“At ease, lieutenants, before you break something,” he said, placing a hand on Boyett’s shoulder. His warm and powerful eyes took command of the ship instantly. He looked around and placed a hand on one of the bulkheads.
“Hello, my old friend,” Boyett heard Barrington whisper. Doctor Tyrell followed him off the shuttle, along with Crewman Amanda Llewellyn who had piloted the shuttle. She was young. Boyett was sure that she just graduated from the academy. She had cropped brown hair and a round face. Her expression was deadly serious. She looked tough, though. Boyett noticed Tyrell’s dishevelled appearance as he shuffled past carrying an array of satchels. He nodded briefly. Barrington stood in the corridor for a moment then turned to Chavel.
“Would you show the doctor the main science lab, please Lieutenant?” Chavel nodded and led Tyrell down the hall off to an adjacent corridor. He gave Boyett a cheeky glance before rounding the bend.
“Okay, everybody,” Barrington said to the crewmembers still standing there. “Let’s get back to work. We have a ship to build. Dismissed.” With that the welcoming detail saluted, turned on their heels and walked back to their various tasks. He turned to Boyett.
“Let’s see how she looks, shall we? Show me the bridge,” he said.
“With pleasure, sir,” she said. They turned and began their journey through the ship. Barrington led the pace slowly, as Boyett began filling in the details.
“You’ll have to forgive some of the aesthetics right now. The last of the hull plating is taking precedence over everything.” Barrington nodded. The hallways of the ship were simple although currently cluttered with equipment and cabling. Vibrations from large sections of hull being sealed into place by the assembly platform orbiting the craft could be felt underfoot. An assortment of crewmembers and engineering staff were dotted around open bulkheads, examining connections and fusing a forest of wires and interfaces together. They all stood and acknowledged the commander as he walked past. Boyett knew he was taking detailed notes in his head, and resisted the urge to apologise for every task yet incomplete and hugely overdue.
“Landon Emerson arrived this morning and is deep in the engineering bay, trying to sort out the FTL ring torque attenuators. At the moment we have no way of slowing them down, which would be unfortunate if we ever want to drop out of hyperspace.”
Barrington frowned. “That it would,” he said. They passed a series of doors leading to crew quarters. The decks were arranged in a series of segments, with outer rings curving around, intersecting hallways that led to each area of the ship. Each corridor being labelled with letters and each segment with a number. They were currently on Deck 8 section A14. It was home to living quarters, hydroponics, the main forward airlock, a gymnasium, which was currently under construction pending the survival of the first mission and a host of labs. They walked past environmental systems control, which was currently manned by a single crewman, who was monitoring an array of display screens. Barrington peered in.
“You will be pleased to know that that is the one thing working perfectly at the moment. So wherever we end up we will at the very least be able to breathe.” Barrington gave her a wry smile and they moved on. They entered a lift and let the doors hiss closed. Llewelyn remained quiet and followed along.
“Bridge,” said Boyett. Nothing happened. Barrington looked at the young woman and raised an eyebrow. She cleared her throat.
“Bridge,” she repeated more assertively. Still nothing. She sighed and tapped the command into the control pad on the door. The lift took off.
“We’re working on that,” she said, embarrassed. Seconds later, the doors hissed open and she stepped onto the main bridge. Barrington took a step off the lift. There were at least twenty people working on systems scattered throughout the oval room. Unlike the rest of the ship, the bridge had an industrial feel to it. The grey metallic plating underfoot gave a sense of being on old transport. It had a hardened, unfinished look, with many of the stations still unsealed and showing their innards.
“Commander on the deck,” she announced. With a surprised look, the group stood and looked at Barrington. One of them hit his head on an open panel, which caused an unsettling crash of an array of tools that were placed beside him. He rubbed his head and stood to attention. They all looked like they had not slept in weeks. The vacancy in their eyes was familiar. They waited for him to speak. As did Boyett.
“Your head okay, Thomas?” Barrington finally said with a smile to the young man at the back of the group.
There was light laughter as the red-faced crewmember replied, “Yes, sir.”
“Glad to hear it,” replied the commander.
“I apologise to you all,” he said, scanning the ensemble. “Had circumstances allowed I would have been here sooner. You have all done something remarkable. I am very proud of each and every one of you. I know this has been difficult and I promise you all a cold one on the beach of our new home, but right now I have a personal favour. If you all agree to this I will personally be in each of your debt.” He paused and composed himself. “I need you all to save the human race. I need you all to lock away your grief. It has no place on this ship. Not now. We grieve for the dead when we save the living. That is my favour. Do you think you can all do that?”
A colossal, “Yes, sir,” followed within a heartbeat. Boyett could tell the level of commitment touched Barrington and she sensed that his words were desperately needed in this room.
“Right then. As you were,” he finished. The crewmembers snapped back into their tasks with the infused adrenalin that followed the morale boost from the commander. One of the comm stations sounded tone.
“Sir, I have an incoming transmission from the Jycorp Station.”
“Do we have visuals working yet?” he asked Boyett.
“Yes, sir, we do,” she answered, pointing to the array of large screens that circled the bridge. The design allowed a true sense of orientation when viewing outside the vessel and also offered enhanced image resolution of distant objects, of up to a light-year.
“Quiet on the bridge. On screen,” he announced. He looked toward the centre of the bridge and made his way over to the elevated captain’s chair. Boyett watched as he took his seat and felt her nerves begin to calm. Ahead, the black screen was replaced with an image of Chancellor Clarke.
“Greetings. My name is Sienna Clark. I have been your Supreme Chancellor. I speak to you today as someone who, like all of you, has lost a home, family and friends.” She paused.
“Years ago when I was young my father took me and my brother into the woods to hunt deer. Somewhere along the way my brother and I were separated from him and we found ourselves in the middle of nowhere, lost and afraid. As it grew dark and the crawling shadows of the trees crept ever closer to us, I started to cry and my brother took my hand and told me that nothing bad could happen to either of us because we had each other.” She paused and glanced downwards.
“We made a pact to protect each other, no matter what came for us in the darkness. Something came for him in the darkness recently and we lost each other.”
She took a breath.
“Some of you will know the extent of the dire situation we find ourselves in this day and some of you may not. I am here to shed some light on the facts.” She paused again.
“In less than three weeks a massive debris field from Earth will strike this planet and its surrounding platforms with enough force to shift its orbit and make it permanently uninhabitable. We do not know why the signal bearers chose this moment to attack us. The only thing we do know is where that signal came from. Our only hope for survival is The Agathon. Her ability to use her faster than light capability will guarantee the survival of all of us, but there are challenges. We do not know what lies at its destination. And, above all else,” she paused, “not all of us will be going.”
Barrington kept his eyes fixed on the screen. There
was deathly silence on the bridge. The chancellor continued.
“Some of us will be remaining behind on the orbiting stations and transports and will be setting a course for the outer rim of our solar system, to stay ahead of the debris field. It is proposed that The Agathon, once it has secured its destination as being habitable for all of us, will return and take those left behind to their new home. This is not a perfect plan. I know some of you will have doubts but I have faith and I believe that this can and will work. I and my senior staff have already decided to stay behind with those on the space stations and wait for The Agathon’s return.” There was chatter on the bridge.
“Quiet,” Barrington ordered. The crew hushed instantly.
“The Agathon is a remarkable vessel. But it must be crewed by the people best suited to find our new home. Most of that crew has already been selected. In seventy-two hours there will be a lottery for the remaining spaces on the ship, for those who wish to enter. Simply submit your name to the central computer via a data link to the Jycorp Orbital. For those of you who have nearly completed the impossible and who are on board right now, you have my personal thanks and the thanks of every one of us left. Our tribe will survive. Of that you can be assured.
“I am making myself and my staff available to every colonist who wishes to speak directly to me or to anyone who requires clarification. This is something I could not do on Earth and it was one of my greatest regrets. Tonight we hold hands and we will not be afraid of the approaching darkness. The shadows of the trees will not consume us. This I promise you. To Commander Barrington on board The Agathon. I hereby promote you to captain. I wish you good fortune in your journey. The sum of all our hopes now rests upon you and your crew. Godspeed. Clark out.”
The screen went blank. Barrington sat back in his chair and looked at his crew.
“You heard the lady. Let’s get to work,” he said without hesitation.
“Yes, Captain,” said Boyett with a smile.
“First things first; let’s seal this girl up and get her ready to fly. Are the inter-ship communications working, Charly?” he asked. Boyett nodded
“Yes, sir, the panel to your left.” Barrington tapped a pad on the arm of his chair. A whistle sounded overhead.
“This is the comman... captain speaking. To all personnel. I want hourly briefings and progress reports to Lieutenant Boyett, effective immediately. I want a meeting with all department heads on the bridge in twenty minutes. Lieutenant Chavel, please report to the bridge. Barrington out.” He turned to Llewellyn who was behind him.
“Amanda, I want you to liaise with Aquaria base and start compiling a logistics report on the transfer of the selected colonists from the surface. Hold off on nonessential personnel until we do further integrity checks on the outer hull. Once we have a green light from environmental systems, start bringing them up. Set up a station in one of the communications quarters on deck nine.”
“Yes, sir,” she replied and turned towards the lift. He turned back to Boyett and stood.
“I’ll be in engineering,” he said and followed Llewellyn to the back of the bridge. “Boyett, you have the bridge.”
Main Observatory
Mars Colony 1
15:00 Martian Standard
Carrie stared at the blank screen. The chancellor was not what she was expecting at all. There was a softness in her that she had never seen on the Jycorp communication channels or media reports from Earth. She sensed a great sadness from her when she had been speaking about her brother, which she had barely been able to contain. She could feel her father’s heartbeat as he learned of his promotion. His ability to contain pressure and use its negative impact on the mind as a positive thing was what she admired most about him. She was alone in the lab. Most of the equipment had already been sent to The Agathon and Tyrell had left her in charge of his main lab. While the observatory array was still operational, its functions had been taken over by the Phobos Orbital platform. Tyrell had given an elaborate story to Carrie about what happened to the imaging chamber, which was now an empty space in the middle of the observatory.
“There was a breach of highly charged ion particles during a maintenance routine,” he had said. “I was rather lucky it didn’t kill me,” he had finished. Of course she had known instantly that he was lying. The easiest of human emotional tells she had learned as a child. She had expressed concern for the cuts on his hand, but had let the matter drop. Why would he destroy the imaging chamber?
She was having some trouble concentrating on her tasks, as the lingering memories of her encounter with Chavel in his shuttle pod remained in her mind. She walked into Tyrell’s personal lab and began a wavelength analysis of the final seconds before the signal changed. While Tyrell had already done several he had instructed her to compile a nanosecond report into several of the oscillations, which seemed to show minor variations. He was just trying to keep her busy and off the scent of what had happened to the imaging chamber. Carrie knew that. He rarely let her have access to his personal lab.
Behind her the sample of The Black sat quietly in the containment room. For several minutes Carrie watched as the computer ran a diagnostic of the wavelength patterns of the signal. It eventually revealed a minor variance in the upper phase of the atomic transference, but nothing that could account for such a dramatic change of the nature and strength of the particle wave. She eventually swivelled in her chair and faced the containment room where The Black was held. She gazed into the room and watched the container of black fluid. It was settled in a spherical transparent ball elevated above a solid metal platform. She stood from her seat and stood by the entrance to the chamber. There was a large sign stencilled on the clear glass door. DO NOT ENTER. HAZARDOUS BIOCHEMICAL SUBSTANCES.
She did not know why she opened the door but moments later she was inside the containment room and was staring directly into the glass sphere holding the lethal life form. There was an attraction to the fluid. She had never been this close to it, but she had a powerful urge to smash the container and release it. A strange sensation of calm fell upon her as she reached up and ran a finger across the surface of the smooth outer layer of the sphere. A small bubble formed on the surface of the fluid.
“Home,” she heard in her mind. A dark voice that was not her own yet sounded like her.
“You are of here,” it said.
“Yes I am,” she replied in a trance. Her eyes now wide and pupils dilated, she began caressing the sphere with The Black inside which was beginning to gurgle and pop.
“You are of here,” the voice in her head said again.
“I am of here,” she repeated out loud to the empty room. She began to close her eyes and as she did so visions of a utopian world began to fill her mind.
Blue skies with streaks of white clouds overlooked advanced and endless seas of technological civilisation. Flying craft darted amongst the hazy, white backdrop above. Enormous glass towers filled with lights pierced the atmosphere with grandiose and bold arrogance. The roads and streets of mega cities, filled with surface vehicles and millions of bipedal creatures swarming, filled her field of view. Interconnecting transport hubs linked an endless array of surrounding structures. She knew this place. There were forests with trees that reached for miles into the sky. Huge laborious animals with a multitude of limbs and defensive horn structures on their backs ran through an open plain. She flew over them and watched as they merged with an array of other creatures of various shapes and sizes, all huddled around a great lake.
She was snapped awake suddenly with a bolt of electricity that ran the length of her body. She felt as though she were having a heart attack as the burst of light that shot out of her fingertips connected directly with the electrical converters in the walls of the containment chamber. The force of the burst made her scream and she hit the ground, covering her head. The room flickered to red as the emergency lights kicked in and she found
herself staring up at The Black in the containment sphere. It had become still. She looked at her fingertips, which were red.
She touched the tops of her fingers together. To her surprise they were cold to the touch. Like she had placed ice cubes on each one. The ends of her jumpsuit were frayed and smouldering. She looked around the floor to see if she had accidentally tripped one of Tyrell’s power outlets and the charge had not grounded itself properly. The floor was clear. She looked overhead. Just the internal lighting panel, at least eight feet above her. She stepped around the sphere container holding The Black and looked for loose connections. The container had no loose fibrous connections or connections of any kind attached to it. She slowly made her way to the door of the lab and opened it.
She felt as though she had been sleep-walking. Not fully conscious yet not really asleep. She closed the door behind her and left Tyrell’s personal lab. She poured herself a glass of water and tried to rationalise what had occurred. Her fingertips were still cold. There was no pain. No bruising. No third degree burns. She caught a reflection of herself in the mirror placed on a diagnostic table. Her eyes were pulsating brightly with the rhythm of her heartbeat. She shut them and opened them again. The electric blue became even more prominent, before starting to fade back to her natural colour. She looked calmly at herself and began to cry.
“What is happening to me?” she screamed to nothing.
9
Transport vessel ‘Ramona’
Six kilometres off the port side of the Jycorp Orbital Station
Phobos
Time since Evacuation 103 days
24 Hours to impact
Captain Harry Gray had fallen asleep at the con. He had spent the night staring out at the stars, wondering how long he had left to live. He awoke in the early hours to find himself alone as usual, with his legs perched against the flight controls. Most of the people he had been transporting had departed to the civilian orbital station with only three leaving for the Jycorp Orbital. He had positioned the long cylindrical ship towards the direction of Earth and had kept the viewing port tracked against its former position. He reached over to a raised side table and poured himself a glass of water.
The Agathon: Book One Page 13