CeCe turned from the screen while Nanci caught her breath, “There are a lot of people wanting to get rid of us.”
Wills smiled, “About an hour, Nanci. Calm down, relax; I think it sounds like you’re doing an excellent job. You might check and see if any of them have construction experience or just want to lend a hand with the T8 project. Contact Benais Salmond if anyone wants to help.”
Nanci brightened, “That’s a good one; I’ll let them know.”
They said their farewells and broke the connection.
Wills turned lazily in his chair, “Suddenly, I think I’m heading for less of a problem than the one I’m leaving behind.”
#
They discussed the coming trip for the next forty minutes while they waited. CeCe sat in her command chair and kept an eye on the screen that showed the growing number of strain gauges registering on the data link.
She interrupted Wills when she pointed up at the screen, “Number 148 just came online.”
Stoker looked at her, “Is that number significant?”
“Yes, there are 148 structural attach points for the lift ring around the hull. This should mean that Captain Helt and his people are about finished. In fact,” she spun in her seat and checked readings on the console and then swung back to look at the strain gauge readings, “they’re running a low-level orbiting pulse through the ring now to make sure that all of the gauges are operating.”
She turned back to the console, and locked her chair up and full forward, “Admiral, I think it’s time we started knocking a few items off of the pre-flight checklist. I know the new AI system is supposed to handle that, but I’m nervous enough without letting a metal box control the rest of my life.”
Wills smiled and set his chair in its flight position, “I agree; besides, you’re the Captain.”
“First, Admiral, switch the strain gauge readings to . . . screen four so we don’t have to keep turning around.”
Five minutes later they had to resort to sitting and waiting after checking everything short of the lift ring. Just after that, the AI announced:
“COMMANDER AMANDA KRAIGOR AND LIEUTENANT STEVEN BONN REQUEST ADMISSION TO THE BRIDGE DECK.”
CeCe replied, “AI, admission granted.”
She looked at Wills, “Correct me if I’m wrong, but did that sound like Nanci?”
Wills had a big grin on his face and nodded vigorously, “Wait until she finds out we had to listen to her voice all the way there and back.”
A screen to their left switched from a view outside of the ship to a view of the engineering station with Captain Helt sitting in the middle seat, “Captain Copeland, the Weasel is now yours. My people on the strut platform say everything is clear and all loading ramps are up and sealed.”
CeCe’s heart skipped a beat, “Thank you Captain. I would appreciate it if you would stay on this com link and monitor everything.”
“Don’t worry, CeCe, we are here and keeping an eye on things; I’ll tell you if something odd happens.”
Kraigor and Bonn came out of the passage behind them.
“Did I hear someone say ‘Captain’ Copeland?” said Kraigor.
CeCe turned her head, “Hi, Amanda; yes, you did. Sit down, introduce yourselves, and shrink in terror.”
“Admiral, initiating a pre-lift ring check.” She entered a release command and the ring control system started applying power in stages as it checked phasing and timing.
They both watched the board and screen readouts as the old system checked itself, and started to run several megawatts into the secondary coils.
“Captain, I have secondary coils level within one percent and diminishing.” Wills looked up at a screen and tapped on an input pad to expand its scale, “Strain gauges are indicating fluctuations consistent with background noise.”
He turned a smile to CeCe, “I think we have a winner.”
She nodded and tapped again, “All environmental systems indicate operational and under AI control. Grav system shows ready for acceleration.”
Another tap at the center of the console brought up the display of the mass resonator that was housed in the highest bulge of the ship directly above their heads. This system was under the control of the Silverman AI and was unusually clear and crisp.
CeCe and the Admiral exchanged a look before she called out, “AI, say status.”
Nanci’s voice responded, “ALL SYSTEMS OPTIMAL - HULL SEALED - READY FOR FLIGHT OPERATIONS.”
They looked at each other again, “If you would announce, Admiral.”
Wills nodded and tapped a pad on the com panel that said “SHIP-WIDE.”
“Attention, attention; this is the first officer. All personnel prepare for lift and maneuvering.”
He then tapped in another address; Falmann appeared on the screen, “Jerry, it looks like we’re ready.”
Falmann returned a weak smile, “The sky is yours, Wills; don’t do anything stupid.”
Wills smiled back, “Oops, too late.” And cut the connection.
CeCe gave him a nervous smile and placed both hands on the panel directly in front of her, “Zeroing.”
She entered a primary coil release command and watched as the screen indicated increasing power to the primary coil system; it stopped increasing when sensors detected movement in the landing struts.
“Setting global attitude to level and hold.
“Setting maximum allowable power input to ninety percent of rated limit.
“Setting max allowable standard distortion level to ten percent.”
She leaned her chair back to a reclining position, “Ready.”
Wills entered a command at his station and watched as the top of CeCe’s chair rotated inward to enclose her head; at the same time, the sides of the chair lifted to form armrests with control handles.
CeCe smiled as she looked around at a virtual world in which she lay on her back a couple of meters above the rocky peninsula where the Weasel sat. In this world, however, nothing of the Weasel existed except for the twenty-eight pads at the ends of the landing struts. The multiple pickups on the hull presented a perfect view of the world around her as it would be without the massive ship she now controlled.
“Lifting now!”
She felt with her left hand along the side of the armrest next to the yaw dial for the edge of the power wheel that protruded slightly from the armrest. She pushed it gently forward and watched as the four massive hydraulic pistons on each strut slid out to their full extension and the pads began to slowly rise from their old depressions in the hard soil around her.
She looked left and right to make sure the pads cleared evenly. When she was satisfied they were clear, she pushed the wheel further. The ground fell away and left a cheering crowd behind.
Speed and altitude displays appeared in her field of vision as the Weasel began moving. She settled at 200kph, and, when they passed 5,000 meters, she called, “Positive rate of climb. Retract struts. Release global attitude hold.”
The Admiral’s voice came back at her, “Acknowledged, positive rate of climb. Struts coming up. Global attitude hold is released.”
She turned her head to watch the virtual pads vanish as Wills said, “All struts showing up and locked.”
CeCe pushed the attitude stick on the right armrest forward and left slightly as she rotated the yaw dial to point the ship toward the sun; it felt more sluggish than she remembered because of the power distortion limit.
The atmosphere dropped behind them and she ran the speed higher and higher; finally, “Finished with close maneuvering.”
Wills entered another command and CeCe’s chair returned to normal flight mode. She sat back upright and watched the red dot in the resonator display closely paralleling the rippling green line of the tentative flight plan that had been entered into the auto-pilot. CeCe entered a command and watched the green line change and firm-up as the AI-controlled auto-pilot took over the control of the ship and recalculated their course from the cu
rrent position; the red dot was now precisely aligned on the green line. They both watched the numbers on the screens rapidly changing as the AI vectored the Weasel for a jump to the Sun.
The maneuvering warning was a familiar occurrence for anyone that had ever traveled on a spaceship. True inertial suppressors were not yet a reality, but almost all ships except the smallest carried grav-plate technology that could counter the high-G acceleration of the ring systems fairly well as long as it was imposed along a straight line. If the ship started doing any twisting or turning while under acceleration, it was recommended that you sit down for the gentler maneuvering levels and strap in tight in a military ship because of the lack of full compensation of the side loads; the Weasel would be maneuvering gently, but it was still a good idea to find a chair until they were in isolator drive and on their way to Forest.
Twenty-five minutes later, a middle-C tone sounded three times indicating isolator drive initiation. CeCe and Wills looked at each other. They knew this was the first test of the Silverman’s control of the drive.
When it was over, they looked at each other again, “Admiral, I don’t think I would call that any different from a normal jump.”
“I agree.” He looked up at the screen and Helt on the engineering deck, “Was it as good for you as it was for us?”
Helt was scanning his board and screens, “That felt entirely normal to me. Accumulator pulse indicates four percent below what I expected and power flow looks totally normal. I would say it handled it exactly as instructed.”
Everyone was obviously happy at having passed that hurdle without incident and settled back as they approached the push-off point.
Breakout and maneuvering followed the standard pattern. The lower acceleration capability of the Weasel compared to smaller ships and the imposed power limitation translated into a six hour push-off. Everyone on the ship got a little rest and something to eat before the jump to Forest.
Wills and CeCe checked the course alignment as they approached the jump. CeCe looked up at the screen with Helt again on the engineering deck, “Ready to go Captain?”
He looked up at his pickup, “Ready here, Captain.”
Once again the chime struck three times . . . CeCe scratched a sudden itch on the back of her left hand as a brief blueness filtered her vision; nothing else happened.
A surge of alarm went through her, and she started to call to Helt, “Captain Helt, what hap--“ She broke off as her eyes swept across the resonator display and saw the red dot noticeably moving along the green course line. Her mind blanked for a moment before dropping into a standard sweep of her board and the screens. She caught sight of Wills doing the same.
Without taking her gaze from her displays, she said, “Captain Helt, please confirm isolator drive status.”
A formal and confused voice came back to her, “Captain, I confirm that the isolator drive is operating and initiated on schedule as programmed. There were no indications of conformal disruptions or surges. In fact, readouts indicate the accumulator pulse was 18.3 percent below expectations for this event. All power readings are exactly where they should be.”
They all managed to peel their eyes away from the displays and looked at each other. Wills let out a long breath, “I don’t know about you two, but that Silverman is beginning to spook me. I’d better make an announcement to the rest of the ship.”
##
Hayes lay back in his command chair and smiled while he watched Doctor Twisst struggle as she got used to the feel of the elastic bands pulling against her wrists and ankles. Ames’ head and shoulders poked out of the passage above the command deck where he hung and watched with obvious amusement.
“My orders are to put the two of you down at the edge of the game field as close to the town as I feel comfortable. After we are down, it’s your show; what are your plans?”
Twisst was beginning to breathe harder so Ames took the question, “Our job is to make them aware of our existence and our reason for being there. The survey drones and monitoring equipment that you, the Melinda, and the Streak have dropped to the surface over the years have provided us with a great deal of information about their way of life and their language. Our data pads contain everything we have learned about them and an AI generated translator program that should allow relatively easy communication.”
Hayes looked from one to the other, “I don’t mean to be a wet blanket, but what makes you think that they will believe you and cooperate with us? Please understand that I have read everything that has been published about the Foresters, and I have spent thousands of hours watching the raw data dumps that I uploaded from the surface relays. With a little work, Foresters could, physically, pass for humans. The unfortunate part is that they could also pass for humans at the psychological level; by that I mean that they do get nasty with each other.”
Twisst had stopped her mid-air efforts as Hayes started down this line.
“I want to make it clear to both of you that this ship is not armed, and all I have is a folding pocket knife. Once you step off this ship, you are on your own; the Kellogg and the Rance are about the only military capability we’ll have, and they’re two days behind us.”
Twisst pressed the releases on the wrist cuffs and then the ankle cuffs; she put her back against the hull and held herself there with her feet pushing against the floor hatch lock bar.
She gave Ames an uneasy look, “You raise a valid point, Lieutenant; it is a question that we have considered several times in the past but have been unable to answer.” She shrugged her shoulders, “We have had our share of Devil’s Advocates propose that the Statement of Procedures Regarding the Planet Forest and its Inhabitants be rescinded, that we reinstate full exploratory operations in this sector and just wait for them to die. The reasons behind that kind of thinking are the examples of slavery and cultural domination in human history that eventually ended in societal disruption and racism. Some believe that a nonhuman culture would give rise to even greater conflict.”
Ames took over, “It would have gone that way if the inhabitants of Forest had been some kind of methane breathing swamp things, but they look like us and our better nature prevailed. We know that there is a risk in being the first to arrive, but think of the books the three of us will write.” Ames was grinning at that.
“I tell ya what, Docs; there is one thing my intense research into human history has told me about meetings like this.”
Twisst and Ames looked at each other, “What is that, Lieutenant?”
“If you see a mob headed our way carrying torches and pitchforks, it’s time to leave.”
##
Wills and CeCe entered the crew-deck 5 dining hall and went to the open table along the wall to their right; the general babble quieted as they stood behind it. The room was large but still only held less than half the people aboard; the rest watched screens in other dining halls or at their duty stations.
“Good day to you all on this second day of our mission. I am Admiral Wills Reynolds. I am the Governor-General of Archer and overall commander of this mission. This is Commander Cicely Copeland; under normal circumstances she is my aide. Here, she is the Captain of this ship as she was the first-officer on it when it arrived on Archer and, as such, was the one person on Archer with experience in handling a Rhino-class starship.”
CeCe and Wills nodded at each other after her introduction and she took her seat.
“Many of you are civilians and may not be aware of the history of the Weasel. Yes, it is an old ship, but it has undergone a massive refit over the last fifteen years and its systems are better than they were originally. Along with that, the engineering department now on this ship is made up of the people that have been doing the work.
“Our plan is to get the inhabitants of the planet we call Forest evacuated back to Archer. I doubt that we will be able to get all of them; the situation with their primary has degraded faster than we expected and we were caught with few resources in position. Hopefu
lly, more ships are on the way and there will be enough time. Once we have them removed to Archer, another, suitable planet will be selected and they will be moved there.
“You, here, will be the first to meet an alien species. They may look human but I expect problems, and I ask that you be prepared to handle them with caution and patience. The coming days are ones that you will talk about for the rest of your lives. Your children, grand children, and so-on down the line will boast that they are your descendants.”
Wills swept an arm toward another table, “I would now like to introduce you all to Doctors Victoria Treelam and Roland Stoker. They are stellar physicists that have been watching Forest. They know a great deal about the Foresters and I have asked them to set up a schedule of classes to instruct you on what to expect. Remember, you only have nine days to learn this ship and what we know about the Foresters.”
Wills and CeCe left the hall and headed for main engineering as Stoker started addressing the ship’s company.
#
Wills stopped in front of the elevator and pressed the button, “How close does this one get us to the engineering station?”
CeCe looked both ways along the curved passage, “I don’t know; I just realized that the elevators aren’t numbered above the strut platform. I’ll have Helt put someone on it.”
They wound up a quarter of the way around the central column from the engineering station; Helt was there alone. CeCe gave him the bad news as she dropped into one of the other chairs.
“Captain, I just noticed that there are no numbers on the elevators above the strut platform; could you have someone fix that?”
The questioning look on his face lasted about two seconds before he tapped on the com panel; the face of a petty officer in the maintenance section on cargo-deck 10 appeared on one of the screens.
Ariticle Six Page 6