Terror on the Trailblazer

by John Thornton

  “Kimberly? Report on Ken, immediately,” Janae ordered.

  “I am in… focusing… Ken is still in place as my anchor and mental security. He is… is alive. Shall I contact him?”

  “How do you know he is alive?” Janae asked.

  “His implant is reading as empowered… empowered… That would not read… if his bodily functions had ceased… Conjecture that Ken is alive. Please hurry. Lucidity is stable… for now. Attempting self-control,” Kimberly replied. “Limited contact is better… save it for shuttle mission…”

  Janae pressed onward. Hours passed, and soon she was back in the corridor outside of Hanger 9, the location of the customized shuttle from the people of Christianopolis. Pausing a bit before that bulkhead door, she considered, “Have we been played and tricked into separating? No. This was my own decision. Why was I so quick to trust Kimberly when that AI has been spouting gibberish for so long? Is there a springe waiting in here? A trap to be sprung? Another betrayal?” Then she asked herself a harder question, “Have I betrayed Ken? He has shown nothing but loyalty to me, even well beyond what I expected. Should I have stayed with him?”

  Tapping in the sequence, the door to Hanger 9 opened and she peered inside. Everything looked just as it had before. There were no other people around, and no security automacubes, or other machines waiting to accost her. She did not expect some biological animal to attack, but the image of the bruins and even the mysterious gigantopithecus flashed through her mind. For some reason, she wondered what had become of Ape, but she pushed all those thoughts aside.

  Reaching the runabout, Janae found her brown spacesuit and put it on, placing her backpack into the cargo compartment, and securing the sections of the spacesuit over her RAM clothing, belt, and gear.

  “Last time Ken was with me when I did this. Did I thank him for helping me so much?” she spoke aloud. Her mind was on Ken, and the fact she had not been able to speak to him directly, but she also was thinking of how Butterfield had hidden away inside the runabout. She secured the cargo compartment, strapping her backpack into a net which held it tightly, and she then did a thorough assessment to make sure no unwanted people, tants, animals, or machines were anywhere else in the runabout. Seeing the empty backseat made her feel troubled, and she again wished for Ken’s presence.

  The canopy of the shuttle closed around her, and she initiated the power-up protocol by pressing the “Quick start” button on the cockpit’s display. Following the steps as they flashed into the display, soon all the pre-flight requirements were completed.

  “So, runabout, take me out of this hanger bay,” Janae said audibly as she pressed the controls to unlock the docking clamps.

  The shuttle contacted the hanger bay, and large display screen at the back of the hanger bay made announcements as the atmosphere was cycled out of the hanger, and the gravity manipulation was shut down, and finally as the exterior hanger bay doors opened to reveal space, stars, and the unknown of a mission alone, away from everyone.

  “Take me outside, gently and safely,” Janae commanded.

  The thrusters fired, and the shuttle lifted off. It moved easily around the other shuttles, and Janae thought about Butterfield’s Daddy as she flew past the wrecked black shuttle. “Rest in peace, to all who died. Constance, I still miss you, and you should never have been murdered.”

  Leaving the hanger bay, Janae was struck emotionally with the fact that she really was truly alone, isolated, and separated from everyone else for the first time in her entire life. Tapping on the implant behind her ear, she wondered if Kimberly could tell where she was, and if the whole mission was a fiasco and folly. The displays in the cockpit showed the tan and clear areas, and outside the hanger bay was clear for a good distance.

  “Kimberly? I am in the shuttle, how do I hone-in on the beacon you spoke about?”

  “Ken alive. Unable to identify… your location… sending beacon… transmission,” Kimberly’s voice replied. “Link to this… poem… Inspired from Heaven she homeward took her way, nor palled her new design with long delay; but of her train a trusty servant sent, to call her friend was evident… evident…”

  A light on the display came on indicating identification of the beacon. Janae tapped on the dampening field command, and ordered, “Shuttle, lock onto that beacon and set course for its location. Avoid every radioactive space way, or dangerous band.”

  The thrusters fired, and the displays in the cockpit showed additional information. The beacon’s location flashed and was identical with one of the potential targets which they had flown over before. It had shown no difference from the other ones, but now it was glowing with the beacon sent by Kimberly.

  Janae considered trying to ask more of Kimberly, but the stress in the AI’s prior comments was immense, and Janae could tell by the flight-path that she was only thirty minutes from the location.

  The shuttle slipped through space, dodging the bands of radiation, and keeping to the clearly delineated places. As it approached the destination, Janae took over the flight. When about five hundred meters away, a brilliant blue light flashed. It was on a small area which was nondescript.

  Janae looked and tried to tell what was flashing, but could only see a small outline set in a larger relatively flat area of the hull. Firing the thrusters, the runabout approached the hull, and Janae considered the hull to be down. In her mind she was descending, landing, even though there was no sensation of gravity. No real up, nor down, but she thought of it that way and maneuvered the runabout to land as close to the flashing blue light as possible. As the shuttle’s legs touched the hull, a series of command menus opened up on the cockpit display.

  “Yes! Lock me down!” Janae yelled out in triumph. For one of the newly opened menus was labeled, “Magnetic Adhesion: Struts” and when she touched that, she felt the shuttle sort of grab the hull.

  Checking the cockpit’s displays, she saw that the runabout was securely attached to the hull, so, Janae unbuckled her restraints and popped the canopy. She saw the humidity in the air flicker away into the void of space in just a flash, and realized that the cabin had still contained some atmosphere from when she had been in the hanger bay. Her spacesuit had lights set in the shoulders, and she switched those on, and their twin beams illuminated the area around her.

  “Not an airlock, per-se,” Janae said, but there was no one to hear her words. “I must tell Ken to make sure to keep his spacesuit on when we come out here to recover this craft. Why am I speaking to myself?” Her nervousness was surprising to her.

  Holding tightly to the edges of the runabout, she swung her feet out and over. Floating in the apparent zero-gravity was odd, but not too difficult. She saw that there was only about a twenty-meter distance to cross to reach the flashing blue light, and what she hoped was an entrance to a place called an Exterior Repair Station. She recalled that Johannes had claimed to be in some place like that and Janae briefly considered calling out to see if he would answer. However, for some reason, she did not want to reach out to any of the humans from the Trailblazer. The personal connection with them was missing. She missed Ken’s constant consistency, and even missed Dome 17’s personnel, with some very notable exceptions. A tear beaded up near her eye, and she murmured, “Oh, Constance, I miss you so. Why did they have to kill you?” As she blinked that tear floated off, and was captured by the air system of the spacesuit, which wicked it away.

  Shaking herself out of her reverie, she placed one booted foot on the hull, she felt the grippers make contact, and that reassured her. It was not quite a sensation of down, but better than floating. The spacesuit’s functions were working well, and she pushed her other foot against the hull as well. It did not feel like standing, and yet she was upright, next to the upright runabout. She hit the control and the canopy slid shut. Up, down, and sideways were still uncertain in her orientation, and therefore, she shut her eyes, took some deep breaths, and then set her mind to the idea that the hull was down, and up was toward space. B
ut when she looked up, she could see other parts of the gargantuan Colony Ship Trailblazer, and she felt odd again. Squatting down, she decided to waddle along where she could keep her feet firmly planted, but also grab handholds as she moved along. It felt more secure and safe that way.

  She reached the flashing blue light, which was coming from just a small protuberance out of the hull. Janae pondered the light source, and saw that there was an access panel next to it, with “ERS-7084” written on it. Looking up, viewing the vast distances she could see along the hull of the Trailblazer, there were, off in the distance, larger, building-size structures which jutted up from the hull in many places. It was strange, and felt a bit like the Isle of Pines forest, only made from permalloy and other created materials, and not from biologicals. Janae shook her head inside the bubble helmet, and said, “Such wonders I have seen here. Forests of biological trees, and forests growing on buildings, and this forest of mechanical contraptions just thrusting themselves out into the void of space. Marvels, mysteries, and magnificence, mingled with malignant, murderous, monsters.” Janae recalled hearing in history classes how in some of the early missions to the outer planets, space pioneers had suffered from monophobia, astrophobia, and agoraphobia, and yet, here, when she was alone on the hull of the Trailblazer, she took in the scenic wonders and beauty of the cosmos, as well as a strange sense of pride in humanity for constructing something as immense as the Trailblazer, despite all its terrors.

  Opening the access panel, Janae was confronted by a nine-section color control pad. As she was reaching for it, the lights on it flashed out a rapid sequence of colors, and then glowed brightly. The section of hull just beyond the panel lit in blue in a rectangular area, and some words lit up. Janae had to stand upright to read them, “Airlock Ready” and as she stood there, she noted some handholds—grab-bar type things—which silently moved out of the hull, and were on either side of what had then begun to look like a doorway. That disturbed Janae’s spatial orientation, which was further confused as another control box lit up. It had two buttons, “Depressurize” in blue color and “Pressurize” in rust color, but the words were upside down to her.

  “Roughly speaking, there is vacuum in space, and for the airlock to work, I should depressurize it. But how to open the door then?” Janae said to herself, and looked about for some other controls, as she turned to line herself up with the lettering on the buttons. There were no other obvious levers, or buttons, or panels which might open. She pressed the “Depressurize” button and it began to flash. A few moments later, the airlock door retracted back, and the inside of the airlock was revealed. In some ways, it appeared to Janae like she was looking down into a deep shaft, but inside that shaft, the writing on the walls was sideways, to that perspective. She reached for the handhold and gripped tightly. That handhold was at the top part of the threshold—orientation was shifting for Janae yet again—but pulling her gripper soles away from the hull was disconcerting. She felt the floating sensation again, but maneuvered herself inside the airlock, and then planted her feet on what looked like a side wall. When her boots gripped it—both her feet had touched at nearly the same time—it gave her an altered sensation of a new direction for down. Taking a few deep and drawn-out breaths, Janae looked around, and now the airlock felt like a short corridor, with an open door which overlooked the vast expanse of space. Running midway were handrails, and on the inside of the threshold there was another set of two buttons. This time she pressed the “Pressurize” button, and the external door closed, lights came on, and she felt gravity manipulation initiate.

  “Hurray! I am inside!”

  When the “Pressurize” button stopped flashing, the rear wall of the airlock slid open, and she realized that it was a door. Walking over to it, she stepped inside. Checking her suit’s functions, they showed her that the room was safe with atmosphere, pressure, temperature, and other factors. The main feature of the room was a high-tech control chair—buttons, switches, levers, and other devices were on the arms of the chair—which sat before a large illuminated display screen. On the display was a scene from the outside, and the blue runabout was in view. Down one side of that screen were a long list of items with numbers following them. The list was scrolling along, and beneath that was flashing “Live Feed” in small letters. Glancing about, Janae saw two other doors, one marked “Storage” and the other a plain closed door. The storage door was across from the airlock door which had shut behind Janae without her hearing it.

  Pulling her bubble helmet off, Janae spoke out, “Kimberly? I am in the station. Can you hear me?”

  There was no response. So, Janae reached up and tapped her implant, and repeated her question, “Kimberly? I am inside the Trailblazer. Am I inside that barrier you erected?”

  The door across from the display screen opened with a slight swishing sound. Lights came on in the hallway beyond.

  “May I assume that is a yes?” Janae asked as she stepped toward that door. Peering out, Janae reached for her revenger, and realized it was not in the outer pouch, but was still in its holster on her belt, trapped under the spacesuit. “Kimberly must have this area secured. I will let Ken inside here, and then we will go get that runabout shuttle if we need to. First, we reunite.”

  One end of the hall was dark, and the other was illuminated, and so, Janae walked toward the light. It was only about five meters until she approached a pressure door which opened as she got near it.

  Inside was the hanger bay, which was brightly illuminated, and the FTL scout ship was seated in the middle. No longer was it chained down to the deck, but rather it was connected into ducts, conduits, wires, and a multitude of apparatus. One place caught Janae’s eyes, and that was a small bank of taupe colored cubicles which were exactly like the food ration factory at Dome 17, just to a smaller scale.

  “Ration bars? Here?” Janae was amazed, thrilled, and hungry all at once.

  Beyond that, the teleportation system was set up and humming with power in another stall of the hanger bay. It was more elaborate than what she and Ken had constructed. Janae felt strange to see that, as neither she, nor Ken, had assembled it there. It was precisely aligned, and connected in by fusion packs, and wired links to the FTL scout ship. Janae recognized that the scout had evolved and been adapted for additional purposes, and she wondered what all Kimberly had been doing.

  “Must let Ken in. He has to see this.” Marching through the hanger bay, Janae felt confidence returning. No longer would circumstances dictate how she lived and what exactly she had to do. Passing the observation deck, Janae noted that four engineering automacubes were parked on that deck, and were plugged into charging ports which were powered by additional fusion packs.

  “Excellent! Kimberly has gotten someplace to make fusion packs,” she said as she neared the bulkhead door.

  “Kimberly? Kimberly, I am here now, and we can let Ken inside,” Janae stated.

  The AI Kimberly’s voice came out of speakers somewhere around the FTL scout, “Janae, it is good that you have arrived… have arrived… It is good to have the magic door shut behind us. On the other side of that door are the world and its troubles, hopes, and… and… fears, headaches, heartaches, ambitions and disappointments… and disappointments… NO! my memory loops and curls, loops and curls… old lyrics… but within, must make repairs… as you lie back on the green settee, and face the long lines of your silent soothing comrades, there is only peace of spirit and rest of mind in the company of the great dead… great dead… great dead… Learn to love, learn to admire them; learn to know what their comradeship means; for until you have done so, the greatest solace and anodyne… God has given to man… have not yet shed their blessings upon you… Christianopolis blessed you… Here behind this magic door is the resting house, where you may forget the past, enjoy the present, and prepare for the future… manual controls for bulkhead are keyed to your… your implant…”

  “I will work on getting you reset and repaired as soon as I let
Ken inside,” Janae said. “You sound like obscure songs, and poems, and those memory loops are annoying.”

  “Agreed,” Kimberly replied. “All greed… great steed… green mead.”

  Janae pulled the manual door lever and the pressure door slid open.

  “Janae! You made it!” Ken leapt up from where he had been sitting. His dark face filled with excitement and joy. “Outstanding!”

  The next moment was a blur as Butterfield moved swiftly from where she had been lying—inert and seemingly harmless—on the deck. She grabbed Ken from behind, and with a quick slash across his throat she struck.

  “What? Oh… hey!” Ken’s voice gurgled as the small blade in Butterfield’s hand severed his arteries, and trachea.

  Pushing Ken down, Butterfield snapped out, “My Daddy would not have died except for you both. The day of your reckoning is here.”

  Ken thrashed about on the deck, blood gushing from the mortal wound in his neck. His legs kicking as he tried to regain his footing, but his countenance was stricken, and his face was quickly losing all color.

  “No!” Janae screamed and again reached for the revenger which was under the spacesuit.

  Butterfield rushed toward Janae, the small blade in her left hand. It was dripping Ken’s blood. “After I slit your throat, too, I will stuff the two of you in a gravity conduit like a rad-baby and flush your meaningless carcasses to Axis Mundi. That is where all the trash belongs.”