unknown contents and unusual shapes. The tracks led around and between them, and the visibility ahead was limited by the denseness of the things built onto the hull.

  “Cover up the lights!” Brinley commanded suddenly as they came around a large octagonal shaped area which had blocked their forward view. She then smacked the button on the automacube which read ‘Halt.’

  The carriage nearly immediately stopped moving.

  Gretchen threw her backpack against one of the lights in the corner as Paul did the same for the other corner. Brinley used her own backpack and a spare shirt to cover the other two. The inside of the carriage became very dim and the light glow from the lights on the hull was all that lit up the interior of the carriage.

  “What are we doing?” Paul asked anxiously.

  “Look ahead!” Brinley said.

  The tracks ahead, which were along the hull of the needle ship led roughly parallel to the long axis of both the cylinders and the needle ship, but the tracks veered around the things on the hull. From where they had stopped they could see down a length of the track. On the tracks a ways ahead, was another transparent cuboid carriage. Inside it were several people.

  “They are dressed like that midshipman,” Gretchen said. She was very glad Brinley had stopped the carriage.

  The people in the other carriage were wearing uniforms of dark blue with gold trim. There were red epaulets on their shoulders. The carriage they were in was progressing steadily along in the same direction as the one they had been taking.

  “So the Central Planning Office is out here?” Paul asked.

  “The CPO controls the needle ship and all the stellar drive systems of the Vanguard,” Brinley said. “I think we hid the lights fast enough so they did not see us, or maybe will think it is an unoccupied carriage. I hope.”

  The people in the CPO carriage did not move around inside the carriage much as it traveled. It then stopped, and slowly tipped sideways. The people inside leaned and moved until they were standing parallel to the hull. The treads retracted away and into the hull. They then turned and faced the hull and walked into it.”

  “There must be a door opening there, and the gravity manipulation changed in that carriage,” Gretchen said. “It certainly looks odd.”

  The clear permalloy carriage cuboid, now lacking the drive treads, folded in upon itself and then slipped inside a long slot in the hull. There was now no outward evidence that the carriage had ever been there. Just the empty tracks leading across the panorama of the Vanguard’s needle ship hull.

  “If we start up again, we are headed right toward that same place. If this carriage sets us in there, we will be surrounded by those people,” Paul stated. “If they are like Larissa, this will be very bad.”

  “Paulie? Do we just wait out here?” Brinley asked with a smile. “I know what you mean. I do not want to be surrounded by CPO in their own territory.”

  “I wondered if following the automacube would be a trap. Is this what Klara set up for us all along? Some elaborate way to get us way out here to her superiors?” Paul wondered aloud.

  “If it is a trap, they will regret springing it on me,” Gretchen said with determination. She patted the holstered pistol.

  All three looked at each other.

  “Are you ready?” Brinley asked.

  “Do we have a choice?” Paul asked.

  “Not really.” Brinley pressed the ‘Proceed’ button. The carriage started up and continued to roll along on the treads which interlocked to the tracks on the hull.

  “We are almost at that same spot,” Brinley said. “We will have a bit of a warning when it tips to the side to let us out. When that happens, we should rush the door and try to get some surprise on our side.” She drew out her handgun.

  “Will that help?” Paul asked, but he too drew out his handgun.

  “Paul, we have to try!” Gretchen said as she looked at the pistol made by Willie. It seemed like it was so long ago when that Quartermaster had given them the set of pistols. Now they had only this one, the other being in possession by Larissa. Gretchen wondered what had happened to Willie. Had he made it to some safe destination through the teleportation system, or had he died in the failure of Dome 17? She wished him the best, even though she had no idea what had been his fate.

  The carriage continued on and passed right by the place where the CPO people had entered the hull. The door was not visible; it looked like just another spot on the hull. The slot where the carriage had folded itself into also was nondescript. Only the red light on top of small pyramid shape showed them where they were.

  “That could be anywhere,” Paul said. “I cannot even tell where they went.”

  “It was right there. We passed it by.” Brinley put her handgun away. “It was not an External Repair Station, nor a hanger bay, but I am sure we are beyond where the CPO got off. We are now under, if you can use that term, a different cylinder and habitat. I have not seen it from this side, or angle, but I think it is the one with the Wilds. The first of this cylinder’s constituent joints is coming up. Will the carriage take us up that way?”

  Despite there being a set of tracks which did lead up that scaffolding on the constituent joint, the carriage continued to move along the needle ship’s hull. They passed several more constituent joints, one of which had a very thick center and was more than just scaffolding.

  “That is the transport tube system,” Brinley said. “The transport vehicles pass through there.”

  “So we have been in the needle ship?” Gretchen asked. “At least in the transport tube system?”

  “Yes, when we have gone from habitat to habitat, we passed out of one cylinder and into the needle ship and then back out. The speeds of the transport vehicles must be more than I thought. Tennard said there were inertia inhibitors, but I did not know to what extent.”

  The carriage then came to the next constituent joint and this time it change course and head along that scaffolding. The gravity manipulati
on changed to match its adjustment so that the floor still seemed like down, even though everything outside now seemed sideways again. It was rather disorienting.

  Along the constituent joint were several black colored automacubes. One was welding a section of the cross struts with its manipulation arm. These black automacubes looked very similar to the blue ones, but had a bit more of an industrial look about them. Their wheels also gripped the hull with a type of force which gave off a bit of frictional light as they rolled about.

  The carriage moved onward and again changed direction as it went on the tracks from the constituent joint to the cylinder. At this part of the hull there were fewer large obstructions so the tracks led in a straighter manner.

  “Brinley? Do you recognize any of this area from your shuttle flights?” Gretchen asked.

  “No. The perspective from on the hull here, as compared to in flight is too different. I do wish I knew the sequence to where we are, but it is all new to me in this part of our search.”

  After they had passed a fair distance away from the constituent joint the carriage came to a sudden halt.

  “Did you push the button?” Paul asked in alarm.

  “No,” Brinley said as she pulled out her handgun.

  The carriage slowly tipped sideways and the gravity manipulation changed along with it. The yellow automacube unjacked its cable and rolled along with the shifting pull of gravity.

  Paul pulled out his weapon as did Gretchen.

  “Paulie, do not shoot either of us!” Brinley said.

  “I will do my best.”

  “I have seen your best marksmanship,” Brinley chucked. “Do better than that.”

  The cuboid now rested sideways against the hull, but down still felt like it was toward the floor. Then the taupe bottom folded away and the treads were gone.

  “That door is about to open,” Brinley said excitedly.

  The clear permalloy of that side of the carriage slid away, and the door opened.

  18 Causeway 147

  Paul raced into the darkness as the door parted. He stumbled badly and tripped over something about knee high. His handgun went tumbling to the deck with a clang.

  “Paul, are you hurt?” Gretchen activated the fusion pack light and surveyed the area. She had one hand on the fusion pack, and with the other she aimed the pistol.

  There were two blue automacubes in the room, along with Paul who was rubbing his leg where he had smacked into the closest automacube.

  The yellow automacube rolled out of the clear cuboid and Brinley followed. The door whooshed shut behind them. On the wall a number lit up, ‘1’ followed by ‘2’ and ‘3’ and so on. The yellow automacube turned on its wheels and began to roll away.

  “Not yet Squash,” Brinley said and punched the ‘Halt’ button.

  Paul picked up the handgun he had dropped and surveyed the area. The room was a shambles. The walls were rust colored with brown patches between the arch shaped posts which separated the parts of the unconventionally shaped room. An antique computer monitor sat in a cubby of one wall. The front of the ancient machine was smashed in. There were overhead pipes, but some of them had ruptured in the past and the fluids they once carried had spilled onto the deck leaving old dried stains and long remnants of where the fluid had also leaked down between the plates of the walls. There were a number of cargo crates, gray colored, stacked against one wall. Some of them were intact, but most had at least one side torn open and the contents were missing. There was a closed steel door at the side of the room, almost in a corner.

  “Why are there automacubes here?” Paul asked in disgust.

  “Paulie, maybe they are here just to trip you?” Brinley asked.

  “Well they did that. I just… oh never mind,” Paul fumbled with his words. “My leg hurts now. I guess I can add that to my arm pits, and my back.”

  Gretchen gave him a brief hug.

  Brinley looked at the wall where the numbers were counting upward. When it reached ‘100’ the illuminated numerals disappeared. She tapped on the wall, “There is no way to know that passage to the carriage was here. No seams, no evidence of a doorway, no color pads for controls. Nothing. Just a common access port that you can find on most any wall.”

  “That is really strange. I would never know we were along the outer side of the ship here. The hull did not even seem that thick when we passed through the doorway,” Gretchen added.

  “That was an illusion I think. The clear permalloy was hiding how thick it really was. There was a sort of semi-opaque sleeve to the door. Another new thing to me, but part of what made that carriage accessible.”

  Brinley squatted down and accessed the automacube Paul had stumbled into. “This one is uncharged.” She then stepped over to the other one. “This one also seems to have no active power, yet the wheel tracks in the dust suggest that these machines moved her recently.”

  “Do we need another automacube? We already have that one leading us to fun places like this,” Paul said.

  Brinley was scrapping the dust with her fingers. “The dust is moved about the same amount as in the wheel marks left by Squash. So these machines came here recently.” She stood up and walked over to the wall where there was a ventilation duct. Placing her hand up against it she could feel a bit of air movement. “Air is moving in and out of here, and the tracks lead to that door. So the blues did get here very recently. I guess they could have rolled in here on their last bits of power, but why come in here?”

  “What does it matter?” Paul said.

  “I guess it does not,” Brinley she then pushed the ‘Proceed’ button on the yellow automacube. “Lead on Squash, my guess is you will head to the door.”

  The yellow machine started to roil forward toward the door. Gretchen reached over and pressed the ‘Halt’ button.

  “Wait, just a moment. If I connect in the fusion pack, the blue automacubes will be powered up. Can you check out why they are here then?” Gretchen asked. “It seems almost too much of a coincidence that they arrive here, right before we do, and that they are both on their last bits of power?”

  “Well I could access their logs and overview their memory vaults, sure. That may or may not give us some answers as to why, but it definitely would tell us where they have been and what they have been doing. Good idea Gretchen,” Brinley replied.

  “Do we really have time to mess around with inert automacubes?” Paul asked. “We should just continue onward and find Tiffany.”

  Gretchen placed the fusion pack on the deck next to one of the blue automacubes. The light from the fusion pack shone around the room. She then drew out a cable and started to jack it into the back side of the automacube.

  Without warning, the blue automacube’s manipulation arm swung swiftly around and grabbed the fusion pack. It deftly shut down the fusion pack light. The room was plunged into darkness.

  “Hey! Those were without power!” Brinley cried into the blackness The motors of both blue automacubes roared to life as their wheels spun. Dust floated up in the air.

  Gretchen tried to grab where the automacube had been, but caught only empty air. “Paul turn on the other fusion pack!”

  There was a thud as Paul slipped off the backpack and tried to rummage through it. He was struck by something from behind and fell to the deck.

  “One of them knocked me down!” Paul yelled. “I cannot see anything.”

  The door near the corner suddenly opened and there was a rectangle of dull light. The two blue automacubes raced away. Brinley leaped toward the door when the last blue automacube turned on an extremely brilliant light. She threw up her eyes to cover them from its dazzle.

  The door slid shut with a powered swish. There was a distant sound of clanging and deep clunking sounds.

  “I got this one!” Gretchen yelled as she grabbed the yellow machine in the dark. “Squash will give us some light.”

  “I had enough light for a while,” Paul said as he rubbed his eyes and tried to get t
he after images of the flash to recede. “What just happened?”

  “Great question Paulie. Those automacubes were not charged, I am certain that was the reading on each of them.”

  Paul turned on the fusion pack light he had found in his backpack. It was on the lowest setting and a dreary glow came from it. Gretchen then activated the yellow automacube by pushing the ‘Proceed’ button. It had some light from its display. It rolled toward the door.

  “My fusion pack is gone. One of those blues must have taken it,” Gretchen explained. “Why? It was like they did not want me to energize them.”