Apparent Brightness (The Sector Fleet, Book 2)

by Nicola Claire

  Not much else made sense, but that one line lit up like Christmas on the Champs-Élysées.

  Where the hell had it come from?

  I entered a command, asking the Chariot to identify the code. Chariot told me it was unidentifiable. I rewrote the command to search for anomalies within the system. It took a second or two for the Chariot’s computer to skim all systems and then tell me that everything was operating within acceptable parameters.

  I asked the computer to clarify “acceptable parameters.” It replied with one word: nominal.

  I stared at the screen for several more seconds and then set the Chariot’s computer to run a self-diagnostic. It was designed to meticulously go through every operating system, from life support to biohazard waste removal to what’s being offered for lunch in the crew mess hall today. It would take an hour to complete, and in the meantime, I wouldn’t be able to ask the Chariot a damn thing.

  Not for the first time, I lamented the fact that I’d signed up with the ESA and not Anderson Universal Incorporated. The private company that had manufactured all of the AI class lead vessels, and had the AIs themselves created, was at the cutting edge of space flight technology. They alone held the patents to FTL flight. They’d shared some of their developments, the gel walls for one, but on the whole, every other private spaceflight company, along with those funded by governments such as the European Space Agency had been on their own.

  The price of using any of Anderson Universal’s technology was to allow one AU vessel to lead each of the four sector fleets. And we’d just lost our AU vessel. And since we were the only government-sponsored vessel left in the fleet, it now fell to us to maintain order. The Chariot was now the lead Sector One vessel, and I’d gone from Chief Engineer on board a support ship to Chief Engineer of the entire sector fleet. All of this without the computing power of an artificial intelligence.

  I could only imagine what the pressure felt like that had landed on Noah’s shoulders.

  I pushed away from my terminal and made a visual inspection of the main boost thrust engines. They lit up with an eerie blue glow and thrummed through the gel flooring. I could feel them in my bones. A soft sounding musical accompaniment to the normal conversations carried out inside an engineering room. They took up a large portion of Deck D and powered not only the nacelle engines but a good percentage of the electricity produced onboard ship. We had redundancies in place, but should we lose main boost thrust, we’d be crawling.

  And considering we were now urging them beyond their recommended maximum power setting, we were pushing our luck significantly. I stood still and listened to the low thrum; let the feel of the engines flow through me. I could hear a tick. It was irregular, and most of those in engineering with me might have overlooked it. But every few seconds or so, I heard it.

  I let out a breath and opened my eyes, scanning the main boost thrust containment field.

  “Daniels,” I called out above the ever-present noise in engineering. “How’s main boost thrust looking?”

  “Chief,” he said back jovially, “you have got to take a breath now and again. It’s in order. Everything’s going to be OK.”

  I really should have been the one bolstering them, but as always, Evan Daniels was the mother hen rounding up his chicks and cosseting them lovingly. I was not the nurturing type. I tended my engines as if they were my babies. My crew were my team; I respected them; loved them in a way. But even though they were a type of family to me, I never cosseted them like Daniels did. I wondered if that made me less humane.

  “You’re probably right,” I said, unable to shake the tick even though I was trying. “But can you just check for anomalies on all frequency ranges?”

  Daniels stared at me for a second and then nodded his head. He knew my hunches were usually sound. He also knew, no one was more familiar with this engine than me. That tick was out of place, and I was determined to track it down.

  I returned my attention to the main boost thrust. It glowed its welcoming blue, bathing me completely. Usually, that soothed me. But with Vela gone and that strange message in Chariot’s system and a tick in my baby, I felt all kinds of wrong.

  I contemplated advising the captain, but stars alone knew the man held the weight of the entire sector fleet on his shoulders. I’d only disturb him if there were something definitive to share. Besides, the English always got snotty when you came to them with problems and not answers.

  I huffed out a breath and turned away from the main boost thrust.

  I’d taken a step, maybe two, when I heard it.

  The tick became a swish, and the engine hum changed in tone.

  “Daniels!” I barked.

  The lieutenant looked up at me, confusion on his handsome features.

  “Main boost thrust is spooling down,” he said, sounding stunned.

  “Did we do something?’ I asked the room at large.

  Several shakes of heads and “No, ma’ams” came back.

  I strode across the room toward Daniels, who was frantically turning dials and flicking switches and entering commands into Chariot’s computer. But Chariot was running a self-diagnostic, and although we had direct control over the main boost thrust, without Chariot’s computers to search the billions of pathways leading to and from the engineering compartment, our chances of finding the anomaly were slim.

  “Chariot,” I said, stopping at a terminal midway from the main boost thrust’s containment field and Daniel’s position, “suspend systems check.”

  The self-diagnostic paused on the screen.

  “Daniels,” I asked, turning toward the lieutenant.

  “Got it!” he said, just as his terminal exploded into a hundred different pieces, taking my 2IC with it.

  Two

  Thought You Might Need A Tipple

  Noah

  The klaxons went off on the bridge with a jarring intensity. What now? I almost said aloud. Red lights flashed within the gel-coated walls. The bridge door clunked and an ominous sign illuminated with the word “lockdown” in glowing letters at head height.

  “Status,” I said, keeping my voice level and calm. I wasn’t feeling particularly calm right now, but then I hadn’t felt calm since we’d left Earth.

  The sight of Vela exploding into a million shards of light just outside of Earth’s atmosphere threatened to engulf me. I pushed the memory away and looked to my second-in-command.

  “An explosion in engineering, sir,” Commander Brecht said.

  Camille.

  I hit the comm button on my command chair.

  “Engineering! Status!” I didn’t sound quite as calm now.

  Nothing for several heart palpitating seconds and then Camille’s voice came over the communications systems, her French accent more noticeable than normal.

  She was stressed.

  “Medical emergency in engineering,” she said. “We’ve lost main boost thrust, Captain.”

  The last was for me; the first for our med team. They’d head her way immediately. I wanted to, also. Who’d been hurt?

  “Casualties?” I asked.

  “One fatality, two serious injuries, several minor.”

  One fatality. Only a Frenchwoman could say that and not sound disheartened.

  But then again, there was the heavy accent. Camille Rey prided herself on her command of English. Any moment now, the odd French phrase would enter her vocabulary.

  She was hurting.

  “What are we looking at, Chief?” I asked, getting her concentration back on her engines and off her teammate’s demise.

  “Uncertain at this stage, Captain. Engines had been maintaining 115% without any sign of wear. I’ll have to run a diagnostic.”

  “How long?”

  Silence. No doubt Camille was looking around the engineering room and cataloguing the stations and systems requiring attention.

  “I can get main boost thrust back online,” she finally said. “But we need to find out what caused this. I have no estim
ate for how long that will take, Captain.”

  “And main boost thrust? We’re losing parsecs as we speak, Chief.”

  “I’m aware of that, Captain.” She was pissed. I grimaced instead of smiled. It didn’t seem right to enjoy riling her right now; she’d just lost a member of her team.

  “Very well,” I said, voice level and calm. “I’d like a report in my ready room as soon as you’re able, Chief. Do what you can to get us moving for now.”

  I trusted Commander Rey to do her job. She might be hurting. She might be angry with the universe and any unfortunate soul who crossed her path. But Camille Rey was a dedicated engineer. One of the best to come out of the ESA.

  “Aye-aye, Captain,” she said and cut comms.

  “Fleet-wide hail, Johnson,” I said to my communications officer.

  “Channel open, sir,” he replied.

  I stared at the viewscreen; for now, it merely showed a vast swathe of stars in front of us. Any second though, those other vessels in our sector fleet would overtake us, and all we’d see would be the glowing arse end of their nacelles.

  “This is Captain Noah Vaughan of the Chariot. Reduce speed to quarter. I’ll update the fleet when I have more to offer. Chariot out.”

  It was hardly inspiring stuff, and we didn’t really have the clout to back it up. If the other vessels in the fleet decided to keep on trucking and leave us behind, there wasn’t a lot we could do save fire on them. And firing on what was left of humanity seemed all kinds of wrong. But being an ESA vessel, the only European Space Agency Ship out of the ESA in our fleet, we held some sway.

  The European Space Agency had given all the vessels in our fleet, save the Anderson Universal vessel Vela, a helping hand during fitting out for this journey. Those that remained in the Sector One Fleet had a lot to thank the ESA and therefore ESAS Chariot for. I could only hope goodwill would go so far.

  But when you’re talking about survival of the human race, goodwill slips down the totem pole of power. Survival is a strong motivator. We needed to stay on our toes for this.

  “Lieutenant Hammersmith,” I called.

  “Yes, sir?” she replied promptly, her German accent barely noticeable. The lack of harsh consonants only reminded me of Camille’s accented slip earlier. I pushed concern for my chief engineer out of my mind.

  Camille was a big girl; she could look after herself.

  “Place us on yellow alert.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Guards to engineering,” I added.

  “And the bridge, sir?”

  I glanced around my bridge crew.

  “Are any of you armed?” I queried mildly.

  “Er, no, sir,” Hammersmith replied.

  “Not even you, Lieutenant?”

  “Er.”

  “Emergency arms, then. You have the code for the bridge locker?” I enquired.

  “Yes, sir. Forgive me, sir, but who do you think will attack us?”

  I looked at the viewscreen.

  “I dare say if there are any problems, they’ll originate outside of the ship, Lieutenant. But if they do, we’re not the only ones with portals showing the progress of the rest of the fleet compared to us.”

  “Ah, yes, sir. Makes sense.”

  “I do try,” I said dryly.

  No one laughed. The entire flight crew was on edge, and an unexplained explosion in engineering just made matters worse. I counted down the minutes, hoping to hear from Camille before too much longer. But as the shift progressed, and main boost thrust came back online, I didn’t so much as hear a peep out of her.

  “I’ll be in my ready room,” I said to Johnson sometime later. “You have the bridge.”

  “Aye-aye, sir.”

  I strode out of the bridge and slipped into my office, then sank down into my chair and tried to relax. A quick assessment of the systems told me engineering was operating at 60% and the crewman who had died was Lieutenant Daniels. Camille’s second.

  I wrote up my log, what I could of it so far, and then sent a reminder to the chief to file her report. I got diddly-squat for my efforts. I could hardly blame her, she’d be working under pressure to get engineering fully operational again, and there was the gaping hole in her command structure to consider.

  I was not inclined to micro-manage my crew members. But damn it, a report would have been nice.

  I checked on the relative positions of the rest of the fleet, and on the off chance of spotting Pavo and the Sector Two Fleet on long-range scans, I tried that too. I was pretty damn sure that I had a better chance of getting Camille Rey to report than catch up to the Sector Two Fleet anytime soon.

  I contemplated sending out another mayday to Captain Jameson onboard Pavo. But he knew about as much as he needed to right now. Our main boost thrust was operational again and would be maintaining 115% thrust before too much longer. Thank the divine heavens for Camille Rey and her super intelligent engineer’s mind. There was nothing else to tell him. Well, nothing else I was aware of yet.

  One malfunction does not a malfunctioning beast make.

  I’d get Camille’s report. We’d fix the problem. And we’d sail on to new pastures.

  I glanced at the gel wall and took in the meadow full of wildflowers depicted on it. The meadow my parents looked at outside their kitchen window every day. Placing my head in my hands, I only managed a second or two of despair, before the door chimed.

  Thinking it might be my elusive chief of engineering, I straightened my uniform and stood from my chair to greet her.

  The door slid open, and the mayor walked in.

  I sank back down again and tried not to show my disappointment.

  For his part, Mayor Lambert came bearing gifts; a bottle of Williamine.

  “Thought you might need a tipple,” he said, waving the nectar about with unveiled enthusiasm.

  I pulled out two shot glasses, placing them before him on my desk, and said nothing as he poured equal portions from his bottle.

  Thank God for the Swiss and their liqueurs. Not to mention their excellent timing.

  Three

  And Then He Went And Behaved Like This

  Camille

  The mayor was in with the captain. And from the looks of it, they’d both had a fair bit to drink. Captain Vaughan wasn’t drunk, though; I’d seen him drunk, and this was not him drunk. But I dare say, he wanted to be drunk and was giving it his best shot.

  Unfortunately for Noah Vaughan, his best shot had to contend with his sense of honour, which forbade any such activity when the ship was in crisis.

  And we were definitely in crisis.

  “Camille,” Jean-Claude Lambert exclaimed. “A flower to make the thorn bushes blush.” The last was said in French. Swiss-French, but I wasn’t complaining.

  “Hey!” The captain, on the other hand, took great offence at having French spoken around him. “English, people. English.”

  “Poor man is suffering, my dear,” Lambert said, still in French. “Shall we put him out of his misery?”

  “I’ll just go then and leave you two to it,” Vaughan muttered.

  “Captain,” I said by way of greeting.

  “See, she likes me,” Vaughan said to Lambert.

  “She humours you, Noah and we all know it.”

  Vaughan looked toward me, and for a moment I saw something I hadn’t seen there before. And then it was gone.

  “Do you?” he said softly.

  I wasn’t sure what had brought this on, but I could hazard a guess. We were all acting out of sorts lately.

  “My report,” I said, pushing a datapad across his desk toward him.

  “Work, work, work,” Lambert said in English this time; his message was for the captain.

  “It’s something you might want to consider from time to time, your Worship,” Vaughan remarked, swiping the datapad screen.

  His eyes scanned the contents for a few seconds, and then he carefully placed the device on his desk. He stared at his unfinished s
hot glass, contemplating swallowing it whole at a guess.

  “That bad, huh?” the captain said as if to no one.

  “What is it?” Mayor Lambert asked.

  “Jean-Claude, you know I’d tell you all my dirty secrets if I could,” Vaughan started.

  “Not this again,” Lambert said to me in French, levering himself up to standing.

  “When you decide to speak only English to me, and in front of me I might add, then I shall relent.”

  Lambert scoffed and said a few choice swearwords in French and then departed. The man had always had a keen sense of timing.

  Vaughan’s eyes met mine at last.

  “How are you doing?” he asked.

  I wasn’t sure how to answer that.

  “I see,” he said before I could open my mouth. “This is very thorough.” He indicated the datapad report. “But we still don’t know what caused it.”

  “Solar flare,” I suggested. “We’re trying to pinpoint where we might have been hit, and then we can extrapolate which systems have been damaged.”

  “You mean to tell me, Chief, that you won’t know what’s wrong until it crashes.” He didn’t sound accusatory in the slightest, merely summing up the facts. But I felt the failure down to my bones.

  I contemplated telling him about the message in Chariot’s computer systems, but it had vanished now, and when I tried to search for it, it no longer existed. Part of me wondered if I’d dreamt it up. We’d all been under a lot of pressure.

  “All right,” Noah said, reaching out and pouring me a shot of Lambert’s liqueur. He pushed the glass towards me and picked up his own. “To Lieutenant Evan Daniels.” He tipped the glass to his lips and swallowed in one gulp.

  I followed suit, allowing the drink to burn me. My eyes watered, my throat was on fire, the sweet taste of pears soon washed out all other sensations.

  “Ugh,” I managed.

  “I know, not his best, but he does love his Williamine.”

  I placed the glass down on the captain’s desk carefully.