Project Columbus: Omnibus

by J. C. Rainier

  “Just a second, sir”. Quinn took a moment before he came back with an answer. “It seems that in both of the incidents, Lieutenant Mancini provoked fights with the boyfriend and the brother of two different women. Each time, Lieutenant Kimura intervened, apparently by beating the tar out of the other men.”

  Darius chuckled. He stopped quickly when Eriksen shot him a dirty look. “Sorry, sir.” He smiled at the colonel. “It was just kind of funny.”

  “Try to be serious, Mr. Owens,” he said in a scolding tone, then turned back to the engineering terminals. “There might be something there, but I’m having a hard time seeing how it helps. Lieutenant Kimura came to the aid of Mancini in these occasions. Why would he try to kill Doctor Kimura?”

  Quinn turned around in his seat. “Beats me, sir. This whole thing doesn’t make sense to me.”

  Eriksen sighed. “If only that damned arrogant fool Fox would talk to me, we might be getting somewhere.”

  Darius intervened quickly, “May I make a suggestion, Colonel?”

  “Of course, Mr. Owens.”

  “It occurred to me that the assassin might be afraid of the exploit being used against them if they were discovered. If they were able to send a program that sophisticated, certainly they know enough about Raphael to disable the external com system.”

  Eriksen bolted upright and the clasps on his harness rattled. “So Fox can’t even hear me when I call her.” His fist slammed into the arm rest of his chair. “Damn, you’re right.” He unlocked his chair and swiveled to face the bow of the ship. Darius could only see his receding red hair over the top of the chair. “And she’s out there, probably unaware of what has happened.”

  “And we have no way of informing her, sir,” added Darius.

  “Very well,” Eriksen said in his command voice. “We’ve done all we can do from here. Once we arrive we can join forces with Colonel Fox to catch this assassin. Resume your normal duties, gentlemen.”

  “Yes sir,” Darius and Quinn responded simultaneously.

  Darius exited the bridge and floated down the gallery toward the computer core.

  Add that to the list of tasks when we get to the planet. We better not get too many more, or we won’t have any time to set up a colony.

  Brev Capt Haruka Kimura

  25 September 2029, 12:23

  Raphael

  Haruka’s eyes were glued to the terminal screen. She had to remind herself to keep breathing. A thin white line drew from the bottom directly to the entry plane of Demeter’s atmosphere.

  C’mon, be right this time. I was so close on the last try.

  The blip that represented Raphael emerged from the lower edge and glided along the projection line. Haruka glanced at the left side of her screen; the dotted outline of Demeter’s near moon swooped onto the screen.

  Show time, she thought. With a flick of her wrist, the view changed from a top-down to an angled 3D model. The moon now appeared spherical, and the course of Raphael was a thin arc that seemed to skip by the planet near its northern pole. Haruka watched as the moon bore down on the ship. A grin crept across her face. It’s going to clear this time.

  Raphael passed over the moon, and the approach arc dipped down close to the equator. The ship pitched down with the new course and finished its approach to the planet.

  SIMULATION TERMINATED. SURVIVAL CHANCE: 97.82%

  “Yes!” she screamed and threw her hands into the air in triumph. She unbuckled, spun in her seat, and pulled herself up on the railing. “Calculations for course correction are complete, Major.”

  The gray haired commander gave her a toothy smile. “Excellent work, Captain. What do you need to make it work?”

  “I need Mancini to modify the proximity program for crew revival, sir.”

  Emberley nodded. “How much extra time will you need at the start of the approach cycle?”

  Haruka glanced back at her terminal to read the start time for the maneuver. “Four days.”

  “Permission granted, Captain Kimura. Have him revive both you and I early. Do you need anyone else to join us?”

  She nodded. “We’ll need an engineer to help fire up the braking drive and the plasma thrusters.”

  “Indeed. Have Lieutenant Mancini revive Captain Maynard as well.”

  Maynard? Why not Nova?

  “Sir, with all due respect,” she said, “why not Airman Weyler? She has been on propulsion maintenance the whole time.”

  “I appreciate the suggestion,” replied Emberley, “but I want the best crew available to work on this solution. We have no more room for error.”

  “Yes sir,” she said. Nova has a lot of hands on experience, but I guess Captain Maynard will do. I’ve won enough of a victory today.

  “Kimura…”

  “Yes sir?”

  “When we land, I do believe we will all owe you something. Will you… will you have a drink with me?” His voice sounded almost like an awkward teenager asking for a date.

  Haruka was taken aback. Her mouth dropped open and she wondered if she had heard that correctly. “Sir?”

  “A drink. Will you share one with me? I’ve got a private stash on board.”

  “I… I don’t know what to say.” Haruka paused again. “Only if the whole crew gets to toast, sir. We were all in this together. They should share the rewards.”

  Emberley smiled. “Of course. I wouldn’t have it any other way.” He glanced out the forward windows. “You’re a hero, Kimura.”

  “Heroes get themselves killed, sir.”

  The colonel looked at Haruka, confusion written on his face. “Excuse me, Captain?”

  “Just a saying, sir. If you don’t mind, I’d like to go get started with Mancini.”

  “Of course. Carry on.”

  Haruka gave a quick salute and left the bridge. She reached the open airlock to the gallery when her stomach reminded her that she needed to eat. She grabbed the frame of the airlock and turned about, then made her way to the crew pod. She made her way into the storage locker and took a moment to select a suitable meal. Haruka then made her way out of the pod once more, tucked the pouch under her arm, and made off down the gallery toward the propulsion section.

  She looked around at her surroundings as she drew in the stale, sterile air. She could faintly see her breath cloud up as she exhaled. It’s getting colder in here. I should probably bring that up with Marco.

  Minutes passed before Haruka reached the airlock to the propulsion section. She made her way to the propulsion control room and opened the hatch. Mancini was inside, with his neck craned toward the door to see who had come to visit.

  “C’mon, Marco. Time to go to the core,” she said.

  Mancini tore his harness off faster than Haruka had ever seen before. “Finally,” he exclaimed and shot past her.

  Haruka laughed and chased after him down the hall and into the computer core. He beat her through the door and raced between the server racks to the mainframe. Haruka caught up a moment later and stopped herself at the back of the chair. She grabbed her meal pouch from under her arm and tore it open.

  “Alright,” he said as he fired up the mainframe. She watched over his shoulder. “Let’s do this.”

  XCS-03-R MAINFRAME LOGIN:

  Mancini put his credentials into the terminal as Haruka began to eat a neatly formed sandwich.

  XCS-03-R LOGIN ACCEPTED. MANCINI, LT. MARCO. MAINFRAME ACCESS ENABLED. VOICE INTERFACE ERROR, MANUAL COMMANDS ONLY.

  Mancini paused when he read the error from the screen. “Huh, that’s odd.”

  Haruka almost choked on her bite of food. Odd? No, no odd. I don’t need any more odd, Marco. She shuddered at the thought of another issue with the ship. “Odd like trivia knowledge, or odd like ‘my God, we’re all going to die’?”

  “Oh, probably nothing,” he assured her. “It just looks like there’s something wrong with the voice routine. So, what do you need me to do for you here?”

  “I need a few more days at the
beginning of the approach cycle.”

  “Days, huh? The proximity cycle is programmed based on calculated distance, not time,” he said as he pecked at buttons on the screen. “Have you figured out how much distance that is?”

  “Damn,” she cursed. “No. Let me see if I can do the math.”

  “Do you at least know how fast we’re moving?”

  “Yeah, that’s easy. I had to figure that out so I could calculate braking. We’re doing point one zero zero four c.”

  Haruka watched as Mancini placed a set of calculations into the mainframe for processing. The computer whirred for a second and then chirped. “Got it. This will be a breeze.”

  One less thing to worry about.

  “I’m really glad that you can help with this, Marco. It’s going to make my life so much easier later on.”

  “Yeah, sure thing, Kimura. It’s good to be away from…” Mancini’s voice trailed off.

  “Away from the reactor, right?” Haruka waited for a response from Mancini, but he said nothing. “Marco? Is something wrong?”

  “Something’s screwy. Look at this,” He tapped on the last response from the mainframe.

  WARNING. PROXIMITY ROUTINE OFFLINE. SYSTEM FAILURE.

  “Crap, that can’t be good. Can you fix it?”

  “Gotta find out what’s wrong first.” He tapped away at the virtual keyboard.

  PROXIMITY ROUTINE LINK TO COMMUNICATION SYSTEM BROKEN. SYSTEM FAILURE.

  “Somewhere in the com system, it looks like. Just another moment.” Again he tackled the stubborn system.

  EXTERNAL COMMUNICATION SYSTEM OFFLINE.

  “Well, let me just go ahead and enable you then,” he said.

  SYSTEM OVERRIDE REQUIRES AUTHORIZATION. ACCESS DENIED.

  Mancini paused as he stared at the screen. “You’re going to ask me for authorization, you piece of junk?” It appeared that he had forgotten about Haruka floating behind him. “Yeah, let me give you an authorization right here.” His fingers pounded furiously into the keyboard.

  ACCESS DENIED. AUTHORIZATION REQUIRED.

  Mancini growled at the screen. He glanced over his shoulder and said through gritted teeth, “Kimura, you mind going outside for a bit? I need to… persuade this pile of garbage.”

  She thought about making a joke to lighten the mood, but she had never seen Mancini this irritated before, and thought twice. She simply nodded, rolled up her half eaten meal pouch, and retreated from the room.

  And now one more thing to worry about.

  Brev Capt Haruka Kimura

  23 September 2054, 14:11

  Raphael

  Damn it, Marco, where are you? Haruka wiggled her foot impatiently as she sat at a workstation in the propulsion control room. Captain Maynard was strapped to the chair at the end workstation, snoring lightly. How can he sleep at a time like this? We’re running out of time, and he’s taking a nap. She sneered, even though she knew he was out of it, and couldn’t see her.

  Haruka tried to occupy her mind, but the gravity of the situation was too great for her to ignore; every attempt that Lieutenant Mancini and Captain Maynard had made to try to crack the com system access codes had failed. Even Major Emberley’s command codes didn’t work. Every maintenance cycle, Maynard and Mancini had stayed awake for an extra week in an attempt to resolve the issue, with no luck. The com system was linked to the revival cycle through the approach probe, and without access to the system, Haruka could not have her precious four days added to the beginning of the cycle.

  Equally disturbing was that Captain Maynard could not tell if the approach probe would even launch with the external com system disabled. He was certain that the ship could not receive data from the probe, and without that data Raphael’s crew might as well be blindfolded. The ship’s nav system could not avoid any comets or asteroids on approach. The crew would have no idea if the speculated moons of Demeter existed. For that matter, they could not tell if the atmosphere of the planet was hospitable or if the temperature range was suitable for human life.

  She looked again at Maynard and sighed. I should cut him some slack. He has put in a lot of extra work on this problem. She felt a twinge of guilt at her earlier frustration with the engineer.

  Haruka sighed and called up a display of the reactor status. All readings showed nominal. She flipped through other readings available to her, looking for something to do with her time. For the first time since launch, Haruka was disappointed by the fact that the ship was working properly. She had no duties left to perform until the approach cycle, but she could not bear to go back to stasis until she knew that she would be revived early enough to correct the ship’s course. The wait was nearly unbearable, as was the knowledge that she could do nothing to help.

  She picked at the arm rest of the chair. The foam on the leading edge had started to pull apart from repeated scratching over the course of weeks. Haruka saw this, and bored her index finger into the foam to see if she could separate it from the metal inside.

  She startled when the hatch door groaned and swung open, and Maynard awoke with a sharp snort. Mancini pulled his way into the compartment and stopped himself on the open chair. He looked as if he hadn’t slept in days.

  “Please tell me you have good news, Marco,” she begged.

  Mancini sighed loudly and shook his head. “The weirdest thing just happened.”

  “I don’t want weird, I want fixed.” Her stomach began to knot. Why can’t it ever be good news?

  “Hmm? Oh, yeah. You’ve got your four days. I finally got that programmed in the system,” he said, as if they were having a casual conversation.

  Haruka let out a huge sigh of relief, but held back a squeal of delight. “Thanks, Marco. I owe you one.”

  “That’s the thing, Kimura, I don’t think that you do,” Mancini said, clearly exhausted.

  “Was it the brute force tool that finally got through?” asked Maynard.

  Mancini looked over at the engineering captain. “No, sir. That’s the weird part. I didn’t do anything at all.”

  Maynard looked back at him in shock. “Nothing?”

  “I swear to God,” Mancini replied. “I left the core to go to the can and find some grub, and when I came back, all of the systems were online. Well, except voice command. But everything else: approach probe, external com, approach revival control.”

  Maynard dug his hands into the armrests of his chair hard enough for his knuckles to turn white. “Are you kidding me, Lieutenant?”

  “No sir,” he shot back quickly. “I swear. Go look at it yourself if you don’t believe me.”

  “With how much work we put in, I don’t believe it. I need to see for myself.” Maynard unbuckled his straps and kicked off from his chair. Mancini and Maynard made their way through the door as Haruka released her harness and followed suit.

  The trio made the short trip down the hall to the computer core. Maynard led the way and took the mainframe terminal chair for himself. Mancini hovered over his left shoulder, and Haruka floated over his right. Maynard swiped a finger over the screen and brought the terminal out of sleep.

  XCS-03-R SUBSYS CHECK: COMMUNICATIONS

  INTERCOM: ONLINE

  EXTRACOM: ONLINE

  PROBE LINK: ONLINE

  BIOSTASIS LINK: ONLINE

  NAVIGATION LINK: ONLINE

  TELEMATICS: ONLINE

  VOICE INTERFACE: SYSTEM ERROR

  Haruka rubbed her eyes and looked at the screen, as if doing so would rub away a cruel illusion that all was well. Her eyes confirmed that this was no trick; all communications subsystems were online, except for the mainframe voice control.

  “Incredible,” remarked Captain Maynard. “And you didn’t do anything at all, Mancini?”

  “Honest to God. I just left the room for fifteen minutes and came back to this.”

  Maynard tapped a red button in the corner of the screen. “Maynard to bridge.”

  There was a long pause before a crackle heralded the respo
nse. “Bridge here, Major Emberley speaking. Go ahead, Captain.”

  “Sir, the com system has been restored. Captain Kimura’s modifications have been entered into the mainframe.”

  “Excellent news,” the major’s voice rang through cheerfully. “When the maintenance is completed, I want all crew to report to stasis for the final time. Good job, Captain. Lieutenant Mancini, too. Tell him when you see him.”

  Emberley didn’t even ask what was wrong, Haruka thought to herself.

  “He’s right next to me, sir. He can hear you.”

  “Well, it bears repeating. Good job, both of you. Emberley out.” The light on the com link went dark as the connection ended. Mancini clapped Maynard on the shoulder and turned to leave. Maynard fiddled with his harness.

  “That’s it?” Haruka’s words came out before she could stop them. Both men looked at her, a mixture of confusion and exhaustion on both of their faces.

  “Did we miss something, Captain?”

  Her eyes darted between the screen and the engineer. “The system just turns itself back on and we’re not going to find out why?”

  The two men exchanged a quick glance. “Uh, no,” Mancini said with a slight hesitation.

  “C’mon, don’t you think it’s a little weird?”

  “Yup,” he replied quickly. “But we’ve been working on this almost every waking moment since I first came across the problem. And there’s an old saying I love to live by: If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”

  But it is broken. Computers don’t just fix themselves. Haruka wanted to scream the words at Mancini, but all she managed was a stuttered “but”.

  “We’re going to get some rest, Kimura. I know you’ve still got work to do back there in propulsion, but try to take it easy tonight when you get off. It’s fixed, got it?”

  She sighed. “Yeah, you’re right Marco.” Haruka managed a smile. “Sleep well. You’ve earned it.”

  Haruka watched Mancini and Maynard leave the core. The hatch slid shut behind them, sealing her alone in the core with only the monotonous whir of the server cooling fans to keep her company. She maneuvered into the seat and pulled the straps loosely over her shoulders. With a few key strokes, she logged into the nav system and brought up her course corrections. One more time, just to make sure.