So, he took a shower, then changed clothes into a white t-shirt and comfortable slacks, then with his pulse rifle over his shoulder, he wandered back first to the dinner area and picked up a container of water and a piece of dark bread that had tasted fantastic and slightly sweet at dinner. Then he went down the wide hallway to the big scanning room.
Not only were the two there that had shifts, and Jonas standing against the wall near them on guard duty, but Maria was there, hunched forward, staring at something in her heads-up projection.
Obviously, she couldn’t sleep either, although her red hair looked damp like she had also taken a shower, and she had on what looked like a form of cotton pajama bottoms with blue flowers and a sweatshirt and slippers of some sort.
Her red hair was pulled back tight and he could see the freckles on her neck.
She was unbelievably attractive, even hunched forward over a work station like that. He just wanted to go up and rub her shoulders and kiss her neck, but now was far, far from the time.
“Couldn’t sleep either, huh?” he asked about halfway across the room after he nodded to Jonas.
She turned and smiled at him, her smile beaming, clearly glad to see him. He liked that a lot.
“Far too excited,” she said. “Take a look at this.”
She turned back to her board and the image floating in the air in front of her.
He stared for a moment, but couldn’t make any sense of it. It seemed to be some sort of writing. “What am I looking at?”
“I think it’s the name of this big ship,” she said.
Her fingers were running over her board faster than he had ever seen anyone move. The freckles on her shoulders almost moving in a dance as her arms and hands flashed over the controls.
“I’m working on language programs,” she said. “As with all human cultures, languages all have certain basics and when I hit on the right combination, I’ll have the language. We’ve been loading language into our language program from around the big ship since the first scans. From signs on doors to warning signs in engineering to this.”
“Will we then be able to internalize it,” he asked, “so we can understand it when we read anything on this ship?”
She nodded. “Easily. Just as we do with any human culture, I can have all of us speaking and reading this ship’s old language once we crack the pattern.”
“Got it!” one of Fisher’s people named Dan said from beside Maria. “Transferring it to you now.”
“Wonderful,” Maria said, almost jumping in her chair with excitement. Roscoe had to admit, it was impossible around her to not be excited.
“Got what?” Fisher asked as he came into the room, clearly also not able to sleep.
“Language,” Maria said. “Dan cracked it.”
Fisher came up behind his team member and gave him a congratulatory pat on the shoulder.
Then Maria clapped her hands and started laughing as she stared at the projection of the words.
“What’s so funny?” Fisher asked a moment before Roscoe could.
“You folks want to know the name of the big ship we are sitting inside?”
“Very much so,” Fisher said, smiling back at the infectious excitement from Maria.
“This ship is called Morning Song.”
All Roscoe could do was shake his head.
A giant ship, that if not stopped, would destroy planets and kill billions, was named Morning Song.
He flat wasn’t sure what to think of that.
FIFTEEN
THE FIRST TWO days were nothing but one exciting discovery after another on the scans of the big ship. She hadn’t slept much, but that didn’t matter. This was the find of a dozen lifetimes and sleeping seemed to be an inconvenience.
And she loved spending time around Roscoe and he didn’t seem to sleep much either. She loved his smile, his intense questioning eyes, and his dry sense of humor.
And he seemed to want to be around her as well, which pleased her more than she wanted to admit.
Now, all of her team and Roscoe and two of his team were in the big scanning room, waiting the last few minutes for the ship to jump to trans-tunnel flight. Fisher and Callie were back in the Command Center with a guard from Roscoe’s team and the rest of Fisher’s team were in the first scan center with another of Roscoe’s team on guard with them.
She had no idea what was going to happen next. She hoped nothing but getting in contact with Chairman Ray.
In real time, Chairman Ray and his people had had fourteen days to go over those first scans. She hoped they had a lot more information. The possibility of that had her really excited.
But she could feel her stomach twisting in slight worry as well. No telling what would happen next when the ship jumped back to trans-tunnel drive. It might dump them back into space and not let them back inside.
Anything was possible.
“Ten seconds,” Fisher said from the Command Center.
Maria glanced away from her screen and up at Roscoe’s serious face. She was really starting to admire him and like him more than she wanted to admit. But right now he was focused and on guard, standing close to her. And she actually felt far safer with him close by.
That surprised her as well, but she liked it.
She had a scan running of the Morning Song’s big Command Center to see if anything changed when the jump to trans-tunnel happened. She didn’t expect to see anything, but she had decided to scan there even so.
“Two. One. Now,” Fisher said.
After a few seconds of waiting, Fisher said, “Chairman Ray, do you copy?”
It took another moment before Chairman Ray’s voice came back strong. “Strong and clear.”
On a center screen in the room, Chairman Ray’s smiling face appeared. He was clearly relieved and Maria could hear applause around him over the communications link.
Maria let out the breath she was holding. Beside her she could feel Roscoe relax and exhale as well.
“Sending data we have taken in the last two days on the Morning Song,” Fisher said to Ray.
“Receiving,” Ray said after a moment. “And you got the language figured out I see.”
“We do, Chairman,” Fisher said. “But we will need to access the big ship’s command systems and other systems to figure out the Morning Song’s mission. We will be doing that next unless your data bring up something we have not yet discovered.”
Maria watched as Chairman Ray shook his head, his long gray hair moving on his shoulders as he did. “We have found, in searching carefully everything you sent us at first, no real threats from the ship itself.”
“Besides getting lost,” Fisher said.
Ray laughed. “There is that. That ship is impossible for most to comprehend the size.”
“It is,” Fisher said.
“So, I assume Chairman Mundy and Chairman Boone are on this link,” Ray asked.
“Everyone on the ship is listening and on the link,” Fisher said. “We seem to all be in the belly of this beast together.”
Ray nodded. “Chairman Mundy,” Ray asked Roscoe, “Do you see any obvious dangers in exploring?”
“Nothing, Chairman,” Roscoe said, “after two days of scanning, it seems clear.”
“Chairman Boone?” he asked.
“No dangers that my team has found, Chairman,” Maria said, agreeing with Roscoe. In two days she and her team had found nothing that seemed even slightly dangerous.
Ray nodded, then asked Maria, “Do you think this is still a Seeder ship?”
“I do,” Maria said, her stomach twisting in excitement. “I’m convinced this is a Seeder Mother Ship and the mission of this ship is to find a large crew and leave the Milky Way in a different direction from Andromeda and the path of the current leading edge of seeding that is going on in Andromeda.”
Chairman Ray nodded. “We have come to that same conclusion.”
Maria felt her heart race. These Mother Ships had only been a dist
ant and faint myth of Seeders. Now she found herself inside one.
Then Chairman Ray’s face became very serious. “We have exactly 161 days before the big ship plows into a populated system and takes out a moon and a number of other bases. We might be able to get those evacuated in time and have started that preparation now.”
“Good,” Roscoe said softly beside her.
Ray went on. “But the Morning Song plows into your home base world, Fisher and Callie, in 167 days and destroys it completely. We are mounting preparations for an emergency evacuation if it comes to that, but will only be able to get a few million out of the billion now on that world.”
“We’ll get it stopped, Chairman,” Fisher said, and Maria found herself nodding in agreement.
“Your timeline is much shorter, you understand,” Chairman Ray said.
“Twenty-two days and four hours,” Fisher said. “We will stop it, turn it, or destroy it in that amount of time.”
Maria again felt her stomach twist. This ship was the greatest treasure from the history of the Seeders. They had to stop it, she understood that, but if she had anything to say about it, they would do it without destroying it. They flat had to.
“Get started and dump data with each trans-tunnel flight,” Chairman Ray said. “We’ll do what we can in helping from this side.”
“Thank you, Chairman,” Fisher said.
“Good luck,” Chairman Ray said and the screen went blank.
Maria did her best to just let herself breathe.
“Chairmen Boone and Mundy to the kitchen,” Fisher said. “Five minutes.”
Roscoe smiled at her as she stood. “Looks like we get to go exploring very soon.”
At that she actually smiled, pushing back the ticking clock and letting the excitement of exploring an ancient ship the size of a large moon come forward.
“I love exploring new places,” she said, smiling at him.
“Actually,” he said, “so do I.” Then he smiled and raised one eyebrow.
She wasn’t at all sure what he meant exactly, but she liked the idea either way.
She laughed and said, “Why does that not surprise me.”
SIXTEEN
ROSCOE KNEW THERE were two major points of danger for the crew. And about fifty million minor ones. But those he couldn’t deal with. But he could take a few precautions on the major danger moments.
His first major point was when they first left Fisher’s ship. If the big ship had a defense system, leaving the ship would be one place they all would stand no chance of any defense.
Of course, the big ship could have taken them off of Fisher’s ship at any point, but it had not.
Their scans showed that when they had arrived, the big ship powered up all environmental systems. After two days, every room and area in the ship had breathable atmosphere and was heated. Even the warehouses.
But no other systems seemed to be running at all. And that told him they were going to have to turn them on.
Fisher’s science team had informed him that the ship had maintained vacuum atmosphere interior and extremely cold temps before they arrived. Maria had confirmed that through her team.
So it seemed the ship was welcoming them by at least turning on the lights. Roscoe wasn’t so sure if he liked that or not.
At least it allowed them to explore easily.
Maria and her people had also discovered that the ship had repair units that replicated and replaced any near-failing part during the long voyage. Some of those were on tasks now in various places in the ship.
Roscoe just found it all stunning.
So now, they had done all the scans they could. They had to step out of Fisher’s ship and onto the decks of the big hanger.
He and Jonas were going to be the two to do it first.
And he had convinced Fisher they needed to do that one act while still in contact with Chairman Ray and send him all scans of the result.
So one hour after they had gotten in touch with Chairman Ray again, and with just under an hour left in trans-tunnel flight for the big ship, Jonas and Ray stood side-by-side, rifles over their shoulders, ready to go. They had decided to not seem threatening in any way, which was why they had their guns on their shoulders.
“See you in a moment,” Roscoe said to Fisher and Maria.
She smiled, but he could see the worry in her eyes.
“I’ll jump us,” Roscoe said to Jonas, who nodded.
“Do your thing, boss,” Jonas said.
The next moment Roscoe had them standing on the big deck about a hundred paces from Fisher’s ship.
The air smelled sort of stale, but not bad, and had a slight chill to it.
Roscoe looked around, not sure what to expect.
The monster room around them was too large to grasp. Like a distant sky, the ceiling overhead seemed to be full of lights. To his right, Roscoe could see a wall of some sort, but he had no idea how far that was, or even how tall that wall might be.
Scale was totally lost in a space like this, so much so, it almost made him dizzy.
“Wow,” Jonas said, slowly turning to look around. “Scans don’t even come close to showing the immensity of this place.”
“Any problems?” Chairman Ray asked, his voice clear to Roscoe.
Roscoe knew that about a thousand people were watching their every move and monitoring all data they were sending back from their sensors. Roscoe hadn’t wanted them wearing helmets, so they had on communications links with implanted mikes and ear buds. And about three ways to track them if the ship took them somewhere else.
Anyone stepping onto this ship would have those communication methods and tracking devices.
Maria answered him. “All scans of the Morning Song are showing no alarms or activity at all.”
“We ants out here on the big field see nothing either,” Roscoe said, slowing turning and admiring the massive hanger deck.
“Seems the ship doesn’t mind us,” Maria said.
“Coming in,” Roscoe said.
Roscoe jumped him and Jonas back to a special decontamination room on Fisher’s ship and the two of them were scanned at levels Roscoe didn’t want to think about.
“Clear on the decontamination,” Fisher said.
“We agree from here,” Chairman Ray said.
“A clean ship that has warmed up the place and turned on the lights,” Fisher said.
“Seems we have some exploring to do,” Roscoe said.
And after being out there in that huge space, that idea actually excited him for the first time.
SEVENTEEN
ONE HOUR AFTER the big ship dropped back out of trans-tunnel flight and they lost communications with Chairman Ray because of the ship’s shields, Maria found herself sitting beside Roscoe in the kitchen of Fisher’s ship.
He had on a tight black shirt and black slacks with the same wide belt buckle he always wore. His long brown hair was pulled tight behind his head. For the first time since they had been inside the big ship, he had no rifle with him.
She wanted to just touch the muscles that were clear under the tight black shirt, but she didn’t. Instead she let her leg sort of rest casually against his under the table. Being this close to him made her feel so much better in so many ways she wasn’t sure she understood just yet.
Fisher and Callie were both there as well. All of them were sipping on containers of water and she had one in front of her as well, but hadn’t touched it. Besides sitting so close to Roscoe, she was so excited about going out and exploring Morning Song, she almost couldn’t sit still.
Fisher looked at her. “Do you have opinions of the most important areas to explore first?”
“Command Center, of course,” Maria said. “We need to get control of this ship in some fashion or another and that has to be priority.”
Beside her, she could see Roscoe nodding in agreement.
Fisher looked around at his wife, then back at Maria. “You won’t get any disagreement on tha
t at all. Second most important?”
Maria just shook her head. She wanted to see the entire ship, but she knew they had to prioritize right now. “Engines, then secondary control rooms, then living areas, then those big ships on that docking bay. We really need to see how they are outfitted and if they can function after all this time. On second thought, those should be right after the engine room.”
Fisher looked at Roscoe. “Your list?”
Roscoe looked at Maria. “I can’t disagree with that list at all.”
Callie agreed and so did Fisher.
“So there are fifteen of us,” Fisher said. “How would you suggest we split up or should we?”
Maria looked at Roscoe who nodded for her to go ahead.
“My suggestion,” Maria said. “One from each team remain here on the ship running scans ahead of the three groups that are out. Three groups out at a time, four members in each exploring group. We need at least one member from each of our teams in each group.”
“That feels right,” Roscoe said.
Fisher turned to his wife. “Would you mind remaining on board this first time? I need someone in command here who knows how to fly The Lady.”
“I was going to suggest that,” she said.
Fisher turned to Maria again. “Who on your team knows the most about the Command Centers of older Seeder ships?”
“Hudson,” she said, without hesitation.
Hudson was one of her youngest at three hundred years, but looked far older than he should because of his long black beard and shaggy hair. He had made it his passion to study and fly in reality and in simulations all old Seeder ships she could get him near. He could take apart old Command Centers with his eyes closed.
“So the three of us and Hudson head to the Command Center,” Fisher said.
“Jonas could take a team to engineering,” Roscoe said. “His passion is engines of all types.”
Morning Song: A Seeders Universe Novel Page 6