“Me neither,” He whispered.
“I think we’re going to die,” She said, “And I don’t want to.”
“What happened?” he repeated, “I woke up not long ago to find everything upside down.”
“The ship has crashed into something. I was in touch with one of the crew before he… drifted away. He had access to the ship log and told me that when the ship returned to normal space it crashed into something. But he’s gone now.”
“Drifted away?”
“That’s right,” And her breathing quickened as her voice became shrill again, “The Spirit of the Future’s in pieces. I’m in one of those pieces – floating God knows where from anywhere. And so are you.”
He nodded and closed his eyes. Somehow he’d sensed it. He squeezed Pam tight and brought her to his mouth. He was about to say something to Zoobell, but he didn’t know what to say. His hand trembled hard. He opened his mouth but nothing came out. Then, Zoobell moved out of range. His mouth was dry and quavered as he closed it. He licked his lips and his tongue almost stuck to them.
“I updated her profile,” Pam broke the silence, “Zoobell Christian. Single. New Jersey.”
The door groaned and this time he was positive that he could see the distortion in the middle of it.
“Zoobell’s interests include classic cars,” Pam said, “That’s something you have in common.”
2195AD - USS Drake.
The nearest ship to the Spirit of the Future’s crash site was another, much smaller, passenger ship. It was six hours away from the nearest wormhole and three jumps away from the crash site. It didn’t have any kind of rescue equipment, shuttles or medical staff. Two wormholes beyond that, the USS Drake was surveying a potential new wormhole site. At 5am SST the USS Drake received a burst transmission from Earth.
In the lonely conference room, Captain Gordon studied the message alone, as was procedure.
CRUISER ACCIDENT. PROCEED SECTOR 34 DELTA. RESCUE. REPORT. CINCSPAC.
He touched the intercom lightly. He studied his own nicotine stained finger.
“Helm – best speed to sector 34 delta. Communications - send to CINCSPACE: message received and understood.”
He released the intercom button. Then he pressed it again.
“All senior officers report to conference immediately,” he gruffed. He extinguished his cigarette and contemplated lighting another. He decided against it.
Captain Andrew Gordon did not have to wait long for his offers to arrive. Lieutenant Greyson and Lieutenant Commander Herring were first to arrive, stepping only a few meters from the bridge into the adjacent conference room. By the time Lieutenants Neidermeyer and Hong had arrived the communications and science officer had already read the first BURST transmission. As they arrived, a second message was relayed from the bridge. Greyson pushed the message to the main screen at a nod from the captain.
The second transmission from Earth read:
MAJOR ACCIDENT. SPIRIT OF THE FUTURE. REPORTS HITTING OBJECT AT NEAR LIGHT SPEED. MORE FOLLOWS CINCSPAC.
“We’re about ten hours from the Allison wormhole,” Lieutenant Commander Herring said, “Then we’ve got about ten jumps before we get to the crash site. Sector 34 delta is on the edge of the Goldman wormhole.”
“What the blazes was Spirit of the Future doing there? Nothings travelled that pipe for years. Decades even,” Hong grunted.
“Does it matter?” the science Captain sighed and shook his head , “What matters is we’ve got a major disaster. If the ship hit something going that fast… well, there can’t be much left. And what’s left is going to be scattered all over space.”
“We’ve got six shuttles ready now,” Neidermeyer reported, “They’re good for thirty survivors each at a pinch. I can have two more ready in twelve hours.”
“If there’s a debris field – and there must be – then we can’t risk taking the Drake too close,” Herring said, “I’ll need some time to work out what the safe distance for the ship will be, but we won’t know for sure until we arrive at the site.”
“Which will be when?” Gordon asked.
“About twenty eight hours,” Herring guessed quickly, “Less if we’re lucky.”
“Let’s make it less,” Gordon almost whispered, “I’m not feeling lucky.”
The USS Drake’s altered momentum engines turned the ship towards the nearest wormhole. Then they turned to full power, accelerating the ship forward rapidly. In six minutes the ship was going as fast as it would ever go in normal space – as fast as anything ever could.
As the USS Drake streaked towards the first wormhole, the small passenger liner SS Glasgow was heading through the second wormhole on its journey towards the crash site.
Built in the Seattle spaceport in 2160, the SS Glasgow had started life as a scientific exploration vessel. Forty years later the ship was casually referred to as a “super tourer” – a ship for the super tourists. Super tourists were different to the more common space tourists. They travelled in groups and they carried out experiments. They made observations and they filled out logs. Occasionally, they made small and insignificant discoveries. They did not care for the term “super tourists”. They liked to think of themselves as explorers.
Captain Vinn Apple had thirty super tourists on the Glasgow. Ten of them were from New York
University. Seven excited stargazing teenage competition winners, a balding overprotective parent and two youthful and adultering teachers The other twenty were the usual sort. Tourists in the guise of explorers. They wanted to go into space. They didn’t want to go with the tourists. They wanted it to mean something important.
He looked at his second officer as she lay sleeping next to him. He drew a slow deep breath and considered waking her. But he quickly decided against it and enjoyed watching her as she slept. It was a pleasant change to see her usual hard features softened and relaxed, the corners of her mouth almost smiling. Her lips slightly parted and moist. Inviting.
She was thirty eight years old. Five years his senior. Her long, dark hair covered most of her face, but he could still see her nostrils and her delicious mouth. The thin white sheets covered all of her lithe sexy body, but he could still enjoy the fantastic curve of her buttocks through the sheet and the firm curve of her breasts slight obscured by her slender arm reaching up as though she were saluting in her sleep.
He turned onto his back. Not quite fully onto his back. He wanted to be able to see her. Time was precious. Life was precious. He wanted to enjoy her – even in his peripheral vision. But he wanted to stretch his legs too. He stretched his legs and exhaled slowly. He must have made a sound as it aroused Michelle and she moved slightly. She didn’t open her eyes, but he knew she was awake.
“You’re just gonna lie there and stare at me?” she said without opening her eyes, her brilliant ultra-white smile lit up his small captain’s cabin.
“I like watching you sleep,” he said softly, “I like to see you relaxed and at ease. Like watching a Lioness after she’s finished feeding on a gazelle she brought down.”
She still wasn’t moving much, but she grinned broadly. He truly loved the contrast of her smile next to her light caramel coloured skin. It was almost irresistible.
“You need to get me drunk more often,” she said cheekily, “Or maybe we need to… you know…”
“Yes.”
He hesitated. Her smile didn’t change. He realised he’d been given an invitation. He didn’t waste any more time.
“You’re bad,” he whispered, “I have to make plans for our arrival at the crash site.”
Suddenly she was on top of him. The smile was still there, but it was more aggressive, assertive, insistent, dominating.
“Sure you do,” she kissed him once lightly, “But you have to get your priorities in the correct order, Captain sir.”
She was a tigress, but despite her hard and occasional fierce exterior there was a soft centre. He liked the soft centre, even if she tried hard to h
ide it. But when they were together as lovers, the soft centre eventually became everything that she was. And he loved to take her to that place of safety and comfort that they only ever reached together as lovers. Sometimes, to see her ecstasy was more thrilling than the sexual excitement he felt himself.
His ship continued on its journey. The crew were resting – at least most of them were. The instructions from Earth had come through in the very early hours. The ship was less than twelve hours away from the incident site. The crew needed to rest. The Captain needed to rest. They did not rest much for the next hour, but eventually they fell asleep together. Her body was too hot for him to hold. He flung an arm over her shoulder after they’d exhausted themselves and as she started to snore he fell asleep with a smile on his face.
EIGHT
2195AD - EWS Hard Edge.
Zinn was starting to realise that the ship was going to be destroyed. He didn’t want to accept it, but he was a realist. He believed in the things that he could see and understand. He wasn’t a Crystallist. He was a realist. But he also believed in himself.
“Abandon ship,” he stated boldly, “Abandon ship now! Sound the order!”
“Yes, sir,” Coola said, “Order is sounded.”
“We’re losing the ship,” Zinn said, “The engines are too damaged to resist Relathon’s gravitational pull. We can avoid being torn apart and burned up, yes, but we can’t get enough power to get away. And if the engines fail completely… Well, we’ll be roasted alive as the ship burns up.”
The bridge was a quieter place. Half of the bridge crew had evacuated. Only Coola and the elderly science officer Fiif remained. The others has headed for the escape pods. Ziin doubted that many would survive. The atmosphere was so close and rescue was so far away – even if it were coming. He suspected that help was not yet on its way. His suspicions were correct.
The Hard Edge was crippled. Fireballs from the Spirit of the Future’s debris - moving into and out of normal space at incredible speeds – had penetrated the primary and emergency engine cooling systems. The ship’s computer systems were arguing with each other. The navigation system was continuously demanding power whilst the engine control system was continuously shutting the engines down to prevent a massive reactor explosion. Other less critical systems had been damaged, including the communications system and life support systems. Distress signals sent both automatically by the ship and manually by the navigator had died at the point of the damaged comms system. No help was coming.
“Engine restart failed again,” Coola said emotionlessly.
“I have no readings from the engine systems,” Fiif added, “There’s obvious damage to the engines. None of the diagnostic systems are responding.”
Ziin nodded only slightly. He wondered if the engineering crew had made it to their pods. He wondered if he should have commanded them to stay and attempt repairs on the damaged systems. Would it have made a difference? He cleared his thoughts.
“Do we have enough power for a controlled landing?”
“Definitely not,” Coola said, “The engines are at 10% power. It’s a fraction of what we need to level off and land this wreck.”
“This wreck is our ship, lieutenant,” Ziin grunted, “And I don’t want to lose it today.”
Fiif and Coola exchanged glances. Fiif was thinking that the ship was lost one way or another. Coola was thinking that he’d shamed himself in the shadow of his leader. But then time moved on. There was work to do. Hard Edge was falling apart. Coola’s delicate adjustments to the now puny thrusters were making the difference between life and death. Fiif continued to try convincing the engine and navigation systems to stop fighting each other.
“Sorry sir,” Coola said after an eternity, “I don’t know if I can steady the ship. There’s not enough power. She’s hitting the atmosphere hard, but our angle is good. But there’s not going to be enough power to slow us down. We’re going to hit. She’s going to hit hard,” He shook his head, “I… I don’t know what I can do.”
“Right,” Ziin said, “We’ve got to get more power from the engines. Damn it, they won’t blow at 30% no matter what the computers think. Fiif, get to it. We haven’t got much time.”
There was a loud clang. The bridge lights dimmed and stayed dim. One of the escape pods had collided with the sensor array,
destroying it and killing all seven personnel in the pod. Ziin could feel the air being sucked from the control room. Then he could see the air being sucked out as the thin wisp of smoke from a burned out console spiralled up towards an invisible hole behind one of the roof panels.
Coola struggled with the controls. For a moment Ziin thought of taking over. But he could read Fiif’s facial features and he felt, somehow, that it didn’t matter who was piloting the ship anymore. He ran for one of the emergency repair panels and yanked it open. There was a canister of sealant inside and a handful of sealant bombs. He grabbed the canister first and then realised that the leak was too high up for him to reach. He reached for two of the sealant bombs, crushing them in both hands before tossing them up in the air. The fist shaped balls tumbled upwards towards the panel. Simultaneously, they became gooey lumps. One of them tumbled back to the floor of the control room and landed as a gluey mess. The other ball found its mark as it was sucked behind the console and into the hole in the hull. As the vacuum of space tried to pull it out, the special sealant material reacted by expanding and then quickly solidifying. The hole was sealed – at least enough to prevent the air being completely sucked out of the command room.
“I’ve got 25% power to the main engine,” Fiif said, “Its everything she’s got. There’s only minimal power to the manoeuvring thrusters and they’re overheating at that. The portside thruster’s been shut down – too much damage. I can’t control our attitude.”
Something else crashed into the ship. Something heavy. It was the navigational array coming away from the hull and then crashing into the now vacant engineering section. Coola’s console registered the damage and the automatic systems’ retaliation to it – doors slamming shut and stopping the vacuum of space sucking the atmosphere out of only the engineering section. The disappearance of the various sensors made him realise exactly what had happened. Other alarms and warnings on his console made him realise in the next few seconds that the ship was going to be destroyed.
It was mercifully quick. The damaged engineering section of the ship continued to deteriorate and the ship started to yaw to starboard. In a fraction of a second – before Fiif even realised that something was wrong – the ship was breaking up. Ziin had time to glance towards Coola as the bridge shuddered violently. Then the engineering section was torn off the ship – gone in the wink of an eye. The remaining forward section with the frontward bridge dome at its apex briefly began a ninety degree catastrophic jerk which it would never complete. Suddenly the command centre was nothing more than a shower of sparks and flame and death. The Ferrta Gu was gone and the only survivors were smashing into the atmosphere to be roasted alive in the flimsy escape pods.
NINE
2195AD - Jann Linn Mountain.
Jann Linn awoke when the city was destroyed. The shockwave of the Earth ship’s impact travelled all the way up the mountain. It tore already petrified trees and spikey shrubs from the ground, tumbled large boulders and carried sand and small rocks with it. It tossed Jann Linn’s windmill to the side and bent even the heaviest of his thermal energy pods. His half buried ship was suddenly exposed to the heavens as the tortured hot winds tore the coverings from it. Swirling sand particles rasped against the hull, ripping the makeshift protective coverings from the thrusters. Great balls of dust surged into the small opening to Jann Linn’s cave. Outside, the swirling chaos of dust and fire destroyed and mutilated the possessions and artefacts he’d left outside his home.
Jann Linn lay silently. The madness outside continued. It had become a constant and muffled roar - like some great beast was prowling around outside his cave and howlin
g, howling, howling its anguish. It took him twenty seconds to have any inkling as to what had happened. The beast continued to groan and scratch at the mountain as he pulled on his robe and covered his mouth to avoid the dust. He summoned Cass. He called her name loudly, then searched for the communicator. By the time he’d found the communicator he was more than worried. He realised that she should have answered the call sooner. Then he tried the communicator and his worry became a cold and cutting shard of fear down his left side.
“Cass,” he rasped quietly, thoughtfully, “Where are you?”
His first thoughts were that, somehow, she was outside. But that thought didn’t hold together for longer than a moment. She never went outside. He didn’t even think that she could go outside. Not without him being there.
She did not reply to the communicator. He called her name again, louder. Outside, the roaring beast was diminishing. He kept the corner of his cloak over his mouth to keep the dust out and felt around the darkness for the lights. He panicked slightly, wondering if he’d ever find his way out of the cave without the lights. He found the light switch and turned the lights on and they worked. They weren’t as bright as they should have been, but there was enough light to see by.
The cave was a mess. It had been a mess when he’d gone to sleep the previous night but it was more of a mess now. Not quite a disaster, but a mess. The dust was getting into Jann Linn’s nose despite the thick cloak. He reached the entrance to the cave. Outside there was a sandstorm and a blizzard of flaming cinders. He shouted for Cass as loud as he could, but she didn’t answer. He couldn’t see his hand in front of his face. The air smelled of smoke. It almost choked him and made his narrow yellow eyes sting even through his closed primary eyelids. He shouted for Cass Linn one more time before retreating back into the cave, both sets of eyelids closed. He fumbled his way back to his quarters. The dust had almost completely settled by the time he reached his wireless unit. He switched it on, expecting to immediately hear one of the city’s wireless stations. There was nothing but static. Then he realised with absolute certainty that something catastrophic had happened to the city.
Beyond the Starport Adventure (Bullet Book 1) Page 17