by William Wood
“That’s great,” Calvin said, impressed.
“I was about to test it. Let’s see if it works,” Astra said excitedly.
Calvin sat down while Astra worked the controls on her computer. A star map appeared on a center monitor, with eight red flashing dots spread in a line leading to the center of the galaxy.
“It worked,” Astra said smiling.
“This is great,” Calvin said. “So which one we are heading to now?”
“That one,” Astra pointed. “That’s strange. Our estimated travel time was ten days. Now it’s eight.”
“Is it because the scanner has an accurate lock on it?” Calvin asked.
“I suppose that’s possible, but we already know what planets all the segments are on. The detector will just tell us where on the planets they are. But there shouldn’t be a difference of two days traveling in hyperspace.”
“Unless the records aren’t accurate.”
“The records are accurate,” Astra said. “Maybe the segment moved.”
“You don’t think someone took it, do you?” Calvin asked. “But what are the chances of that anyway? An Arlandian and Alerian have to open the vault together.”
“There are other ways to open a vault,” Astra said. “They’re not indestructible.”
“You think someone found it and blasted their way in?”
“I don’t know, but we’ll find out in eight days. Look at this one.” She pointed to another red dot. It was surrounded by a blue cloud.
“What’s that?” Calvin asked.
“It’s a gas giant,” Astra said, displaying a picture of the planet on one of the monitors.
“Interesting. It’s like they found the most hostile planets possible to hide the segments on. Well, with the exception of Arlandia.”
“I don’t know. There was a lot of radiation. It seemed like a hostile place to me.”
“Good point,” Astra said.
Calvin and Astra stared at the image for a long time without speaking. It was beautiful. The planet was a bluish-silvery sphere with huge swaths of white swirling clouds.
“We’re too far away for details,” Astra said. “But if it’s a typical gas giant, finding that segment will be a little more difficult than finding the last one, even with our new detector. Most likely there will be huge amounts of radiation that could prevent the detector from working. So, if the base is floating around in the atmosphere somewhere, it’ll be really hard to find. If it’s close to the core, I’m not sure our shields will be strong enough to get us down to it.”
“Is there a way to boost them, make them stronger?”
“I can try, but the pressure close to the core will be impossible to deal with, even with stronger shields.”
“But if that’s true, how could the base be down there?”
“It’s not that they put a base that far down,” Astra said. “But it’s been there a long time. Currents in the atmosphere could have dragged it down. I’m only saying it’s possible.”
“You mentioned before that you might be able to plug the first segment directly into the shields. You said it’s an extremely powerful energy source. Are they compatible?”
Astra thought for a second. “I didn’t forget about that,” she said. “The problem is, I don’t know if it’s compatible with the ship’s power system. I really need to study it some more, but I’m afraid to tamper with it. I don’t want to damage it accidentally, but I can’t ignore the possible rewards either. If it works, we wouldn’t have to worry about power. But if it doesn’t work, I could blow up the ship. It might not matter anyway. If someone stole the third segment, we have bigger things to worry about.”
“You’re right,” Calvin said. “But that extra power would come in handy there, too. We’re just guessing. Let’s wait until we get closer and see what we’re up against.”
“That sounds good,” Astra said. “I’ll work on the first segment today. Maybe I can make a big safety switch that can shut the whole thing down if it overloads. What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know. I might go train in the simulator some more.”
“See you at lunch, then,” Astra said.
She slid out of her seat gracefully and left the bridge. Calvin sat alone for a while, enjoying the quiet hum and vibration of the engines. It was very relaxing. After a minute he left to find out what Ion was doing in the engineering workshop. He took his time and used the stairs. When he got there, he found Ion hard at work constructing a new drill.
Ion was busy, so Calvin decided to leave him alone. He spent the rest of the day in the simulator, replaying previous missions. He was so engrossed in what he was doing he forgot about lunch and played through until dinner. He didn’t see Astra at dinner and ate alone. Calvin knew she was working in the lab and decided to not interrupt her.
After dinner, Calvin had a headache and blamed it on staring at computer screens all day. He didn’t want to be around more electronic devices, so he decided to go to the library and relax. He didn’t know if that’s what it was called, but it was his favorite room on the ship. He hadn’t spent much time there, mostly because he’d been too busy. But now he had time, and he knew he was going to have to give a full report when he eventually got home. He should have taken his father’s advice and kept a written record starting on day one. Now he would have to sit and think about it all to make sure he got every detail. But first, he opened the metal shield that covered the window and pulled back the curtains. The blue hyperspace cloud that enveloped the ship while it traveled was very beautiful and calming. It had an almost hypnotic effect on him.
Calvin wanted to write his journal on paper, so he had the computer make a notebook for him. He made a cup of tea, sat in one of the oversized reclining chairs, and began to write. He started at the beginning, just after the launch of the Sorenia, writing down everything he could think of.
An hour later, Calvin was deep in thought and writing furiously. He didn’t hear the door open.
“Calvin, are you in here?” Astra called.
“Down here,” Calvin said. “What’s going on?”
“I’ve been looking for you.”
Calvin put his notebook and pen on the table and stood up.
“I have some interesting news.”
“Oh, what’s that?” Calvin asked.
“The third segment. It was eight days away, but now the computer says we’ll be there in four days.”
“What, really?” Calvin asked, surprised. “How is that possible?” “Ion and I think it’s moving. How, or why, we don’t know.”
“That is interesting,” Calvin said. “But it doesn’t make any sense. If someone else took it, what are the chances they’d be heading in our direction with it? What does it mean?”
“I wish I knew,” Astra said. “Just to be on the safe side, I think I’ll have Ion check the sensors to make sure they’re working right. I’ll find you later.”
“OK,” Calvin said and watched Astra leave the room. He sat down and went back to work on his journal. He took his time. He dreaded recounting the death of his best friend, Jax. Calvin had been very successful in not dealing with it. He was able to block it out of his mind and focus on the mission. But now, alone in the library, he knew he couldn’t keep it in the shadows of his mind any longer. For one thing, when he got home there were going to be a lot of questions. His family would want to know every detail, not to mention senior officials in the Space Command. Would there be an inquest? Would they hold Calvin responsible? He was sure the government would never allow another space mission to ever take place. He could see it now—they’d use Jax’s death to shut down Space Command.
“I need to stop. It’s not my fault,” he told himself. He had to force himself to remember the events as they happened, no matter how painful. His tears fell on the paper as he wrote. He put it all down, in excruciating detail: the escape from Aleria, the explosions, the running firefight all the way to the shuttle, and finally saying good-b
ye while Ion put Jax’s body in frozen suspension. Calvin was physically and emotionally tired by the time he finished. He drank the rest of his tea and went to bed. He was depressed, lonely, and exhausted, but he couldn’t fall asleep. He kept playing the last moments of Jax’s life over in his mind. All he wanted to do was shut his mind off.
When he realized there was no way he was going to be able to sleep, he turned on a small electronic device that was sitting on his nightstand. Ion had given it to him when Calvin complained he was having problems. Ion called it a slumber generator. It emitted highly attuned somatic sound waves that helped balance the chaos within the human mind and help it to rest. It took longer than he wanted, but Calvin finally drifted off.
He woke up nine hours later. He stared at the ceiling for a few minutes and then climbed out of bed. Despite sleeping through the night, he felt half-asleep while he showered and dressed. The hot water did nothing to wake him up. His only hope now was that maybe a cup of hot coffee would revive him. He felt cold, so he put on a dark gray jacket.
He went to the dining room and was disappointed again to find Astra was not there waiting for him. Calvin ate breakfast alone. He missed her and wondered where she was and what she was doing.
After he finished eating, he went off to find her. He didn’t have to search long. He found her working in the science lab.
“Good morning,” he said. “I missed you at breakfast.”
“Sorry,” she said. “I couldn’t sleep last night. I couldn’t stop thinking about the first segment. I have to find a way to make this work. If I can plug it into the power system, we could complete our mission and not worry about the Goremog anymore. I couldn’t stop thinking about it, so I woke up at four and decided to get back to work.”
“It’s no problem,” Calvin said. “How’s it going?”
“Well,” she said cautiously. “Unfortunately, not too good. The computer is still analyzing it. Once it’s done, I have to look at the energy patterns to see if they are compatible. If they are, I can connect it to the ship.”
“I’ll leave you to it, then,” Calvin said. “Do you want me to bring you something to eat?”
“No thanks,” Astra said. “I ate earlier. I’ll call you when I’m ready for lunch, if you want.”
“That sounds good.” Calvin said and left the room. What was he going to do now? He had no idea. Ion and Astra were both busy. Calvin decided to wander up to the bridge. He hadn’t talked to his dad in several days; maybe he would be able to contact him. He needed to tell him about finding the second segment.
Calvin walked onto the bridge and sat in the pilot’s chair. He sank into the chair and turned on the communications computer. He had saved several channels into the system and with the touch of a button was sending out a signal toward New Arlandia. He sat back and took a deep breath, expecting it to take a while. Calvin was surprised when the screen changed almost immediately, and a man’s face appeared. The man had gray hair and a sharp nose. Calvin recognized him but couldn’t remember his name.
“Lieutenant Range!” the man exclaimed, “it’s very good to see you again. I’m Captain Vinder. I’m the commander of the asteroid base. I don’t know if you remember me. We met briefly the day your mission started.”
“Yes, sir,” Calvin said. “I remember.”
“We’ve been anxious to hear from you.”
“Is my father there?” Calvin asked.
“No, I’m sorry. He’s on New Arlandia right now. The senate is in session.”
Calvin frowned.
“Is everything all right?” Captain Vinder asked. “Can I pass any information to your father?”
“Everything is fine,” Calvin said. He didn’t feel comfortable divulging information to a man he barely knew. Captain Vinder looked at Calvin and seemed to know what he was thinking.
“It’s OK, you can talk to me,” he said. “My clearance is high enough.” He paused, as if he were expecting Calvin to laugh. When he didn’t, Vinder continued. “I’m also a member of the Laurites. Everyone on this base has been talking about you.”
“OK,” Calvin said, not sure what to think. He knew that Vinder was going to keep asking questions that he didn’t want to answer, so he decided to start asking his own questions.
“Captain, did the crew of the Sorenia make it home?”
“They did,” Vinder replied. “The crew limped home in escape pods. They’d been out there for two weeks. Let me tell you, they were in pretty bad shape.”
“Oh, good,” Calvin said, relieved. “I can’t tell you how happy I am to hear that. Did they happen to tell you why they left us behind?”
“As a matter of fact, the first thing Captain Delik asked was if we’d found you, or heard from you.”
“You didn’t answer my question.”
“They tried to get you out,” Vinder said. “In the panic, they…I should let Delik explain it to you. He was there, I wasn’t.”
“They took everything,” Calvin said angrily. “Food, emergency supplies, everything.”
“Yeah,” Vinder said sadly. Calvin could see in his face that Vinder didn’t know what else to say.
Calvin wasn’t sure what to think, but it did make him feel a little better to vent his feelings.
Vinder looked at him expectantly.
Calvin didn’t want to tell this man anything else without speaking to his father first. “If you could just tell my dad I found the second segment, and I’m on my way to get the third.” Vinder smiled. “I’ll tell him. And, good luck, Calvin. Be safe out there.”
“Thank you, I will,” Calvin said, trying to sound happy, but not doing it very well. “I’ll try to contact him in a couple of days.”
Captain Vinder nodded. The screen went dark.
Calvin sat quietly in the chair, staring out into space. Now what was he going to do? He wanted to meet Astra for dinner, but that was still five hours away. There was only one thing that had kept him busy on this trip so far, one thing that he looked forward to doing every day: the space flight simulator. He spent the rest of the day in the simulator, honing his combat skills. He quickly lost track of time.
Five hours later, he was startled by a knock on the canopy. How long had he been in there? He pulled the lever on the side, and the canopy opened. Astra was standing over him, smiling.
“Am I disturbing you?” she asked.
“No, you’re not,” he said.
“Something bad has happened. We lost the signal from the third segment. It just disappeared.”
“What does that mean?” Calvin asked. “Was it destroyed?”
“I don’t know. What do you think we should do?”
“We should go to the place where the signal stopped. Hopefully we’ll find it there.”
“All right,” Astra said, visibly worried. “Hopefully we don’t find pieces of it instead.”
They stopped talking for a minute. Calvin’s stomach growled loudly and broke the silence.
“What time is it?” he asked. “How long have I been in here?”
“It’s dinner time. I’m hungry, too. Wanna get something to eat?”
That’s when he realized he was starving. “Yes.”
On their way up to the dining room, Calvin said, “I swear I just went in there five minutes ago. I mean, really, I just turned it on!” Astra giggled at him. “Was it that much fun?”
“Oh, yeah,” Calvin said excitedly. “It’s taking me through a campaign. It’s awesome.”
“Yes, it’s one of the campaigns from the war. You fight as an Alerian pilot.”
“That’s explains why it’s so hard. We aren’t doing very well.”
“Yeah, well, remember we lost the war,” Astra said sadly. “But the program is good, because it gives you a lot of practice in combat situations and teaches our history so we never forget it.” They both got their food and sat down to eat.
“So, how was your day?” Calvin asked before taking a bite of his dinner.
“N
ot too good,” Astra said. “I hit a wall. The computer finished scanning the first segment, but it’s completely incompatible with the ship’s systems. It’s not all bad news, though. I think I can make a smaller version of it and write its base programming so the power signature will match the Frost.”
Calvin was fascinated watching her as she talked. She squinted her eyes slightly when she explained the details of what she was planning to do.
She continued, “It won’t be as powerful, but it’ll be powerful enough to boost our shield strength by two hundred percent, and increase power ship-wide. It’s going to take a little while to do it.”
“Time is one thing we have,” Calvin said, suppressing a yawn.
“Tired?” Astra asked.
“Yes. The last mission in the simulator was very emotional for me. I was supposed to escort a ship full of people escaping from a colony on Prathix Seven. I tried, but there were so many enemy fighters. The ship was destroyed. Over five hundred people died. I can still hear their cries for help. I tried it three times, but I couldn’t win. Please tell me that didn’t really happen.”
“I’m sorry, it really happened,” Astra said sadly, trying not to cry. “All of the events in the scenario happened. Only three fighters were available to escort the ship. It wasn’t enough; everyone knew it, but there just weren’t enough ships to protect everyone.”
“The other two were destroyed at the beginning of the mission. I couldn’t do it by myself.”
“Hey, it’s OK,” Astra said, holding his hands. “It happened a long time ago. We just need to make sure it doesn’t happen again.” There was something in the way she said it.
At first, Calvin was afraid to ask about it. He didn’t want to say something wrong and hurt her feelings. But he decided to ask anyway.
“Were you there?”
“I wasn’t the one in the fighter, no,” Astra said. “I had several close friends on the ship.”
“I’m sorry,” Calvin said. “That’s really sad. I don’t understand why the Goremog are so violent. Have you ever seen one?”
“A Goremog? Yes, I’ve seen them before.”
“What are they like?”