Shroud of Eden (Panhelion Chronicles Book 1)

by Marlin Desault

  “Forget it.” Scott smiled and offered Anton a seat. “I just mentioned to Marie that we need to get on with the mission, but we can wait a few more minutes while you to grab a quick bite.”

  When Scott first met Anton, he’d taken an instant liking to the young officer for his positive attitude and pleasant manner. Equally as important, he’d served two years with Anton on the Targelion, and he trusted him.

  On the command deck, Klaas already occupied helm and navigation. Anton settled down in the communications and weapons position, while Marie worked the main computer station controlling the LiDAR and broadband hull sensors.

  Scott switched his main display and input to duplicate the Nav station controls. “All preparations made to exit warp-space?”

  “Nav ready,” Klaas confirmed. “All stations confirm ready.”

  “Computer shows ready to initiate subluminal,” Scott announced.

  Klaas called out the computer countdown. “Forty seconds to warp exit.” His display turned yellow, then red. “Captain, we have a computer disagreement.”

  “What do you mean a disagreement?”

  “Two computers agree on the egress time. The third shows a different reading.”

  Scott stiffened in his chair. “Marie, do you confirm the disagreement?”

  “No, Captain, I do not. All computers agree.”

  “Explain!” Scott bellowed.

  Marie stared at the command station. “I’m reading the computers directly from my laser connection. The computers all agree. We egress warp in ten seconds. If we don’t exit at the countdown time we’ll miss our exit point. For every second’s delay we’ll end up three million kilometers from our target destination.”

  Klaas gripped his panel with both hands. “Captain, if we egress at the wrong time we could end up in space close to a star or solid body and plow right into it. We can’t egress without agreement of all three quantum computers.”

  Marie’s arms went akimbo. “Klaas is wrong. We must exit warp in eight seconds.”

  “Captain,” Klaas roared, “I will not turn control over to the computers!”

  Marie spun around and locked her eyes on Scott. “Captain, you must override Nav and allow the computers to control our transition to space normal.”

  “Five seconds.” Klaas stammered. “Skipper, override now!”

  A chill shot down Scott’s spine. He sat up, flipped open the cover on the input console. reached in and let his hand hover over the override icon. With a quick swipe he locked the override icon to full auto.

  “We exit warp-space on the computer mark,” Scott warned. Each of his crew, in turn, acknowledged.

  Pegasus shuddered as an audible thump accompanied a sharp jolt. The overhead panels dimmed, signaling the transition to sub-light velocity, the decelerating ship returned to normal space, and the bow wave faded. The hadron engines wound down with a decreasing whine that echoed through the command deck, and the warp rings fore and aft on the fuselage shifted to counter rotation and slowed to a stop.

  Klaas slumped in his chair. “That was one gutsy move, Captain. You just gambled and won.”

  Marie spun round to face Klaas. “Klaas, your display failed. My laser interface reads the true computer output directly from the computer I/O.”

  Scott took a deep breath. “Klaas, I’ve returned control to your panel. Get a reading of our position and put the ship into rotation, so we can get at least partial g.” He rubbed his elbow. “I’m tired of banging my arms against the walls.”

  “Skipper, we’re fifty kilometers off from targeted exit point. Not bad, but you really had me worried.” Klaas brushed his fingers lightly over the tennis ball-sized roll icon floating in the rectangular, dark area of his holographic keypad.

  The ship began a slow clockwise rotation, and mild centripetal force pulled each of them into their seats. The simulated, mild gravity made normal walking possible throughout the ship.

  Scott stood and made his way to Marie’s station. “You ready to work your magic on that thing ahead of us?”

  “Yes, Skipper. Directed energy and physical probes have all passed self-checks. When we reach the anomaly, we can begin probing.” A slender beam reached out from the light pen attached to the temple of Marie’s head band. It blinked rapidly as it transmitted her brain wave patterns to the console sensors and the quantum computers eagerly swallowed up the stream of commands.

  Scott sidled over to Anton. “Did you send our position report to Admiral Delmar?”

  “I did, Skipper, and ECCO central confirmed receipt.” The lieutenant smiled, looking for approval, as if he were on his first date.

  Scott returned to the command position and scanned his master status display. He studied the soft green indicators for anything out of the ordinary. The engine, navigation and velocity icons fell to Klaas’ responsibility, but Scott, leaving nothing to chance, had overlaid the same on his own screen.

  Anton lifted himself a few centimeters out of his seat. “I’ve never seen anything like that. Look at the size of it.”

  A huge irregular dark shape, surrounded by a thin, glowing band of soft yellow light, came into view in the forward display.

  “Klaas, take the watch.” Scott stretched his hands over his head to ease his stiff muscles. “The rest of you take a ten-minute break.” He wanted a few minutes of quiet to think about the approaching blackness before them.

  Marie and Anton glanced back over their shoulders at the deep black in the screen, as they ambled off to the mess alcove.

  “Skipper?” Klaas grinned. “Everything has gone well so far. A good omen, don’t you think?” For all his intelligence, Klaas had a mild streak of superstition.

  “Before you put away your rabbit’s foot, this was the easy part. With luck, Marie will finish her survey in a day or two....” Scott realized he had just betrayed his own superstition.

  Klaas took the helm while he headed to the mess alcove to join Marie and Anton, who sat sipping from open cups. The walls displayed holographic scenes from Earth, a reminder of home, giving the small space the appearance of a much larger room.

  At the table, Anton held a steaming cup to his mouth and sat opposite Marie. “Think you can figure this crazy thing out?” he mumbled between sips. “The anomaly, I mean.”

  Marie lifted her head in a scholarly pose. “It might be dark matter, or some combination of matter we’ve never encountered before. I’ve got some ideas, but the brightest minds in the Panhelion have discussed possible theories, and the conclusions remain just that—only theories. We’re close enough that I might be able to figure it out.” She shrugged and with a smug expression returned his glance.

  Scott slipped in beside her, took a muffin, and filled a cup with coffee. “Well, if you do find out what it is, you’ll go down in the history books.”

  “That’d be nice.” She smiled at the comment and her expression went deadpan. “The word among the fleet says the Themis came this way and was never heard from again. They just vanished.” She stared for a few moments at the overhead. “There are some aspects of this thing that defy conventional logic. We’ve assumed all along we were dealing with some sort of dark matter because of the slight distortion of light around the edges, but the amount of refraction is too small to be a gravitational effect.”

  Anton casually took another sip from his cup. “Yeah, well, you’re the expert, but I heard it’s plain, dark matter.”

  Hyades Star Cluster, the Anomaly

  -

  Pegasus

  ~~~

  They were close. Occasional points of light flickered like fireflies in the infinite blackness of the forward visual. Seen from afar, the luminous outline had spread out to the sides. Aft, a myriad of stars ranging from dim to dazzling white adorned that portion of still visible space. Fiery gems in red, yellow, and sapphire blue cast their brilliance to the far reaches of the universe.

  With the full crew on deck, the pace quickened. Scott strode past Anton to Marie’s pos
ition. “How far to the anomaly?”

  Her youthful appearance aroused a subtle bias in him. Given the demands of their mission, he initially questioned her capability. At the start of the mission, he frequently double-checked her display for errors but found her work consistently correct.

  Marie glanced back and forth between Scott and the flashing yellow numbers as the range count wound down. “Three thousand kilometers, still closing. I’ve sent a duplicate of my readout to your console.”

  He leaned over Marie’s shoulder and studied the bevy of instruments. In the main screen, the murky patch loomed larger. “Send Klaas the position and heading data he needs to set a course parallel to the surface.”

  On his right, Klaas relaxed, his forearms resting on his work shelf. “I’ve received your vectors, Marie.” He tapped the icons in his entry space, and Pegasus cruised alongside the anomaly surface. He continued his routine corrections, entering waypoints to keep the ship on a cautious parallel course alongside the boundary.

  Scott straightened and scanned over the deck. “Marie, you may begin collecting data.”

  She lifted her head and shot him a subtle smile. “I’ve already engaged the LiDAR, Captain. Receptors report the first reflections received.”

  “Can you see any energy leaking out of the surface?”

  “Yes, but I can’t be certain of the wavelengths and amplitudes until the sensors have scanned the full spectrum.”

  Convinced she had the detection systems in hand, he returned to his command pod. “Klaas, slow to one quarter until Marie gets an accurate reading.”

  Klaas turned to her. “Marie, what range now?”

  “The computers are calculating.” She brushed her hair from her eyes. “In a few seconds we’ll reach the five hundred kilometers mark. I suggest we slow until my pinger distance errors become small enough to allow a safe margin.”

  Klaas rolled the velocity icon, and the subtle whine of hadron engines dropped in pitch.

  The range counter turned green. “Got it,” Marie called out. “Readout error less than half our stopping distance.” Her tone conveyed confidence. “The hard ping return indicates an abrupt discontinuity.”

  Scott nodded. “And the return amplitude?”

  “Large, Skipper—seventy-five percent, plus or minus two.” Her voice rose with surprise. “The light pulse returns show a mostly hard, reflective material.”

  The significance struck him full on. He needed distance between his ship and the hard surface. “Klaas, a little more distance from the surface, and re-vector our heading using Marie’s updated numbers.”

  Cylindrical in shape with two warp rings and a hemispherical bow, Pegasus ran eighty meters in length. The insignia of the Panhelion, an eight-pointed golden star, followed each rotation of the ship. The little corvette had two nested hulls: the inner contained their life-supporting environment, and the outer shielded them from radiation and micro-meteors. The two-hull combination protected the crew from the desiccative death that embraced the ship’s exterior. Three powerful engines, shrouded in nacelles blended smoothly into the outer hull, graced her stern.

  The interior supported a human biology evolved on Earth over the millennia. Cool humid air with a hint of ozone flowed through the ship, like a gentle wind before a thunderstorm.

  Knees bent, Marie angled forward in her seat and bounced her legs lightly on the balls of her feet. “Anomaly surface is curving toward us. Distance now five hundred meters.”

  Light from the laser on her headband danced over the screen icons and flickered as her thoughts instructed the computer to manipulate the gain and direction of various pinger beams.

  The ship shuddered, throwing Scott hard against his seat restraints. From the side and over the top, a muffled rumble corkscrewed toward the stern, followed by a loud bump. “What the— All stop! Marie, answers now, please,” he barked.

  “Got it.” Klaas’ fingers darted to the emergency stop icon. Scott jammed the secondary throttle icon hard back, but Klaas’ action had already brought the ship to complete rest. He blew out a long breath. “At least we know the surface has hard spots.”

  Scott cursed under his breath. “Has the inner hull been breached?”

  Klaas shook his head. “Interior pressure is holding, and the outer hull seems undamaged.”

  “Sorry, Skipper,” Marie murmured. “There’s a wisp sticking out from the surface. We must have brushed against the edge. None of my pingers caught it. It came up too fast for the side sensors and too low for the forward ones.” Her face flushed with embarrassment as she returned her gaze to the indicators. “I’ve already slanted the side pingers more to the front. I suggest another fifty meters distance between us and the surface.”

  “All right, Klaas, give us the fifty then ahead easy. Done and over. Take a few minutes and give me your damage reports.”

  For two nervous hours, they initiated self-checks of all systems.

  Afterwards, Marie spun her seat around to face Scott. “As far as I can tell, we lost one pinger but have no other damage. I can compensate for the lost pinger, so we can continue the surface sweep.”

  Klaas stood and walked over to Scott. “There’s no damage to navigation or propulsion.”

  “Same here,” Anton echoed. “Comm intact.”

  Scott took a deep breath and exhaled. “Klaas, resume idle cruise. Let’s get back to the job at hand. Marie, please set a search program with greater margins for Klaas.” He tugged repeatedly at his ear to calm his nerves as deck activities returned to normal.

  Klaas sat back in his conforming pod. “I’ve got Marie’s data and her grid program.”

  With the new navigation program controlling Pegasus’ every move, they cruised back and forth over the deep black landscape punctuated by an occasional tiny flash of light, dodging the surface when the pingers gave warning.

  “Marie, as the light pulses return, check for any debris on the surface that might be from a ship.”

  “Why the concern for debris?” Klaas tilted his head and averted his gaze. A professional officer didn’t ordinarily question his captain’s motives. “If the Themis hit that thing, all on board died and were scattered over the far reaches of the cosmos.” He returned his attention to the coordinates on his display as the computers adjusted velocity and thrust vectors.

  Marie stood and stretched, arching her arms over her head. “We’ll need data from physical probes as well.”

  Scott folded his arms and leaned back in his seat. “Launch when you’re ready. We’re all anxious to see what this stuff is made of.”

  “First one’s away now,” Anton announced. The ship recoiled a fraction of a millimeter before the servos re-setablished position, as the five-kilogram probe shot free and sped toward the surface.

  “Whoa, fireworks!” Anton pulled his head back from the visual as a bright flash erupted on the dark surface.

  As if attached by strings, all heads lifted together. They sat in stunned silence.

  Scott flushed as he realized the danger of their earlier encounter with the surface.

  Over the next eight hours, they mapped three thousand square kilometers of the surface.

  Marie immersed herself in the data. “Skipper, I’ve got all the data for the area we’ve covered. I started with a granular view. We have processed data from passive sensors and from the active laser returns. For this large an area, the computers will need to process the fractals and plot the fine detail.”

  “We’ll review the reduced data later.” Scott’s frazzled voice betrayed his edginess. “The shift ended twenty minutes ago. Klaas, Anton, take your shift change now.”

  A small, enclosed personal space was set aside for the captain of the Pegasus. It contained a sleeping pod and foldout desk with built-in data terminal. The closeness of the cabin made a monk’s cell from the dark ages seem palatial by comparison.

  The soft whisper of the air recyclers normally lulled Scott to sleep. This night-cycle, his mind dwelt on the tw
o orders Admiral Delmar gave him before departure.

  His top priority, as Delmar stated, “Bring back enough information on the anomaly to advance the cause of science.” The second priority still baffled him: Admiral Delmar insisted he find the Themis, or her remains. The admiral had suggested a successful mission would make his captaincy permanent. Yet if the anomaly was the priority, why did Delmar place so much emphasis on the fate of the Themis? “Of paramount interest to the security of the Panhelion,” he had put it.

  To Scott’s thinking, the greater danger to the Panhelion came from within, not from without. Although the Panhelion military drilled constantly for battle against an alien threat, they’d discovered no alien intelligence friendly or hostile. The far greater danger of corruption and duplicity threatened the Panhelion, and by extension its military. With a successful mission, though, he might gain a position of authority and join with others of like-mind to battle for reforms.

  As with all his crew, he had reviewed Marie’s personnel records, searching for strengths and weaknesses that might affect her performance. Delmar had selected her over a dozen other officers, mostly senior and male, for this mission. Her published research, along with her performance in joint exercises, had earned her this berth, but this phase of the mission would severely test her skills. Her previous duty as a staff researcher for Defense Command nagged at him, but he couldn’t pinpoint exactly why.

  Half an hour before the end of the rest period, the interior light panels in the ship increased in brightness, setting the circadian rhythm of the three slumbering humans not on watch. The simulated daybreak stirred the ship’s company, and one by one, they woke to their individual routines.

  Klaas and Scott made their way to the mess alcove. “Have you served your entire time in Exploration Command?” Scott asked as Klaas took a fork full of ersatz, scrambled eggs.

  “Yes, my ancestors from Earth were pioneers, Voortrekkers from the old Transvaal. Guess you could say it’s my heritage. We’ve always been drawn to new lands. A century ago, they were among the first families to emigrate to the Martian settlements. To tell you the truth, though, I sometimes envy those in Defense Command. That’s where the action is. You were in Defense command. Did you see any real action?”