Cindy finds the slow spinning view quite unsettling. “George, what just happened?” The view directly ahead of her shows moving stars, the moon, then Earth, then more stars as the ship rolls over and over, completely out of control. A small group of three in the main hangar deck finding nothing to hold onto, float away.
George powers his console up from his suit then tries to fathom what’s going on. “Well, I have some good news and some bad news. What do you want first?”
Luckily it’s too dark for anyone to read Cindy’s exasperated expression. “Everything you have.” Does he even realize that we are in the dark, with no power, drifting in space. “Anything is good news right now.” He is so disconnected at times. She continues her private thoughts while awaiting his answer.
“Well, the good news is we shall have power soon! It looks like we tripped the main circuit breaker in the reactor room.” George hesitates as he wonders how to continue. “The bad news is that when that circuit is reset, every system will power up.” Silence is his reply. “Every system; lights, life support, artificial gravity, and GUS, along with our consoles.”
Cindy is just starting to get irritated when the ramifications of this hit home. “If they reset the breakers, everything that’s floating will hit the deck!”
“Yes, at Earth’s gravity plus fifteen percent, and we have no way of warning anyone.”
The seconds tick by as the ship rolls over and over, each slow revolution adding to everyone’s stress levels as all they can do is wait. Whereas Cindy is sickened by the revolving view, John relishes in it. He becomes mindful of how strong the superstructure must be throughout the ship. He is further thankful that most of the crew spent time in the zero-g room, in preparation for this mission.
Down in reactor control, teams frantically locate flashlights, as many begin to fear the worst. Fortunately the individual terminals monitoring each reactor still function. Crew at these terminals study various gauges and readouts and one by one relax. A voice calls out from somewhere nearby. “Hey, it’s alright! It’s just the main breaker.” His tone picks up as he looks at the breaker switch. “Just have to reset it.”
“WAIT!” A voice calls out in panic from the darkened room, a beam of light weaves around haphazardly. The resetting of the breaker is far quicker than any words could be, no matter how hastily spoken. By chance the man at the breaker, either from sheer luck, or from his desire for normalcy is standing on the actual floor when he resets the switch. The effects are instantaneous throughout the ship. Everything not secured, abruptly crashes to the floor. Many have the wind knocked out of them as they strike the deck with bone jarring force. Others are not so fortunate as they collide with objects less friendly. One crew member, floating over an area of decking without gravity plating, makes his way, hand over hand, down the corridor. With the power back on, the area is well lit. Up ahead he can make out the section where welders have done their best to join plating to the alien floor. As he makes his way carefully forward, he smiles as he passes a sign, 'Warning : No Artificial Gravity Plates’. Sorta noticed, he chuckles to himself just as his arms and then his head cross the threshold. The effect is almost immediate. His hands then arms snap downward as does his head. The sound of his skull hitting the deck followed by the sickening crunch of his neck breaking would weaken anyone. Slowly, in a horrible dance macabre, his lifeless body rolls forward as momentum carries his floating legs across the weld line, where they too, then smash onto the deck.
The main cargo area with the three shuttles is just pure chaos. Crates and barrels lay smashed and dented where they fell, spilling all manner of contents. The shuttles by some miracle seem unaffected. There are a number of injuries as people slam onto deck plates, or are themselves struck by falling objects.
Meanwhile back in the reactor control room these last few seconds find one anxious man also standing, albeit with bent knees, his hand still on the circuit breaker. Sweat drips down his face, arms, and back. His mind races, imagining what is happening throughout the ship. Finally he lets his fingers slip from the switch as a bedlam of alarms assault his senses. The nuclear reactors themselves coped with the sudden pull of the alien gravity, their associated cooling systems did not fare so well. Pipe work that was never designed for such stresses now lays cracked or buckled with vital cooling fluid leaking all over, much of it radioactive. Alarms sound as people evacuate as fast as they can.
Cindy slams her intercom symbol as she shouts over countless alarms sounding on the bridge. “All departments are to provide damage and casualty reports immediately.” She looks over to George. “Well, we made to space in one piece, now let’s hope we can keep her together.” She tries to avoid watching the rotating star field before her as she faces forward again. It’s making her quite nauseous.
George with his suit still connected to the Gamin terminal suddenly receives a trajectory feed seconds before a new alarm sounds out on the bridge. A familiar metallic sounding voice accompanies the new alarm. His ear piece translates the words instantly, scaring him greatly. Disconnecting from the console, he turns to John and shouts out loudly. “Collision imminent!”
Cindy gasps as the rotating view before her is rapidly filled by a satellite. They are rotating toward it, and fast.
Captain John slams his hands onto the Gamin console, desperately searching for the right thruster controls. Finding them he scans the data before him then makes a ‘gut’ decision.
Thrusters fire from many parts of the spacecraft, slowly arresting her roll. The Terran, upside down, floats up and over the satellite, giving all on the bridge a very close up view. As John completes the maneuver the alien voice ceases, as does one of the many alarms. “We’re OK,” says John as he continues to pilot the massive ship up and over the satellite. Could almost reach out and touch that one, but he keeps that thought to himself.
Everyone on the bridge heaves a collective sigh of relief. Suddenly, there is a resounding whir, everyone jumps as frayed nerves get pushed that little bit further. Life support systems kick in, once again thick foul smelling alien air gets circulated throughout the ship. Virtually everyone curls their noses up at the pungent odor and heaviness of the atmosphere. Cindy smiles disparagingly as she tries to keep her breakfast down. Oh yeah, we’re all good now!
Location:
Wenchang satellite launch center
China
Commander Jie is most impressed as he observes the later stages of the launch. Watching the same satellite grid that destroyed China’s rocket a few months back, now firing on the spaceship, brings back unpleasant memories. His eyes are glued to the powerful telescope when the lasers abruptly cease firing. A dull glow now emanates from the rotating ship. He can even discern what appears to be gouge marks in the hull. As the spacecraft gains altitude it rolls over and narrowly misses an orbiting satellite. Once it avoids this obstacle it stops its roll and just floats there, hanging in space.
Taking his eyes away from the telescope he tries to understand what he has just witnessed. Why did the satellites stop firing? Perplexed he returns to look again. The spacecraft has moved from his view, but he finds it easily enough. Observing the ship brings a thought to mind. He pulls his eyes away in shock as the idea develops. “Get me the video feed, I want to watch it, now!”
It does not take the technicians very long to comply. Seated in a meeting room with about two dozen others, Commander Jie scrutinizes the recording carefully. “There!” He jumps up from his chair as he points. “Ah ha!” Looking around the room authoritatively, he gleefully beams. “Find out what signal went out when that glow started.”
Finding the signal should be pretty easy, he thinks. The launch was recorded by powerful radio telescopes as well as telescopes. Replicating the signal, now that may prove quite a difficult task, he continues to muse. But he is not concerned with ‘how to do it’, he is just pleased with his discovery.
His preliminary report that afternoon begins a chain of events that he could never in hi
s wildest dreams begin to imagine.
Earth Orbit
Location:
Starship Terran
Planetary Orbit
Earth
The starship Terran slowly maneuvers away from Earth, even as her crew adjusts to the intricacies of space flight. John makes slight corrections to their orbit with the many thrusters at his command. In doing so he starts to get a real ‘feel’ for the ship’s responsiveness, or lack thereof. George reluctantly steps from his suit and lets Henry check on him as reports of damage and casualties begin to arrive at the bridge. Cindy listens to each account with more and more apprehension, every new problem adding to an ever growing list. Andrew and Joe get to work putting theory into practice as they study their console’s star charts. Joe looks at a display that comes up on his console, then outside through the panoramic view afforded by the windows. He frowns at the disparity, but before he can begin to think about what he sees, Cindy interrupts everyone’s thoughts.
“We have fatalities.” Her voice fades, as the troubling news sinks in. People have died this day, she can’t get the thought from her mind. She has dealt with death before, but this is different, somehow. “John do you have any way to put us on some sort of auto pilot? I want a meeting in the hangar deck with everyone.”
John looks back to his console, “Ahh,” he ventures while scanning the myriad of symbols.
George speaks up. “Yes, I can show you when Henry is done here.” He gives Henry a disparaging look.
Henry stares back and sighs. “George if only you understood how lucky you are.”
“What do you mean?” George says, genuinely surprised.
“You were poisoned!” Henry gets up and heads over to the body suit. With a gloved hand he wipes the inside surface where George’s hands were. “A contact poison was applied to the inside of your suit. I really don’t know how you survived.”
Cindy’s swings her head around at Henry’s words. “What?” I need to find out what’s happening on my ship, sabotage, deaths, poisoning, she reflects. Getting out of her chair she walks over to Peter and very quietly whispers into his ear. He looks directly into her eyes as he considers her words, then simply nods in agreement.
Returning to her chair, Cindy chews her lower lip with her top teeth while mulling over everything. “OK. George, you said earlier that we were sabotaged, and now Henry says you were poisoned.” She pauses for a moment. “I don’t want this information to leave the room. We must let the perpetrator, or perpetrators reveal themselves.” Her eyes narrow as anger builds up inside her.
Henry packs up his medical kit, takes the swipe sample from the suit, and a blood sample from George. “I will conduct more thorough tests in the medical bay, after I help Akira with casualties.”
Peter stands, glances at Cindy, then surprises everyone with yet another revelation. “I shall assist the two of you, I have some medical training.”
Cindy’s brow tightens as she wonders if he is telling the truth or not. He really is a mystery, glad he is on our side. Chills run up her spine. I hope he is on our side. She watches him leave the bridge as she tries to push this new thought from her mind. He does have full access to the ship. Her eyes narrow again, wondering, as they follow his departure.
One by one alarms silence themselves as crews repair or bypass damaged systems. Reactor control has the worst of it though. Leaking cooling systems have spewed radioactive liquid, and gasses into their immediate areas. With radiation alarms blaring from at least two reactors, crews are as scared as they are busy. Fortunately by luck or design, each reactor was built into its own isolated section, then hooked to the power grid via a specialized ‘control room’. George and Joe worked long and hard with engineers to build the various interface terminals and consoles required. Many had argued that GUS should have complete control over the twenty reactors. Fortunately for the crew, the final decision was that GUS would control the reactors output up to one hundred percent, but no more, thus ‘Reactor Control’ was born.
It takes the crew quite a while before everyone, bar the wounded and medics, are assembled in the hangar area. Cindy has spent the time carefully considering her words. She steps up onto a box and quieting the crowd with a raised hand, begins.
“Folks. We lost four people during the launch, including the Atlanta flight crew.” Pausing, she rehashes her upcoming words one last time, hushed whispers emanate from the crowd. Continuing on she raises her voice over the murmuring. “We find ourselves in a dilemma. We can’t land this ship, nor can the shuttles hold everyone. We do have supplies on board, and it would seem that life support is working, even if the air is hard to breath.” The voices from the crowd pick up in volume as various innuendoes about the pungent air sound out. She raises her hand again and waits for the noise level to diminish. “We will continue the mission people!” Expecting an uproar, she pauses, but is surprised at the silence that descends upon those gathered. Dazed expressions greet her wondering eyes. Taking advantage of the unexpected quiet she continues on. “Starting tomorrow, everyone is to report to Peter. He will draft a list of those onboard, and assign duties. To the people that were not meant to be here, I am truly sorry.” She pauses again, but this time only for a second. “There is a lot of cleaning up to do, we also need to inventory everything on board. Now let’s get to work people.”
As she turns to leave a solitary voice calls from the crowd. “What made us take off then? How can it have been an accident? Huh?” Others in the crowd add their own sentiments while Cindy considers her answer carefully. She does not pause long as the crowd gets rowdier with each passing moment.
“We had a systems malfunction which meant that we either launched, or exploded. It was something to do with the alien computers and totally unforeseeable. still trying to figure it out, but think it was a normal process for this spaceship.” She wants any potential saboteurs to feel safe, so they can be drawn out. Glancing once more around the throng, she steps down and hurries back to the bridge.
The four deaths cause Cindy to reconsider the many sections of the ship which have a mix of Gamin and human technologies. Appropriate signs warning intrepid crewman of various dangers, apparently are not enough. She had planned to remind the crew to pay attention to all posted notices, especially 'Warning : No Artificial Gravity Plates.', or 'Warning : Section may Decompress Without Notice.'
She gets back to the bridge to find that in her distracted state almost everyone else has beat her. She sits down in the centrally located command chair, her chair, clears her mind, then starts to formulate a plan. She told the crew that the mission would continue, well, the mission brief was supposed to be tomorrow. Just have to wing it, she manages a smile at the thought.
“Captain John, if you would be so kind as to take us out of orbit. Let’s get some distance away, just in case we’re left powerless for a time.”
“Yes Ma’am,” he responds heartily.
“Andrew, Joe, see if you can get in contact with ground control.”
Both men look at each other, bewildered.
Cindy sees their dumfounded expressions. “Just try will you. I am going down to reactor control, then the medical bay, to see first-hand what’s going on.” Cindy leaves the bridge, with its moving star field, quite happily.
John pilots this massive hybrid on what could only be described as her shakedown cruise. Engaging a number of thrusters, he gradually allocates power. The ship responds, slowly at first, but gradually picks up speed. As the Terran breaks orbit, he banks her round, for no reason other than habit, the internal dampeners negating the effects of inertia. Thinking back to a time, not too long ago, when he piloted the shuttle Endeavour on a daring rescue mission. Never for a second did he ever think that he would be piloting a spacecraft again, let alone a vessel some one kilometer wide and three kilometers long.
John also notices that when the gravity lift system shut down, many of his terminal symbols vanished, while others appeared. Makes sense, he muses. I guess
we shouldn’t engage the main drive when on a planet. He looks at the sub-light and main engine symbols with curiosity. Everything still seems accessible just not directly from the main control. Interesting, maybe both can be activated at once.
The bridge speakers crackle to life. “Terran come in, this is ground control.” Joe’s face beams with excitement as the words resound. He makes an exaggerated gesture to John for him to reply.
John hesitates as he drags his thoughts from the terminal’s new symbols. “Ground control, Captain John of the Terran here.”
“Captain, what is your status?”
With a heavy sigh John replies. “There was a systems failure, we either launched, or hit the ground. We have reports of four deaths at this time. It was a rough take off to say the least. It will take us some time to sort out what happened. Reactor control has some issues, George is working on it.”
“Understood. Of the deaths, who did we lose?”
John thinks of his friends, that died this day. “Ground control, we lost the flight crew of the Atlanta, and one more man, who has yet to be identified.”
The reply from ground control is a long time in coming. “Sorry John, I know you were close to them. We want to discuss what to do from here on in. When things settle down we need to have a brief with Cindy.”
“Copy that, will contact you shortly, Terran out.”
John gazes around the bridge for a moment then focuses on the task at hand. He gets back to piloting, which takes his mind off everything else. The Terran’s maneuvers take her past the moon, her speed building as John gains more confidence with the ships maneuverability, or lack thereof. While experimenting with the controls he keeps anxiously eyeing the Gamin sub-light and main drive systems, they are yet to be tested.
Discovery (Terran Chronicles) Page 4