There they sat, two baseball-size hemispheres, clearly parts of one whole, steaming and partially impaled by the corrugated decking. Like the goo, they were dark amber in color, except for where a lighter, fleshy material showed through from the areas torn open in the fall.
Donovich forced his breathing to slow, then held one breath and slowly let it out; he felt dizzy from the effort. His body was awash with adrenalin and hormones, fueling him for either fight or flight against the unknown.
“Enough of this crap,” he snapped, now becoming angry with himself. He swung the door open until it locked back, then stepped around the stuff on the deck to get a look inside the locker. After just a moment, Donovich stepped away and engaged the squad-ban. “Patterson from Donovich,” he commed. A smile of relief crept across his face. He turned and walked toward the mess-station for something to drink.
“Yes, Chief?” replied Patterson.
“What’s your location?”
“I’m ’n the machine room just below the middeck hatch.”
“Come up to the life-boat deck,” Donovich instructed, understanding that it was a six-story ladder climb. “I’m going to need help with a few things.”
“Yes’ir,” replied Patterson, almost enthusiastically; with a beep, the comm switched to standby.
Donovich felt physically rung out, and emotionally less than worthy to wear the uniform of the Aerospace Command. The only up-side to all this was that the mission recorders—the ship’s black boxes—continuously stored system data and comm traffic, but only recorded images at very specific moments, such as Transition, and when certain alarms were tripped. So with luck, it should have missed all his stupidity over the stuff from the locker.
“Ya’ll called, Chief?” said Patterson, as he climbed up onto the deck.
At about six-foot four and built like someone who worked for a living, Patterson literally stood out among his fellow Starmen.
Donovich just stood there by the open looker, sucking something from a collapsible drink bottle. “Is this your handy work, Sergeant?” he asked with an I already know the answer undertone.
Patterson just smiled and walked over for a better look. After a moment of contemplation, “Nice trick,” he said turning to Donovich, “Someday ya’ll have to tell me how I did it.” Patterson had one of those easy-going personalities that made it hard not to immediately take a liking to him, but as far as Donovich was concerned, it was the fact that he was a highly knowledgeable and dedicated member of the engineering team that made him a worthwhile comrade.
Clamping the drink bottle closed, Donovich stowed it in his utility jumper and reached into the locker. “So you’re claiming this isn’t one of your practical jokes?”
“Yes’ir,” Patterson replied. “My jokes never involve havin’ to clean up afterward.” He smiled and motioned toward the deck. “That’s quite a smell you got there, what’s this stuff?”
Donovich pulled out what appeared to be a closed pull-top can, and casually tossed it to Patterson; it was heavy and made a sloshing sound. Patterson turned it around in his hands for a look at the label. “Yellow Cling Peaches,” he read.
“Yep, in heavy syrup; that explains the burnt-sugar smell,” Donovich said as he pulled several other cans from the locker and placed them on the deck. “They’re not Squadron-issued, so where did we get them?”
Patterson thought it over in his usual, drawn-out way; he once had to explain this to a rather annoyed instructor, “Sir, I’d rather be right and considered slow, than fast and stupid.” Although this wasn’t tolerated in training, it later proved to be one of his most outstanding attributes.
“I’d say it’s part of the ship’s discretionary cargo, most likely from one of the officers; hey, maybe even the CO?” he speculated.
“Lovely,” stated Donovich, as he dug out several cleaning packs he had brought back from the kitchen station. “Well it’s our mess now, let’s get going on this,” he said, handing Patterson a pack.
Inside the locker was a mass of caramelized sugar and two more burnt peach halves. Donovich scooped the mess into a bag, and wiped down the area; the pack’s chemically treated cloth made short work of the remaining goo, but it uncovered something else: a circular outline matching the base of the can was burnt into the floor of the lockers.
“Patterson, look at this,” he called.
Without a word Patterson stood up and watched as Donovich tried to clean off the ring. “It looks like the can just flashed over,” said Patterson. He was no longer smiling.
“Agreed,” stated Donovich as he bent down and picked up the other peach cans. “I don’t know what’s going on, but until we get a chance to sort things out I’m securing these in one of the ordnance bunkers we installed for the Starines.” He headed out across the deck. Patterson joined him.
The bunker looked like a black garbage can bolted to the deck by four spring-loaded shock absorbers. “Get the lid for me,” asked Donovich.
“Yes’ir,” Patterson replied as he undid the oversized wing nuts.
“Thanks,” Donovich said. He placed the cans down into the drum designed for storing small arms ammunition and explosive ordnance—such as grenades. The bunkers were more than capable of containing and redirecting the force of such an explosion; this while the quilted lining burst, releasing a cloud of heat-absorbing particles to dampen down any fire.
“Okay. . .” said Donovich as they secured the drum’s lid, “. . .we’ll finish the clean up, then you can help me track down the bug in the DFC unit.”
“Yes’ir, but my diagnostic set is still down by my station, it’ll take me a bit . . .” he started to explain. Donovich motioned for him to stop talking.
“No, no, I mean, an actual bug.” He held up his fingers to indicate the size. “About this big; I came across it after the incident,” he said. “It was just sitting there on the panel . . .” Donovich fisted his hands and brought them up to either side of his head “. . . watching me with an eyeless, hotdog-shaped head.”
Patterson just stopped and stared at him; a dull expression crossed his face as his eyes seemed to be looking back at some point in his memory.
“Patterson?” said Donovich calmly; it was obvious that his comrade was in trouble, “Robert . . . Bobby, look at me. . .” He resisted the urge to physically reach out to him. Patterson’s breathing became deep and drawn out; something was frightening him.
“Starman Patterson!” yelled Donovich with his best military bearing, “Look at me!” Patterson snapped to attention and fixed his eyes on Donovich; the look of wide-eye terror quickly faded.
“Sir,” said Patterson, as he pulled himself together.
“Would you care to explain yourself, mister!?” commanded Donovich, hoping that by maintaining the pressure, he could work out what was upsetting his fellow Starman.
“Can’t,” replied Patterson.
“Can’t or won’t!?” demanded Donovich.
Patterson took deep breath, “Can’t.” Clearly Patterson knew that this answer was going to piss him off, but before Donovich could retaliate, “Sir . . .” Patterson said, holding up his hands in an effort to deflect the outburst. “Chief, can we stop playin’ spacemen for a bit, and just talk?” Patterson asked, sincerely, with a look of concern in his eyes.
Donovich picked up on this. “Sure,” he said, and pulled out his package of pain killers. He took one, and then offered the rest to Patterson.
“No thanks,” the man said with a wave of his hand. He turned and looked down over the deck’s guardrail at the DFC unit. “It’s been about two years ago now, I was the Assistant Chief Engineer onboard the Boston. Well, we were homeward bound from Proxima; about a day under drive we started havin’ electrical problems.”
“Isn’t that run about a week?” asked Donovich.
“About that,” he agreed. “You know, electrical shorts and loose couplin’s are business-as-usual after Transition; but then equipment lockdowns were bein’ found opened, or even miss
in’ all together.”
To Donovich, it sounded like a disgruntled Starman engaged in a bit of revenge sabotage, most likely to make someone else look incompetent.
“Then the shit really hit the fan. One of the support stanchions for the LI’s laser canal broke loose. I don’t have to tell you, if the gravity detector went out, findin’ home would have been more a matter of religion than science.” he turned to see Donovich’s reaction.
All Donovich could do was nod in agreement. The Laser Interferometer was the only navigational aid the ship had under drive; its primary function was to detect the approach of a gravitational anomaly, namely a star or some other super massive object. Without it, navigation would have to rely on pure mathematics and a ballistic trajectory to determine when to turn off the drive, and that could lead—had led—to timing mistakes measured in hundreds of millions of miles.
“Mind you, by the end of day six, everyone was involved ’n tryin’ to figure this thin’ out. The CO ordered all nonessential crew to their bunks, while the XO handled it. Of course, by then there were only a few of us runnin’ around.” Patterson looked annoyed. “I understand what they were tryin’ to do, but it backfired; stuff started happenin’ faster than we could fix it. At that point the XO threatened us with court martial.”
Donovich knew the next part. “And in a time of war, that could have added up to being spaced.”
“Damn Skippy it could,” Patterson agreed. “As for your bug friend,” he said, gesturing toward the DFC. “We were just ’n hour or so from droppin’ out of drive, when I heard somethin’ shortin’ out. By the time I figured out where it was comin’ from, this big-ass thin’, kinda like a crab. . .”, he put both of his hands together at the thumbs, with fingers spread wide to show the thing’s size, “. . . just came floatin’ along like it was ’n zero-g.”
“What did you do?” asked Donovich, feeling somehow very stereotypical at having asked that.
Patterson seemed to take offense at the question. “I didn’t do a damn thin’,” he responded, and lunged his hands at Donovich’s face to make his point about being startled. “I called out over the comm for help. I had to tell that story repeatedly before I could get anyone to believe me; or at least I thought they did. By then we had come out of drive; we spent the rest of the trip tearin’ everythin’ apart lookin’ for it.”
“Let me guess . . .” said Donovich.
“Don’t bother,” replied Patterson, cutting him off. “It was just like when pilots made the mistake of reportin’ UFO’s back in the days. Without proof a saucer banged up your plane, you were screwed.”
“Didn’t the mission recorders pick anything?” asked Donovich.
“Nope,” said Patterson, “Just me screamin’ over the comm about a God damn bug.” Patterson started to smile, “But I got lucky. They were short-handed for this little invasion of theirs. . .” Without concluding the sentence he pointed at the DFC, “Let’s go have a look at your friend.” and started off for the ladder well.
“You know, Patterson. . .” said Donovich as he followed him, “. . .if this turns out to be one big catten prank, the quartermaster is going to have to issue me a new pair of boots.”
Patterson just looked at him for a moment, “Why so, Chief?”
Donovich smiled, “Because I’ll have lost one up your ass!”
Now on the main deck, Donovich stepped around Patterson and walked off. “Where’re you goin’?” asked Patterson.
Motioning at his station, Donovich explained, “I have coffee to attend to; besides, you’ll need to figure out what to put the wee beastie in once you catch it.”
Without a word, Patterson turned and headed toward the equipment lockers.
Then the lights went out, dropping the module into a world of inky black, outlined by yellow and green night-glow strips, with pockets of blue-white LED emergency lighting.
“What now?!” exclaimed Donovich as he rushed to his station; a red icon flashed on the console’s power flow schematic. “Patterson!” he shouted. “Something just tripped the breaker on main bus B!” Thoughts of Patterson’s little friend tearing apart his ship pushed at him.
Near the ladder well, a work light came on, it was Patterson putting on his head-lamp; its beam playing out across the space. “I’m on it,” he shouted.
Donovich checked the fault indicator log on the breaker; he anticipated a power spike as the reason—static-electric build up was a common problem under drive—but the read-back told another story. “Patterson, don’t engage the breaker!” shouted Donovich urgently as he left the station. “Don’t engage the breaker; it’s set to failsafe due to a power loss, there’s a break in the line!” Not hearing a response from Patterson, Donovich raised his arm to access the comm control at his forearm.
An explosion of sparks erupted from the deck below, as fire claxons sounded and their accompanying yellow strobe lights pulsed. “Shit!” yelled Donovich, as he ran for the ladder well; pressing his feet against the outside of the ladder’s rails, he slid down and landed with a jolt on the deck below. Grabbing for his flashlight, he hurried for the nearest fire extinguisher.
Patterson had just reached the ladder to follow Donovich down when he heard an arcing sound, coming from the life-boat deck; looking up he saw brilliant flashes of blue light dancing off the surrounding metal work. “Not this time,” he growled, as he started up the ladder instead.
It only took one short blast from the extinguisher to deal with the problem; but now Donovich had to clean up the foam to inspect and repair the damage.
“Chief Donovich, status report,” commanded the XO over the comm.
Donovich put down the extinguisher before answering. “Everything is now under control, sir,” he said as he played his light over the damage. “We had a short circuit that set off the fire alarms.” The conduit’s access plate hung open; one of the cables had a clean piece missing.
“Very well, Chief, please keep me informed; Koenig out.”
“Sabotage,” whispered Donovich, as he slowly turned, expecting to find Patterson standing behind him; the Starman was nowhere to be seen. “I hope for your sake, that your little imaginary friends are real.” Then it dawned on Donovitch that they were screwed either way. Shaking his head, he walked to the deck’s ancillary control station, and with a tap turned off the alarms.
Against the ringing in his ears he could hear Patterson shouting. It took Donovich a moment to spot him through the deck grating. Patterson was jumping around on the top deck; his point of interest seemed to be the ordnance bunker. Then there was an arc flash, followed by the sound of metal striking metal, as if something had just been thrown and bounced off onto the deck, this accompanied by more shouting.
Silhouetted against the emergency lighting, something jumped—no flew—across the void of the gangway some three stories up. Looking like a pointy starfish, it flew with its six legs outstretched; reflected light contoured across its smooth surface. It brought its legs forward, and landed without a sound, disappearing into the deck’s support structure and conduits.
“Did you see it!?” demanded a voice; it was Patterson leaning over the guardrail. “Chief!” he shouted forcibly.
“Yes. . .” Donovich squeaked. He cleared his throat, “. . .Yes, I saw it!” he shouted back, not quite believing what he had just said; but yes, he had seen something.
A few minutes later, Donovich joined Patterson above; the climb up to the life-boat deck had been one of apprehension and controlled fear.
“Look at this,” said Patterson holding what was left of a spanner; half of its gapped end was missing. “I took a swin’ at the thin’ when it was cuttin’ into the bunker.” He pointed at the deck-mounted drum; four of its six spring-loaded, over-pressure bolts had been cut away.
Donovich turned and looked down over the guardrail at the mission clock, its four-inch high numbers read 482 hours and 01 minutes, “We have to get this thing contained; we’re only two hours in, there’s no way we c
an keep this up for three weeks,” stated Donovich.
“And where you goin’ to put it?” Patterson said, gesturing toward the damaged ordnance bunker.
Good catting question, thought Donovich, as he looked around for both inspiration and the beastie.
Patterson walked up to him. “So what would they do in one of those sci fi stories you keep readin’?” Patterson asked sincerely.
Oh, just great! Now we are relying on the delusions of some writer to save our asses, thought Donovich. “Well typically, at a dramatically quiet point in all the screaming and running about, they try to blow it out an airlock.” he said.
“There’s no way we’re goin’ to get that thin’ up the length of the CM and into the axial airlock; we can’t even risk lettin’ it out of this module!” proclaimed Patterson.
“Yeah, you’re right,” agreed Donovich, “But . . . we could try to get it into one of the re-entry pods; with the CM’s gangway hatches locked, it couldn’t get any farther than the pod-bay.”
“What’s to keep it from burnin’ through the Can’s hatch?” Patterson asked.
“What’s keeping it from cutting its way into the CM now; or back into the fuel module, or even the reactor?” said Donovich, waving his arm about to emphasize his point. “Beside, once we get the hatches closed, we depressurize the causeway and it’s trapped on the wrong side of hard vacuum!” he added, smacking a fist into his other hand.
Patterson paused, “Okay, Chief, I’m with’ya; but first, lock off your comm.” Donovich knew he looked a bit confused. “Remember,” Patterson explained. “The mission recorder tracks all comm traffic. If this works out, then we’ll have proof sittin’ ’n the can; if not . . .”
“If not . . . were screwed, but at least we’ll have some level of deniability at our court martial,” said Donovich, thinking back to Patterson’s UFO reference; back then a pilot’s radio report proved nothing—except when they were used as evidence against his competency to continue flying—and these logs will prove nothing now; he smiled at Patterson and turned off his comm.
So It Begins (Defending The Future) Page 24