The Sunseed Saga

by Brett Bam

  Nice to see you, make sure to re-clip your line. Signed Berea. With the oxylik filling their lungs and the faceplate down they could not talk, instead they used sign language. When Oscar reached the bottom of the ladder he disconnected his tether and fastened the safety clip to the hull clasp before walking over to her in the simulated gravity. The hull was at its narrowest here. Where the engine housing met the life support modules there was a small gap, and for a few steps he was walking along the spine of the superstructure with a drop on both sides. It was a thin narrow bridge over the deepest of depths. Others in the crew, Moabi especially, were very lax in their procedure with the tethers. Jack Mac seemed to consider the policy to remain tethered at all times when outside the ship more of a hindrance than a help. Oscar was terrified out here, in a place that seemed so high above anything, and he was religious about his tether. He always secured it before moving. He could see lights 70 metres away flickering brightly as Jack Mac and Moabi worked on the hull. He bent his head and took the few necessary strides to the work station.

  Berea looked at him thoughtfully and signed, Any word from the Skipper?

  Yes. Safe. Oscar wasn’t as fluent in the language yet. Berea had to sign slowly and repeat herself which irritated her.

  The lucky bitch, I wish I could have gone down to the surface. She’s actually standing on a new world! The excitement was obvious in her gestures.

  World not new. First home of man.

  Huh! You sound like Jack Mac. Anyway, there aren't that many people in our lifetime that can lay claim to actually standing on Earth, so as far as our generation is concerned it might as well be a new world. And there seems to be plenty of archaeological evidence that mankind started on Mars first and that the Cataclysm that drove us from Earth wasn't the first time we'd survived a world dying.

  Oscar looked at her strangely, his eyes wide in surprise. You’re a Redman?

  Ha, ha, very funny you little geek.

  Now you sound like Jack Mac, that made Berea laugh.

  I’m not a fanatic or anything. I've read about all seven sites on Mars. It’s pretty convincing.

  Oscar shrugged, a useless gesture in his exposure suit. Never been there. Also read the studies. I think it’s a Korporatsie hoax. Six sites debunked.

  Ah! signed Berea, Six of seven equals reasonable doubt!

  It was a popular theory, and in the more bigoted parts of Korporatsie society, it was almost a religion.

  Who knows, maybe they'll find proof one day and we'll all have to believe. People already abandoned the world once, why not twice? We ruined two habitable planets!

  With a ruder sign, Berea turned back to her work. They kept their hands busy and so the chatter was kept to a minimum. They finished sealing the coupling within an hour and started resealing the bulkhead portal without a break. Berea had been outside for almost four hours. Her sensors were paling from blue to green to amber and when they switched to red it meant the oxylik was depleted of O2 and filled with CO2. It was almost time to start breathing again. Jack Mac and Moabi had gone past them a few minutes before, their work complete. Berea climbed the ladder first and hauled the tools up while Oscar did a final check on their handiwork. The panels were siliconed and sealed. He crossed the gap and grabbed the ladder, remembering just in time to unclip his safety line from the hull clasp before he climbed. It was his nerviest moment and demanded his focus. He was looking at the clip, loose in his hand, when it happened.

  With a ring like the striking of a bell, the magnetic tether holding Earth Harbour to the planet snapped off. One moment it was there and the next the Harbour was in freefall like a thrown plate. The chaos was sudden and extreme as Earth Harbour began to tumble end over end. The fleet of Protocol managed vessels thundering across the sky broke from their neat, orderly patterns and changed slowly into a wild contortion of colliding and shattering debris. Several huge explosions erupted as large cargo ships crashed into the forest of transmitting beacons on its outer skin. The magnetic tether generator machinery in the centre of the city screeched with a banshee wail as their turbines spun out of control with nothing to stop them. They exploded in a white blast which had no noise in the vacuum. Gravity shifted through 90 degrees again and again, and then began to fade.

  The first elevator arrived. It came screaming in over the jagged horizon of the underside and slammed into a skyscraper, destroying it in a blast of fire, smoke and dust. Some elevators in the magnetic tether had enough momentum to escape Earth’s atmosphere and these now slammed one after the other into the harbour wreaking havoc as they came. First, they slammed into the open depression, but as the harbour spun they impacted on the range of mountains and the outer skin near the docks, adding to the spin and knocking it from its orbit.

  The Ribbontail was exposed to the chaos and locked in place. The docking clamps that held her in position were solid and stable, and the superstructure was more than capable of handling the light shaking she was getting. In the life support modules however, things were a little different. All the portals were fully dilated and the modules were fixed to the superstructure, not resting on their frictionless bearings. The ship was in a docked state and under permanent gravity conditions.

  In the medical module, Curtis was bent over an analyser examining a small piece of genetic material, completely absorbed. The chaos erupted into her world very suddenly. She was thrown across the room to bounce from a wall. She came to rest in a pool of shattered glass and spilled medical supplies, cutting herself badly. She did not get up and was flung again and again like a limp doll as the elevator’s impacts shook the harbour.

  Jack Mac and Moabi were preparing a meal in the galley. As soon as he found himself in free fall heading for the roof, Moabi’s reflexes took over. He twisted and took the blow on his legs; it wasn't too hard and he was left prepared for the landing. He rolled as he landed and came to his feet ready for another jolt, reaching for a solid handhold.

  Jack Mac was sitting at a table when it happened, and he simply hung on until it was over. His legs were swept from under him and he came down on his knees. Barking pain shot up his legs and he knew he'd broken the skin; he'd lose a little blood and limp for an hour but that was all.

  Berea was at the top of the ladder, leaning in the airlock to stow the toolbag. The sudden jolt tipped her inside but she didn’t fall far before being able to grab something secure.

  Oscar felt the ship heave and twist beneath him, his feet left the hull and he was cast high above the metallic plating, the safety clip still in his hand. The rungs of the ladder were just in front of him as he fell and he made an instinctive grab, but missed. He hit the hull of the Ribbontail with a bone-jarring thud and began to slide towards the gap. He was too stunned to do anything but watch in paralysed horror as he slid off the edge and fell into space with his disconnected safety line snapping loosely behind him.

  Berea watched in shock. She only needed a quick moment to recover from the pain of her fall, and then without thinking she sprinted and jumped from the top of the bulkhead in a high leap which carried her over the edge of the precipice and into the full light of the chaos. Her tether whistled out of its retractable loop behind her. She fell past the Ribbontail’s bulbous hull without noticing it, fixating on the tumbling form of her crewmate. She tapped the man overboard icon in her heads up display twice and as she did so she casually noticed the O2 display switch from light red to blood red. She wasn’t too concerned, this wouldn’t take her long. Except she wasn’t gaining on Oscar quickly enough, he was too far away and falling. She unclipped her tether and held it tightly in her left hand while she felt behind her for the emergency bottle of compressed expellant strapped to the small of her back. She held the bottle behind her and pulled the trigger in a long burst. A thick cloud of disintegrating ice crystals fluttered in her wake as she powered downwards, moving faster and faster. She was looking into a sparkling star field across which swarmed a host of flaming, exploding and careening ships. Then the tether g
rew suddenly taught in her hand and she was forced to drop it. Loose and falling, Berea felt a calm elation sweep over her. There was nothing but the task at hand, everything else faded.

  The Ribbontail was berthed near the edge of the harbour, and its ponderous tumble was moving the ship further and further away from the small pair of falling humans. They swept over the rim of the harbour and Berea found herself contemplating the chaos-strewn face of mother Earth.

  The chaos below them in the distance was more jarring and explicit than what was happening in the immediate sky. In spite of herself she felt her gaze refocus on the ground below Oscar. It was so far away it looked static.

  The continent of Africa was on fire. The southern hemisphere fading into the curvature of the horizon was a seething mass of turbid flame gushing black, acrid smoke into the upper stratosphere. The fact dawned on her that something somewhere had gone terribly wrong. She could see the entire canvas of destruction laid out before her and in it she saw not one place safe from the turbulence. The silence lay over everything like a smothering blanket and she was catching up with Oscar. They'd only fallen a couple of hundred metres, but the Ribbontail was receding by the second.

  Jack Mac’s voice crackled into life in her ear, “Berea, sitrep.”

  She tapped into her heads up again and signalled, man overboard and disconnected tether.

  “Yeah kiddo, I got your beacon. You stay where you are and I'll come get you. Just stay clear of any traffic, okay?”

  She signalled an OK and added a winking emoticon. Jack Mac didn’t laugh.

  Then Oscar was right by her and she slammed into him, wrapping her arms and legs around him, she caught him a blow with the air cylinder but had no air to apologise. He was conscious but in shock. The suit was an effective barrier for most things, including a fall such as he'd suffered, but Berea was worried about broken or fractured bones. His terrorised eyes met hers and she saw the oxylik chamber puffing as he breathed the fluid heavily. She made eye contact and gave him an exaggerated wink, then clipped them together and started scanning the sky for incoming debris. They both watched an elevator slam into the harbour at tremendous velocity and explode, Oscar grabbed her tightly. They were still falling, but Berea had the cylinder pointed to the harbour and its chaos, so they fell away and into space.

  Moabi found Curtis sitting up and shaking her head. She was bleeding from glass cuts to her arms and legs. Moabi helped her up, slipped her bodily into a gravity couch and handed her a small medical kit.

  “Sorry Doc, you’re on your own. Ship will be mobile shortly and we have two overboard. Hang on tight.”

  She nodded her head and then examined an ugly bruise already forming on her upper left arm. He moved away and left the module, headed for the stern airlock.

  On the RHS, Jack Mac slipped into Dalys' couch, ignoring the small twinge of invasive guilt he felt whenever he did this. He toggled his data glasses into the command console and activated all systems and an emergency start-up. None of the required safety checks were done, but that didn't concern Jack Mac. They had to move, now. He felt the crackle of the acceleration helix tightening, and the throb of the Tokomak coming up to speed. He attempted to reach Dalys and failed. He hoped Berea and the kid had done a good job reconnecting the dissipater placement crystals and grinned with satisfaction as they deployed perfectly, and several seconds faster. The ship was still shaking a fair amount in its moorings, translating into a vibration. He looked for but couldn't find the Protocol’s communication network. It simply wasn't there, which was shocking. He blew the seals on all the supply umbilicals and then triggered the larger explosive joints on the moorings. It would take hours of prep work before they could dock in a station again, but the Ribbontail fell free. Jack Mac opened a pouch on his belt and pulled out two gossamer thin gloves woven with circuitry. He slipped them on with practised ease. They were tight and made his fingers appear smooth and hairless. He put his hands on the flight pads and leaned into them. The inferior interface tattoos he now wore gave him control of the ship, although he would get nowhere the reaction time Dalys could. Nevertheless, he should be able to disconnect and fly to safety.

  The Ribbontail, fans flared and venting, boosted away from the stricken harbour and into the maelstrom of destruction that was the sky. Proximity alerts and collision vectors sprang up on the display and Jack Mac was kept hugely busy trying to thread a path through all the debris. Ships were spiralling in random patterns all about him, sometimes colliding and sometimes missing each other by millimetres, only to slam into something else. The diverse fuels carried by the ships were exploding in a great variety of colours, their concussion fields flashing into the vacuum like lightning. There was nothing Jack Mac could do about some of the smaller objects that lay in his path, so he simply ploughed into them, wincing at the rings of impact on the already ailing hull casing. He kissed his teeth at a particularly nasty bang and kept going. The computer had zeroed in on Berea and Oscar and the course looked clear enough. “Rendezvous in 30 seconds!” he barked.

  “In place, standing by.” Moabi was waiting with an inflated crash mat inside the open airlock. Jack Mac didn't bother to do a slow collection. He swung the Ribbontail to port and felt the stern kick out so they were drifting parallel to the drifting couple, the bow pointed at open space. He twisted the fans to starboard and boosted again. The bulk of the spaceship swivelled and swept towards the diminutive figures drifting in its shadow. His aim was perfect and he collected them like a ball in a catcher’s mitt. They fell through the open airlock and Moabi shut the door. The impact knocked the breath out of them but they were safe.

  “Romeo, Romeo, Romeo!” Moabi shouted, and on the RHS Jack Mac leaned into the pads once more. The Ribbontail thrust hard and sped away.

  The three crew members were trapped in the airlock for 15 minutes at seven g’s until Jack Mac eased off the thrust. As soon as they were in freefall, they floated Oscar to the med lab where Curtis was ready for him, and then Berea and Moabi headed for the RHS.

  “Nice flying there, Skipper.” said Moabi as soon as the portal dilated. He grinned at the sour look he got in reply.

  “Yeah, well, better get set on cleaning up all this mess. If the Skipper sees her ship like this she'll wring our necks.” All over the ship storage spaces had opened, scattering everything everywhere. Random bits of personal detritus tumbled through every space.

  “Speaking of Dalys, where is she?”

  “Maybe it’s time to look at the surface and see what's going on.” He set course and boosted, they had drifted over the world’s night side, far away from the chaos. Now they came in over the terminator and Africa spread out beneath them. Jack Mac kept a wary eye in the direction of the Harbour, watching for debris. He set a sensor to record everything it could and then turned his attention down to the planet.

  “Oh hellfire.”

  Long ribbons of fire, visible even from this height, snaked across the southern end of the dark continent, leaving a blackened mess behind each one. Explosions were blooming in several places, just below the bulge of Africa was a tremendous conglomeration of fire and spewing smoke, and far to the south the tip of the continent looked to be cracked open to the core. Several new volcanoes were building themselves to immense heights very quickly. Dalys was down there somewhere.

  “Is she dead?"

  “No!”

  They all stayed silent after the short exchange, watching the chaos below. They drifted in a high orbit and recorded everything they could point the sensors at. They filmed the dramatic death of Earth Harbour as it crashed into the Atlantic Ocean and caused a tsunami of wild proportions that broke the spine of the Atlantic Sea Cities. The wave tore into North and South America, Europe and Western Africa, in some places washing up to a thousand kilometres inland. Many fires burning on the surface survived the deluge and kept burning regardless. They watched the southern tip of Africa melt itself into oblivion. The fallout from this would take decades to dissipate, and wha
t would it do to the Worldstorm? Whatever happened had set back the recovery of the Earth by a tremendous margin. Jack Mac could not for the life of him figure out what could have caused this calamity. He prayed to Life, Luck and Fate that his captain was safe from harm.

  Curtis managed to repair Oscar’s three broken ribs and the fracture in his tibia nicely. The bones knitted and strengthened well, but she still forbade him to walk on the leg for another couple of hours. The lacerations on her skin were also easily fixed and the medical seals were about ready to come off, leaving an angry red line that she knew from experience would take days to fade. Most of the crew were on the RHS at their stations when the call from Dalys came in.

  “Ribbontail, Ribbontail, Ribbontail. Dalys, Dalys, Dalys. Come back.”

  Berea was monitoring the comms channels scanning everything she could and recording what little there was. She spiked the call onto the general comms system so that everybody could hear.

  “Dalys, this is the Ribbontail, reading you loud and clear.”

  The crew yelled in chorus. Dalys was alive.

  “Ribbontail, what’s your situation?” Jack Mac had to grin. She was trapped at the bottom of a gravity well with volcanoes going off everywhere and was still asking him for a sitrep.