Parallel Extinction (Extinction Encounters Book 1)

by T. R. Stevens

  He stopped. Hanson had unconsciously been heading toward null grav; toward the CLET facility. His actions would be on record. He had no reason to go to Center Comm. Or do I? He challenged his nerve.

  He had become fixated on this suspicion that he’d built, and was willing to take some further risks to try and answer his own questions. The communications to Earth were part of the same facility as the CLET. Why not have a chat with his wife on the ground? It was an excuse to be in there.

  He’d wait until the smaller overnight shift came on.

  CHAPTER 38

  EVENT: DAY 14, 1100 UT

  Cautiously, they flew into the site.

  They had dropped out of FTL flight at ten thousand klicks out from the beacon.

  For the last twenty hours the tension between Garrison and Dominique had been thick.

  “You know, we’ll have to do a drift across since we don’t have a boarding tube.”

  Dominique did not respond. He’d hardly gotten two words out of her since she’d read whatever was in that “basic order” zephyr. His selective repair on the EVA suits allowed for life support and suit-to-suit comms, no suit-to-ship comm. Garrison’s plan needed them both to be in the suits. But doing a joint EVA was a violation of protocol, leaving the ship unmanned, off-planet. He’d have to ask her to do it—that was going to be interesting. She was suspicious of the suit mishap as it was. If she made him do the EVA, his plan for secret communication would be shot.

  The pirate scow had shown up on the sensors some time ago; as they drew closer, an odd outline resolved: the SciPod tacked to its side. When in visual range, Garrison got up and looked out a port. The joined ships were rotating, but so slowly it was hard to tell at a glance. Midnight-black shadows, cast by a distant nebula, crept across the shifting surfaces of the ships. The science ship was held in place by some grapple arms that had been crudely retrofitted to the pirates’ larger vessel. QB1’s survey lights increasingly lit the vessel surfaces as they drew near.

  Dominique broke the silence. “We touch nothing. This isn’t our final destination. We look for clues as to the strange occurrences, but our main focus will be to follow engine traces left by the missing escape pod. If there are any at this point.”

  Garrison saw an opportunity. “I’ll do the EVA; I want to get a closer look at the BUMP propulsion system on the SciPod. I understand that it works differently from our little Light Skipper.”

  Dominique surprised him with a more vehement opposition than he’d expected. “Like hell you will, Bartell. Did I not just say that we touch nothing? You seem to have forgotten what you’re here – to – do.”

  Her bitter, extra emphasis was clear. Garrison didn’t miss it. It was so pointed that he immediately thought about the orders he’d received. Could she know? What the hell did they say to her? Just the same, his statement had exactly the effect he’d hoped.

  Dominique turned her attention back to the controls and finalized their position, synchronizing their relative motion to the other craft. She got up from her seat and went to the EVA suit locker. She opened it then hesitated. There were three suits, one was her personal suit, and the others were the ship suits: one for Garrison and one spare. After a moment, he saw that she took one of the ship suits, though her reservations were plain.

  She was assessing whether he was a saboteur. Choosing one of the two ship suits, following her obvious logic, gave her a 50/50 chance of getting the suit that he would have properly repaired for himself, if his act were intended to harm her.

  It was a knife in his heart to watch her suspect him of such a malicious nature. She would have to believe that he had been playing her during the entire mission and before, in order for her to hold to her suspicion. There was nothing that he could say about it to help her know the truth. Not until after she’d made her decision, got in the suit, and was out the door. He quickly looked away to be sure she did not wonder if he was waiting for her to make a particular choice.

  She took the suit into the sleep cubby and closed the door. She needed to hook up the personal waste system and didn’t want an audience. Garrison went to the locker and got the other ship suit out. When she emerged, suited but without the helmet, she saw that he’d removed the other suit, “What are you doing with that?” she demanded.

  “Well, the damage to the suits made it impossible to talk to you from the ship comm, but I got the suit comms to communicate. I’ll just be talking to you through this,” he said, holding up the helmet.

  She listened, her forehead creased with worry. She thought about it. “Alright,” was all she finally said.

  Garrison watched her move into the airlock; even in her suit she was sexy. It caused an ache in his heart.

  She turned back toward him before she donned the helmet, her face a mask of tension. She sealed the helmet to her collar as Garrison slipped his over his head. He asked, “You hear me okay?”

  “Mmm, yeah.”

  He watched her lips move through the faceplate but heard her sultry voice so close to his ear, it caused him to involuntarily suck in his breath. She heard this and it brought a questioning look to her face.

  “Don’t worry, Dominique, it’s going to be okay.” She turned away from him, denying him any further glimpse of her confused emotions, and closed the airlock door behind her.

  Garrison listened to her breathing. Deep breaths—she tested suit function, still unsure. He waited until she was out of the airlock, moving toward the other ship, and he quickly got into his own suit. Garrison wanted to take no chances with Center overhearing them, so, foregoing any other system functions on the suit, he sealed his own helmet and turned on a slight oxygen feed.

  Without knowing it, Garrison had just subverted the secret component of the admiral’s plans to be able to overhear them. As he sucked in the static volume of the ship air in the suit, the floating complement of nano listening particles quickly diluted, dropping to insignificant levels, losing their ability to provide a coherent data stream to the transmitter. The suit’s mini-scrubber quickly recycled his out-breath and any errant, remaining motes.

  “Nikki, now we can talk freely without Center overhearing.”

  “What? What are you talking about?”

  “I’ve wanted to tell you from the moment I got the orders, but I couldn’t do it with our every word being monitored… Dominique, they… someone at Center… they don’t want you to survive this mission; I mean, that’s how it looks to me.”

  Dominique made a small sound in the back of her throat, then nothing.

  It was the kind of noise that could give him hope—she was surprised. Whether by the information that he gave her, or by his telling her something that she thought his secret, he wasn’t yet sure. But she was thinking about it.

  He peered out a port window but could not see her. He probed. “You okay?”

  “Yes.” She paused for another few seconds, and then exclaimed, “Oh my God.”

  “What is it, Nikki?” he asked in alarm.

  “No, no, it’s… I’m fine, Garry. It is just such a huge relief that you said that.”

  “Well, tell me why. What happened to suddenly make you so suspicious of me?”

  “I saw your orders, Garrison.” She paused, letting that sink in.

  “Oh. Wow. Yeah, that would do it. It crossed my mind, but it didn’t fit, based on your initial response to the order zephyr, so I thought it was something else, some other misdirection. Okay, I’m glad that’s out in the open after all this tension. Anyway, we need to be quick. What do you make of these orders? We know this thing can be deadly, but those orders just strike me as a pack of lies. The thing they said about the effect preferring a woman, that it would “host” you—that contradicts what Sgt. Amio told me about the private that survived. I mean, that was a guy named Sam-something; in the entire crew of Pirate Patrol One, it chose a man…”

 
“Geoff, Sam Geoff. No, Garrison, Private Samantha Geoff is a woman.”

  “Oh shit. Dominique, do not go into that ship. Just send in a remote cam, I’ll undock one for you. Then get back here quick, we’ll control it from here. And then we’ll look for the escape pod.”

  “Right, I’m with you. Center must be suspicious about our communication.”

  He turned his attention back to the console. Sure enough, the comm light was flashing rapidly. “Yeah, they’re trying to raise us. We better make this fast.”

  “We might need to don the suits when we’re onboard, to hold any private conversations.”

  Garrison agreed.

  * * *

  Garrison sent a remote stylus-sized scancam over to her, and then the sound of his breath disappeared from her ear as he removed his helmet. It was replaced by a muffled conversation with Center that she couldn’t quite make out. She located the place where Pirate Patrol One had started to pierce the hull for boarding. It was healed over by a cheap, organic heal-and-seal. She punched a two-centimeter hole through the weak spot with her hand laser. A stream of the remaining atmosphere jetted out of the hole. She grabbed onto a protruding contour on the scow and was pulled along with the gentle movement caused by the spray of escaping gas. The QB1 automatically maintained its relative position. She mashed a set of contacts on the scancam cylinder and inserted it into the hole past the sluggish activity of the energy-starved heal-and-seal, which tried to close the puncture. The surveillance unit moved inward through the hull layers. She pushed back toward the QB1.

  By the time she had cleared the airlock, Garrison was in the midst of a heated conversation with Center.

  “Look, I don’t care what he says, if he can’t hear the communication, I’ll just have to send a transcript.”

  There was an elongated pause, then the response, “He wants a recording at least, he says.”

  “Well, there’s nothing I can do about that either. I’ve got no recording. These suits were damaged, it was the best I could do just to get them to talk to each other.”

  Another pause, then, “Why did you put on the entire suit if you just needed to use the helmet?”

  Garrison looked over at Dominique. They traded a meaningful look. Both savored the renewed closeness. He said to the comm, “I wanted to check the suit systems,” then added as he thought of it, “and to be ready in case there was an emergency.”

  “The CO wants that transcript, ASAP.”

  “I’ll get right on it. Bartell out.” He let out a long breath and turned to look at Dominique again. She moved toward him, floating forward in freefall. He stepped out from between the seats and caught her, reading her expression as one of extreme relief. She wrapped herself around him the best she could with the EVA suit on. Their lips locked into a passionate kiss that lasted for a full minute, until the comm began to flash and beep. He pulled away and grinned at her. She returned the smile and pecked him on the cheek as she released him. He moved to answer the interruptive call.

  The same calm modulated voice came over the comm. “It is requested that…” It was drowned out by a scream, “WHERE’S THAT REPORT?!” Dominique gasped. Clarence Swan! That voice was unmistakable. Emotions collided within. Garrison looked at her, hand over her mouth, eyes wide. His quizzical look elicited a quick, miniscule shake of her head. This was news that she definitely did not want overheard.

  Garrison hit the comm. “I was going to stream it with the video from the ship.” There was no reply. Center disconnected the freq. He looked at Dominique and shrugged. She rolled her eyes slightly, a look that said she couldn’t believe what they were up to their necks in.

  He just said, “Hey, uhh, you want to pull up the video?”

  She recovered her emotions and moved to her control console with grace, despite the suit. With a few conservative movements, she had a holodisplay showing the pirate ship’s interior. It was an eerie scene as she guided the scancam through the ship; its minimal beams generated sharp-edged illumination for the partial holo in the otherwise dark environment.

  The moment turned gruesome as the camera found the first dead fetus, bloated grotesquely by the diminished atmospheric pressure. Dominique made a gagging noise and looked away from the holo-projection. “Garrison, please make that image two-dimensional.”

  Garrison had his own visceral reaction and followed her suggestion gladly. “Yeah. That’s slightly better.” He moved through a few menus and sent the data stream to Center.

  She looked back at the image, a look of disgust on her face, but she retained an air of professional examination. She did a full scan of the interior with the multi-purpose cam unit, sampling as necessary. “I count seven of these bodies, and none have a DNA match to the missing scientist.”

  “Mmm, well that’s good news for him anyway, but go back to the last compartment.” She obliged and Garrison made a change, the image jumping back to a three-dimensional view. He pointed, “This is the engine room, right? What’s going on here? Do you see that bulkhead? It seems out of place in this vessel class.” The wall was bulging out toward the cam and was irregularly speckled with some debris.

  She scrutinized the holo, moving the cam closer. “You’re right.” She gestured, upping the magnification. It revealed particles on the bulkhead that they both recognized: the remains of a protective, self-healing foam layer that had been scraped away. “In fact,” she continued, “it looks like the outer hull of a ship.” Silence reined for a few moments as she used the camera to sneak through an unrepaired opening in an adjoining wall; this had been roughly hacked away to make room, it seemed, for this smaller ship. It was difficult to gauge the scale of this inserted vessel, but as the cam revealed more of the hull, it appeared that it was intact and spherical.

  Garrison made a noise of dawning recognition. “This is looking extremely familiar.” From what little they could see, it appeared to be similar in size to the SciPod that was fastened to the outside of the pirate ship.

  “Yes,” Dominique had already reached the same conclusion and went a step further. “In fact, this used to be a BUMP ship. See, right here,” she used her finger to indicate a point in the projection, “that’s part of a SBMMP serial number.”

  “Huh. Well something else caught my eye. Pan right… Yeah, stop. Right here,” he now pointed to a darkness in the hovering image, “what’s this?” He shifted the magnification and resolution, as Dominique pulled the little stylus cam back away from the surface. They were looking at a roughly hexagonal shadow.

  Dominique commented, “I’m not sure what I’m seeing, but I really don’t think that should be there.” It was a hole in the smaller vessel-within-a-vessel. Not the type created by an explosion, like a gun blast or other force. It was an opening that followed contour lines of the structure they were examining. One of the organic, crysteel skin panels was open, as if the pirates had removed it. “Assuming the obvious, then this would be the engine compartment of the vessel. That opening should not be possible, seeing that the Pod has not blown itself and this pirate out of existence.”

  As she studied the holo something bothered her; there were bits of the skin around the edges of the hole; the panel’s hatch frame had, in fact, not been removed and was still seated in its seals. “Garrison, bring up a microscopy resolution.” The holograph shifted to 2D as another flat-image window opened in the air next to it, and one of the scancam’s cameras dialed to different settings. The new subject was unrecognizable. She brought the cam in close to the edge of the opening. The image resolved to reveal a fringe of undamaged crystalline material, as if the growth of the skin had somehow stopped at these last crystals. The missing membrane appeared to never have been there at all; the adjoining crystal edges were pristine, unharmed. The skin had not been cut or torn out. It might explain the why the self-destruct mechanism was not triggered, but she did not know how this could have happened.

  S
he moved the cam into the opening. “Go back to full holo, Garrison.” Standard magnification revealed a passage through the hull into an inner chamber. It was a vacant hollow, approximately three meters in diameter.

  She had pulled up some data based on the partial serial number; it displayed in her vision from her implant—SciPod. “Yeah, this explains a lot.”

  She did not elaborate with Center listening, otherwise she might have filled Garrison in on the mystery of the missing SciPod. She knew USUCC passed rumors about a rogue BUMP ship. This was the source: a pirate had figured out how to use the engine tech without blowing up in the process.

  Dominique continued. “BUMP’s engine technology is classified, so the Pod schematic I’ve pulled up,” she brought up a second image to float next to the camera’s display, “is limited in its detail, but you can see where the engine compartment should be.”

  He gave a grunt of assent as she displayed the schematic in an overlay of the cam’s image.

  She waived the schematic away as she went on, “It matches but something is clearly missing. I don’t know what it is I’m looking at here.” She pointed to protrusions in the image. As she slowly turned the cam, it was clear that these points were evenly distributed throughout the sphere’s inner surface.

  Garrison agreed. “I don’t recognize this drive either…” he paused, then, “You know, there is something familiar about it. I’ve seen these units before.” He indicated one of the intruding devices; its base was a five-sided, squat pyramidal object, about half-a-meter across. The flattened top of the pyramid sprouted a device that looked similar to a lightning arrester or a terrestrial radio antenna—a stem that ended in a spherical fractal array of radial spikes. There were over a dozen of these pushing into the space for about a meter. It gave the contained space the feeling of an electrical torture chamber.

  “These resemble the business end of the Gravity Rejectors. You see them used for controlling the weather around the Bullet Tubes. Not identical, but close.