by M. Alan Marr
There is a short, repetitive tone, and the display produces their current navigation course. A small target is plotted.
“What’s that?” Chaz says.
“Non-collision proximity alert,” Dev replies, as he presses an icon on the display. The ship’s course line expands and zeros in on a hollow yellow target on a close parallel course. “Oh, look, there’s a comet out there.”
Chaz turns forward and looks out in the distance. Ahead on the starboard side, the faint shimmer of the comet begins to come into view. Chaz points. “I see it!”
The head of the comet becomes more substantial as the fast ship catches up with it. As they pass, Chaz can see the giant bundle of rock and ice putting off a huge glowing tail. “Whoa, look at that!”
Chaz watches intently, and in a matter of seconds the luminous tail is just a wispy ribbon and then nothingness. The view once again is the stunning backdrop of stars. “That’s not headed to Earth, is it?”
“No, it’s headed away from the system.”
Chaz is confused. “Is it going backwards?”
Dev smiles. “Comet tails always point away from the sun.”
“Ah, noted.” Chaz shakes his head and all but exclaims, “That was so cool.”
Dev checks the display. “Looks like we’re clear of obstacles the rest of the way.”
The talk up in the canopy lounge eased Chaz’s mind about the status of the universe, and more to the point, their relationship. Comfortable with the state of things, Dev and Chaz return to the control deck to check on their progress. There is a slight change in engine noise, and the ship noses down a little.
“What’s that?”
“Just a course change. Come on, I’ll show you the rest of the ship.”
Dev leads Chaz on a comprehensive tour, starting with propulsion panels, followed by the various control deck stations and 3D printers. Down below the control deck, Dev shows Chaz several small crew compartments located along the passageway aft of the cargo bay. The accommodations remind Chaz of Japanese capsule-hotel cells. There is, of course, a hygiene closet, and storage for various types of environmental suits. An airlock hatch sits in the floor just forward of the engine bay. The engine bay itself is an extremely cramped space with limited accessibility within the ship and looks more like the engine access on a speedboat than what you would expect to see on a ship. Most of the engine components have a shiny mirror-like finish. Some seem to radiate different frequencies of light through their silvery finish. Brightly lit multi-cored engine tubes lead aft toward discharge vents. There are glowing optical cables and transparent circuit boards. Looks very cool and very futuristic.
The ship soars along a descent trajectory that will put it in position for a gravitational assist near Saturn. Returning to the control deck from below, Chaz gasps upon seeing the ringed planet, now plainly visible out the forward windows.
“Wow!” Chaz exclaims. “Wow!”
“That’s Saturn.”
Chaz laughs. “Yeah, thanks, I knew that one.”
Dev muffles a laugh of his own. “Sorry. Come on.”
Dev takes his pilot station and works on their next course change. Chaz approaches the forward windows and lets out a deep sigh. “When I was a little kid, more than anything else, I wanted to be an astronaut.”
“Chaz?” Dev says, attracting his attention. “You are an astronaut. And so am I.”
Chaz smiles, folds his arms, and relishes the notion. He is in space. He is an astronaut.
The forward display panels projects the approach course to Saturn, and all pertinent numerical data. The ship soars inbound, offering an absolutely staggering view. Chaz is mesmerized by Saturn’s magnificence and beauty.
Dev, unfazed by the view, prepares to transmit his dispatches from one of the computer stations on the control deck. Chaz doesn’t want to miss anything, so he leaves the forward windows and moves to Dev’s side.
“What’s that you’re doing?”
“We’re far enough away from Earth now,” Dev says. “I can transmit my Observation reports to the Admiralty.”
“Observation reports—That’s what you’ve been writing on your laptop all this time!”
“Yes, sir.”
Chaz smiles. “So it did have a purpose.”
Dev chuckles. “Told you.”
“Why do we have to be so far away to transmit?”
“Long range transmissions are pretty powerful. I don’t want to risk anyone on Earth detecting it. Coherent signals are easy—even for you guys—to distinguish from normal background noise.”
“What about the relay buoy? Won’t they pick that up?”
Dev shakes his head. “Different kind of signal. The buoy uses a neutrino-based transmitter. It takes longer, but it’s beyond your current detection capability.”
Chaz looks at the computer as Dev transmits the logs. Chaz notices the Tertian written language seems a cross between mostly English with a few odd characters. Upon closer examination, they appear to be compound letters, mostly vowels and a few odd punctuation marks. “How long will it take to get to them?”
“It depends. Any ship or relay system between here and there will pick it up and accelerate the signal.”
“Cool. So, where are we going next?”
“I’ve been ordered to rendezvous with the warship Adonis, near Pluto.” Dev looks at Chaz and explains, “That’s why the program stopped when it did.”
“Then it wasn’t because of the equinox.”
“Indirectly. Apparently, my lack of contact did not go unnoticed.”
“So what do we do?”
“Carry out my orders.”
“Awesome.”
Dev looks at Chaz, a little perplexed. “Is any of this bothering you?”
“Are you kidding?” Chaz beams. “This is great!”
“All right, then. Let’s go to Pluto.”
Dev takes his pilot seat and programs the thruster and navigation panel. The next maneuver will accelerate the ship’s course as it bends around Saturn and propel it out into space toward the present coordinates of Pluto. He arms the throttles and pushes them up to a predetermined value. Power is heard mounting within the ship. “You’ll want to sit down for this one, Chaz.”
Chaz hurries to his pilot seat. He sees Dev buckling in, so Chaz quickly does the same. Dev reads off the information from the panel.
“Acceleration burst powering up. Fifty percent . . . seventy-five . . . ninety. Firing in three, two, hold on . . .”
The acceleration engines fire and thrust the ship once around Saturn, then on course, this time much more forcefully than before, leaving a bright spectral trail behind. Chaz and Dev are pinned against their seats, although their mugs of Tertian coffee remain in place.
“Hey,” Chaz says against the acceleration. “Why didn’t our coffee spill?”
Dev answers against the strain. “Artificial gravity stabilizes the inertia inside the ship, but it doesn’t work that well on organic tissue.”
“Why not?”
“The field passes through structures, but living matter is different. Don’t worry, we’ll be up to speed in a few seconds.”
Exactly as Dev said, the acceleration forces subside. They are now flying through space much faster than before, as they can see just by watching the star field. Dev unbuckles and gets out of his seat. Chaz does the same.
“Were those different engines than what we were using?”
“No, just a different setting. Launch engines and acceleration engines kick the propulsion system into overdrive. Same components, different parameters.”
“What about the asteroid belt?” Chaz says, while getting up. “Isn’t that somewhere around here?”
“When we left Earth, we flew a parabolic arc to Saturn,” Dev replies. “So, basically, we jumped over the plane of the asteroid belt. It’s behind us, between Mars and Jupiter.”
Thirty minutes later, the recon ship approaches the tiny Pluto, slowing from its speed cou
rse. Dev, who took a few moments to go below, returns to the control deck wearing his black and dark blue military flight suit. His weapon is properly holstered to integrated attachment points on his belt and outer thigh. The flight suit bears a set of gold wings and shoulder boards with three gold stripes and a star.
“Wow, nice uniform!” Chaz says.
“Thanks. This is actually just a flight suit. Our uniforms are more formal.”
The autopilot throttles back as the ship approaches Pluto. Dev joins Chaz at the forward windows. Chaz is, at this moment, the only man from Earth to ever see Pluto with the naked eye.
“Wow.”
“Something’s wrong,” Dev says. “No Adonis.”
“Are we early?”
Dev looks at his left inner forearm. His chronometer screen is visible through a formfitting cutout on his flight suit magnetically held in place. “No, they should be here.” Concerned, Dev moves over to the navigation table and enters a series of commands, which scans the area of space around them. The scale reduces to a larger radius. A single target appears along an outbound trajectory. “I have them.”
Chaz turns from the windows. “Are they late?”
“They’re headed away from the system.” Dev programs a course change right at the navigation table. The ship banks and takes up a new heading, overflying the odd planetoid and heading further out into space. After a few minutes, Chaz squints and then sees something far off in the distance.
“There,” Chaz points. “Is that them?”
Dev looks. “Yes.”
They are closing in fast, but even at this distance, Chaz can see Adonis must be at least the size of a couple of aircraft carriers. Bigger probably. A striking aspect about the warship are the large solar sails deployed above and below the hull. Adonis is heading away, accelerating toward the great void that lies beyond.
“That’s odd,” Dev says.
“What is?” says Chaz.
“Their acceleration engines are powered up, but their sails are deployed.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means something’s going on. With the sails deployed they have to accelerate gradually or they’ll bend the masts. They must have received new orders, and they’ve been waiting for us or else they would have already transitioned directly into high-speed flight.” Dev moves to the pilot station and looks at the readings. He activates the communications system. “Adonis, R-35 on approach. Recon mission 42697.”
“Recon Commander, Warship Adonis. Commence underway docking, starboard bay two and report to the Quarterdeck. No delay, Commander.” The com line closes.
“What, no hello?” Chaz says. He sees Dev is in serious mode.
“Strap in, Chaz, we’re going to be maneuvering.”
Chaz barely has time to get in his seat before Dev engages the maneuvering thrusters throttles up to close the distance with the warship. Rolling to the right while accelerating, Chaz really feels the strain. Likewise when Dev abruptly levels out. As they near the warship, Dev throttles back, firing some kind of breaking thrusters to better match speed with Adonis, pitching Chaz and Dev momentarily forward. The sails of Adonis begin furling, creating a surreal undulating blanket effect above and below the warship. The com line signals a tone.
“Recon Commander, be advised, Adonis on acceleration profile two decimal five and increasing. Maximum power burst in four minutes. Solar wind zero-five-zero by one-eight-zero at one-five.”
“What does that mean?”
Dev answers quickly. “Descending solar crosswind off to starboard.” Dev continues to maneuver to line up the Recon vessel along the starboard side of the warship. He throttles up slightly to come alongside, but he doesn’t have a lot of time. Adonis continues to accelerate, making the underway docking a challenge, even for Dev. Some kind of strange turbulence begins jostling the Recon ship, but it’s not . . . exactly turbulence. Chaz grabs the handholds on his seat.
“The gravity fields between the two ships are interacting. You may feel a little lightheaded until the fields merge.”
Chaz sees a large, curved exterior bulkhead on the starboard side of the warship marked with a number two down the side of the large vessel. The large curving docking bay door rotates clockwise, opening the receiving bay. A large gantry extends outward, clearly marked with a touchdown zone. There is not a lot of room for error.
The closeness of the ships is disconcerting for Chaz, particularly at the speeds both vessels are traveling. An area of gaseous matter streams between the two ships further contributing to the sensation of high velocity. A slight wave of something almost like vertigo hits him, but he quickly shakes it and refocuses. This revives a faded but anxious memory in Chaz, from his early helicopter days and his first close-quarters approach to the deck of a small ship in pitching seas. Navy vessels rarely stop moving, but this warship is moving at an incredible speed and accelerating.
Dev maneuvers the Recon ship in position and activates the landing gear. Four long articulated landing struts extend with angled foot-like pads at their bases. He literally flies the recon ship down onto the gantry, landing with slight forward momentum. The struts flex to absorb most of the stress, but the contact thrusts him and Chaz against their restraints. Dev rolls the throttles grips back, reversing the gravity system, causing a feeling of vibration as the ship firmly seats to the pad. Dev pulls the throttles to idle. The Recon ship is now hard docked with Adonis and within the gravitational envelope of the warship. The weird gravity field-induced feeling dissipated as soon as the ship docked.
“R35 Grav-Lock,” Dev reports. Chaz doesn’t know if he is saying it for his benefit or someone on the other ship. The gantry pad retracts and exterior bay door begins rotating closed. During the process, Dev powers down the engines and deactivates the reaction system. He initiates the normal shutdown sequence and then heads aft toward the stairs to the lower deck, with Chaz right behind him. The lighting in the cargo bay is supplemented by a thin border of red light around the ramp.
“What’s with the red light? I didn’t notice that before.”
“External atmospheric detector. It arms with the landing gear. It will turn green when it’s safe to open up.”
CROWN DEFENSE FORCE
WARSHIP ADONIS
The hangar deck pressure normalizes with a hiss as the interior bay door rotates open. The airlock doors are a concentric circular design comprised of double walled outer doors and the concentric single wall inner door. Motion alarms signal caution while the gantry is in motion and the immense inner door in operation. The interior of the receiving bay is lit by deep indigo light, in contrast with the rest of the normal white flight deck lighting.
Inside the cargo bay of the Recon ship, the line of red around the cargo door turns green, indicating the ship is safely aboard Adonis. Dev verifies their condition on the control panel. Before activating the boarding stairs, he looks at Chaz. “You ready to see more stuff?”
“Absolutely.”
“Okay.” Dev activates the switch that looks like a ladder, which lowers just a staircase. Chaz realizes there is a separate two-foot-wide section with integrated steps built into the left-hand side of the larger cargo ramp. The steps unfold as the unit lowers.
“That’s what that one does,” Chaz says.
“You ready?”
Chaz sees the strange lighting down the stairs and can hear the motion alarm and sounds of the hangar deck. His breathing becomes fast and he whispers to Dev, “I’m suddenly a little nervous.”
“Just go into Navy mode,” Dev says and heads down the stairs.
The sage advice gives Chaz some perspective and confidence. “Anchors aweigh.”
The gantry stops moving with a metallic thud and the indigo lighting reverts to normal. The chief of the deck, an enlisted crewman, approaches as Dev and Chaz descend the stairs. The chief isn’t expecting two people, but doesn’t automatically assume the Commander brought an Earth resident aboard. Chaz resists the urge to gawk, and
remains stoic and navy-like.
Dev addresses the deck chief. “Permission to come aboard.”
“Granted, Commander.” The deck officer holds an electronic pad and stylus for Dev’s signature. A ship-wide alert is heard, and an announcement is made. “All stations secure. Acceleration engines firing in five . . . four . . . three . . . two . . . one . . .”
The deck chief and Dev both adjust their footing. Dev places his hand behind Chaz’s back. The ship lurches abruptly enough so that anyone caught off guard would lose footing. Dev, steady on his feet, supports Chaz in the lurch. Chaz notices two people walking and discussing maintenance during the acceleration burst seem to take a practiced airborne step of great length in the moment of acceleration burst and continued their conversation as if nothing happened, although their voices echoed at that moment. Clearly, they’ve all done this a hundred times. Chaz quickly regains his balance. Dev signs the pad and hands the stylus back to the deck chief.
“Fleet Commander’s compliments, sir, you’re requested on the Quarterdeck.”
Dev nods. “Carry on.”
Dev hurries out of the receiving bay, closely followed by Chaz, who tries to steal a look around. For all intents and purposes, this flight deck looks very similar to an aircraft carrier’s hangar deck, although this one has a Recon ship and several smaller ancillary vehicles in it. Something is definitely going on, because Dev doesn’t waste any time departing the area and doesn’t explain anything to Chaz.
The interior passages are busy with personnel, and there is palpable tension on the ship. Chaz tries to see everything, but needs to keep up with Dev. The rounded corridor is about seven feet in diameter. This ship does not look at all like the starships of TV. This looks like a military vessel. Passages seem to be constructed of a series of ribs and bulkheads. Lighting is a combination of indirect overhead, and floor-level. Chaz feels like he’s in everyone’s way, but quickly realizes that all personnel seem to be making way for he and Dev, well, mainly Dev. As such, Chaz falls in slightly behind him so as not to block anyone.