The Colony Ship Conestoga : The Complete Series: All Eight Books

by John Thornton

  “This will take a short while to drain. I will check the other shuttles while that happens.” Eris addressed them both as she moved across the crane bridge to the next shuttle. “Seeing these Class 6 shuttles must be bringing back lots of disagreeable memories. I have wondered how I will react when I find another suspended animation repository. I want to be as well prepared for that eventuality as I can be.”

  “I am fine with it, Captain. Those bodies were just some of the first of the multitude of dead people we encountered on the Conestoga.” Jerome spit out the words. “Here in this hanger bay there will not be some emergency decompression. The doors have already been blown off.” He turned around, viewing it all through his spacesuit. “I even have the correct protective coverings this time around. So are those shuttles functional?”

  “We will see.” Eris had opened the hatch on the first of the Class 6 shuttles. The craft was empty, and again there was a puff of vapor from the escaping air. The delta-winged shuttle was locked to the deck by clamps on its skids. The overall color of the shuttle was white with a dark blue trim, but in the odd light, the colors were fuzzy, uncertain. The body was a triangular tube with rounded nose. The wings were slung under that tube. It was sleek and pointed upward toward where the hanger bay doors had been. There were twin propulsion engines at its rear situated to either side of the tall rudder. Thruster nozzles were visible at various spots on the shuttle’s fuselage. The wingspan was about twenty meters, about half that of the PS1. Its rudder stood about twenty-five meters tall. Eris used the shuttle’s grips to move around and get beneath it. Had the cockpit been powered, she could have assessed its fuel from the instruments, but she had to do it the ‘old-fashioned way’. Moving along carefully, there was enough space for Eris to pass under its belly to reach the thruster fuel port where she assessed the gauges.

  Eris spoke as she climbed down and under the shuttle. “No power, but sealed compartments, and, except for that big one, the Class PS1, my initial assessment is that they all look intact. They will need to be fully fueled before we try to launch them. We are draining the PS1’s thruster fuel, and then we can start filling the others. This one is virtually empty.”

  “Only one fuel storage tank?” Jerome asked as he saw the other damaged ones. “So we fill each shuttle one at a time?”

  “Right,” Eris replied. She moved out from the shuttle and across to the next Class 6 shuttle. It was a twin of the other. “After fueling, I can manually run a backup generator in each shuttle using the thruster fuel to charge up the systems.”

  “Or use a fusion pack,” Cammarry suggested. “That is working well for pumping the fuel.”

  Eris had reached the second Class 6 shuttle’s fuel receptacle. “This one is empty as well. I will skip the runabout, as we can only take three of these back, and the runabout is the least desirable for our operations. I am heading to the engineering tug. Jerome, help Cammarry get the fuel lines going to the shuttles. Make sure there are no spills. This planet’s atmosphere is strangely interactive with Earth elements.”

  “That odd looking vehicle is an engineering tug?” Jerome asked. He had begun rappelling down to where he could reach the fuel line.

  “Yes. It will be immensely valuable to us,” Eris replied as she worked her way over to the last of the shuttles. She had to pass completely across the runabout, which she ignored, and then get to the end of the hanger bay where the engineering tug was locked to the deck. “It can be thought of as an oversized, flying, version of an engineering automacube. Multiple tools, gear, and equipment. We were lucky to find one here.”

  Eris swung down onto the back end of the engineering tug. Unlike the other shuttles which were all sleek, aerodynamic, and streamlined, the engineering tug was more angular. It had two rectangular cuboids for its main body. They were each about five meters tall, and thirty meters long. At the front of that fuselage the end caps of the cuboids were clear permalloy. Set atop those were four smaller cuboids, three meters tall and about half the length of the ship. The overall color of the tug was bright blue, with gleaming silver-colored edges. Viewports were set across sides of the small cuboids. Eris opened a hatch at the back of the tug, and then climbed inside.

  “This one’s thruster tanks are full. No power, but I will start up the generators here. Looks like this was in mothballs, but then why the full fuel tanks? Odd. Someone had tried to get this one going, but only got halfway through the preflight checklist.”

  Jerome was moving the fuel line from the PS1 to the first Class 6 shuttle. In the spacesuit, he was not as dexterous as was Eris, but he made the connections.

  “Cammarry, begin fueling this one,” Jerome said.

  While Cammarry and Jerome did that, Eris dropped a winched cable from the back of the engineering tug. It reached to the back, or bottom, of the slanted hanger bay. She climbed down that, and Jerome caught her movement from the corner of his eye. He turned his helmeted head and shouted. “Where are you going?”

  “Down to the broken observation deck, to check on apparatuses, instruments, and controls. A lot of debris down there, around the main controls. Looks like some of the broken hanger bay doors are down there too,” Eris replied. “I need to make sure we can unlock the docking clamps. Just keep fueling the shuttles, and I will make sure they will be ready to go when needed.”

  Eris felt bad about not telling her entire plan to Jerome and Cammarry, but she saw this as her opportunity to investigate the possibility of locating the shaft which would lead downward to the central memory core of SB Virginia Dare.

  Jerome and Cammarry busied themselves refueling the shuttles.

  Eris made it to the lowest part of the hanger bay. There the incline upward looked very steep, but the darkness of the area added to that sensation. Her own spacesuit’s lights did little to dispel the gloom. The red light from Zalia’s sun glowed overhead at the entrance to the tilted hanger bay, but those rays of light did not illuminate the darkness of that lowest part of the hanger bay. Eris stumbled on the slanted rubble, and looked around. To one side was a pressure door which had sprung partway open. She crawled past that and stood in the remains of a hallway.

  Eris adjusted her spacesuit’s transmitter to a private channel, and then asked, “Sandie? Can you still hear me? SB Pinaka, are you there?”

  Sandie responded. “Yes. I can hear you, and I will relay our conversation to SB Pinaka, if that is your desire.”

  “First, is Monika safe?” Eris asked.

  “Yes. She is doing well hovering,” Sandie replied.

  “Excellent, put us all on a conference channel with SB Pinaka, if you can,” Eris answered.

  “Done. I see you have left the hanger bay. I take it the others do not know what you are doing. Is that wise?”

  “I must try to recover SB Virginia Dare’s central memory core.”

  SB Pinaka entered the conversation saying, “With all due respect, Captain, have you considered that perhaps seeking cooperation with the others would be a better tactic?”

  “I did it alone for SB Cotard, and I will do it alone here. I may not even be able to negotiate a pathway through this darkness. If that is the case this will be a short trip,” Eris said. “Besides, it will take them some time to fuel those three shuttles. Will you monitor that and alert me if they encounter some difficulty?”

  Sandie answered, “I am already doing that. They are asking about you. What do I tell them?”

  Eris switched the transmitter back to an open channel and said, “Jerome and Cammarry, I am searching for items we might need. The AI and SB will keep track of all of us. If you need help, or want me to return before you get the fuel transferred let me know.”

  “Going alone anywhere is stupid,” Jerome bluntly stated. “It will end badly.”

  “She is going to get another obsolete central memory core. She did that in Beta, and now somewhere on the needle ship is Cotard,” Cammarry’s voice was seething. “Eris, just do what you want. You will anyway, no matter what
we say.”

  “She is the captain after all,” Jerome added with a heavy dose of sarcasm. Then Jerome’s voice changed, softened, and he said, “If the highest aim of a captain were to preserve the ship, it would stay in the port forever. Sorry Eris, but….”

  “You think getting Cotard was somehow acceptable? Putting that system somewhere to torture and abuse others? Really?” Cammarry asked disbelievingly. “I can hardly believe you Jerome. You are such a…”

  Sandie cut off the conversation. “Eris, the verbal altercation between Jerome and Cammarry is escalating. I do not feel it is best for you to be hearing it. I have also cut Monika out of the transmissions. I will alert both you and Monika if there is something relevant. I will also try to intervene with Jerome and Cammarry. They are completing the refueling task while they quarrel, but I will do what I can to mitigate and sooth their agitated states.”

  “Thank you Sandie.”

  “The interpersonal conflicts here are far more complicated and difficult than recovering a central memory core,” SB Pinaka stated. “For your mission, I suggest you proceed in the space you are in for roughly twenty meters. At that point, you may find a way leading downward.”

  “Understood.”

  Eris shined her lights along the broken hallway. Its twisted and wrecked condition made movement difficult, as some support beams were crisscrossing the space. Wiring and pipework jutted out from the walls, or hung down from the ceiling. Holes were open in the floor and smashed sections of the walls showed where extreme forces had torn the permalloy, exposing compressed and ruined parts beyond. Rocky chunks of taupe colored matter of some kind were scattered about the area. They had green veins snaking through the taupe chunks. Eris could not recognize those rocks, and wondered if they were part of the planet’s ground.

  Eris picked up a chunk and looked it over closely. “What is this?”

  “I believe that is solid Stabilizite,” Sandie replied. “Visual observation is not 100% accurate, and they are probably trace elements of other things which could be detected by a physical chemical analysis, but it is mostly Stabilizite.”

  Eris put a small chunk in a pouch of her spacesuit, and moved onward. At the twenty-meter point, the hallway had once had a junction with another corridor. Oddly, a sign was still visible on one section of the corridor, it read, ‘Recreation Area 2FG’ and had an arrow. It looked surreal in the beams of light from the suit.

  “Where is that shaft you scanned?” Eris asked. She looked at a tangle of twisted beams, fallen, and collapsed walls. Silently she prayed to discern some opening, some doorway, or some intact elevator or other apparatus to use. “I see no route to the companionway. Where is it?”

  “The scans show the shaft is six meters from your location. From what I can observe through your visors, the wall to your right is piled with three distinct layers of compressed walls, including a bulkhead door, pressure door, and smashed ventilation impellors,” Sandie responded. “Additionally, there is a large section of native Zalian solid Stabilizite which has penetrated between the layers of the permalloy. The force of the impact was immense. I do not see a route which is large enough for you to pass through.”

  “So several decks pancaked together here. To lift and unfold that would take a lot of heavy construction equipment, like a team of automacubes,” Eris stated. “It would take longer than we have for me to even begin cutting a way through all this rubble. Are there alternatives?”

  “Unfortunately, I can conjecture no other options,” Sandie replied.

  “No other way? None at all?” Eris blew out a long breath. Her hopes for recovering another synthetic brain were fading.

  SB Pinaka then added, “The engineering tug has equipment powerful enough to move the rear wall of the hanger bay. Then the hallway you are in could be disassembled. After that, these compressed sections could be peeled away and that companionway reached.”

  “Excellent!” Eris was thrilled, but something then nagged at her mind. She wondered why Sandie had not informed her of this option. “How long will that operation take?”

  “Estimated time for disassembly to reach your location is 5,037 hours. That is working continuously and not factoring in any refueling, or unforeseen delays from potential complications,” SB Pinaka stated.

  “How long will the thruster fuel in the hanger bay last if used exclusively by the engineering tug?” Eris asked, she knew the answer in generalities, but inquired anyway.

  “Assuming the intact thruster fuel storage tank is full, that amount could power the engineering tug for 715 hours of continuous operation,” SB Pinaka answered.

  “Thank you for your suggestion, but in the future, please only present to me options which have a realistic chance of coming true,” Eris replied testily. Then she caught herself. “SB Pinaka, forgive me. I am succumbing to squabbling like Jerome and Cammarry. I welcome any and all suggestions, as brainstorming and collaboration is essential for us all.”

  “Agreed. I believe I should also respond by saying, you are forgiven. I took no offence. Additionally, you would have lost regenerative powers in your spacesuit long before the suggested disassembly process was completed. This is not to mention inadequate supplies of food, water, and the necessity of dumping the sanitation system in your suit.”

  “Yes, we have established we cannot do it now,” Eris replied with a smile.

  SB Pinaka then suggested, “Another option might be to ask the indigenous species of this planet to do the recovery work.”

  “The Crocks?” Eris blinked her eyes several times. “They did recover that AI Ogma. Maybe they could reach SB Virginia Dare? Sandie? What are your thoughts?”

  Sandie the AI replied, “I have insufficient information to make a valid conjecture. However, they were successful in AI Ogma’s case. As Jerome might quote a famous idiom, ‘All they can do is say no.’”

  “Well, we have a plan. I am heading back to the hanger bay. When I fly that engineering tug back, I will be making a short stop on the way. Back to the library.”

  When Eris reached the hanger bay she saw that Jerome was just finishing the disconnection of the fuel line to the last shuttle. She checked her communication network, and it was reading open channels. Yet, there was no conversation.

  “Monika?” Eris called out. “Are you still in hovering mode?”

  “Yes. Nothing much happening out here. Several of those large floating creatures came by, but did not come too close to the shuttle. They stayed closer to the native forests, if you can call them a forest. Are you able to fly any of those craft out?”

  “I think so. Jerome and Cammarry, did the refueling work?” Eris asked.

  “Each ship is full,” Jerome stated flatly.

  “Climb over to that first Class 6 shuttle, and I will show each of you how to start the generators. After the systems are powered up, we will attempt a flight out of here.”

  Neither Jerome nor Cammarry answered verbally, but each began moving toward the shuttle. In some ways Eris found the silence more ominous than the quarreling had been. Tension was thick, and could almost be felt through the spacesuits.

  The first of the Class 6 shuttles was reached, with Eris getting there a few moments after Jerome and Cammarry had climbed inside of it. They were both standing there, at an odd angle relative to the orientation of the shuttle, but saying nothing. The lights from their spacesuits shone around the interior. Eris noted that this shuttle was labeled as DS-616 over the cockpit and along the sides of the seats.

  “The generator will take some time to power up the systems, or if you want to use one of your fusion packs, we can try a quick recharge,” Eris suggested. She tried to put some lightness into her voice, but was unsure how it came off, or the way her words landed on Jerome and Cammarry.

  “Just do it your way,” Cammarry stated. “We had a bad experience with a fusion pack on this kind of shuttle.”

  Jerome was silent, but in the reflected light of the bubble helmet, Eris saw his lips wer
e tight, and his eyes glaring. So she sat down in the pilot’s seat. Opening a panel on the lower part of the cockpit, Eris slid the generator control board out of its slot.

  “This will run off thruster fuel and then energize the systems here to give you command and control functions,” Eris said and pushed several buttons and turned a dial to maximum. She placed her hand against the side of the pilot’s seat, but could feel nothing through her gloved hand. A moment later, a single yellow indicator icon came on in the center display screen of the cockpit. It showed charging status. “Yes, it is working.”

  Eris got up, and asked, “Which one of you will be piloting this shuttle?”