Setting the frame back down on her desk, she got a faraway look. Captain Kriss Bartholomew Hall was born on Christmas Day, and because of that, her dad had named her Christmas, Kriss for short. Bartholomew was her dad’s first name. It was an honor having his name. All throughout her cadet training years, her instructors had told the class about Bartholomew Hall’s feats of bravery and honor. Kriss had many of her father’s traits. She was small like him; in fact, she was the smallest-framed woman on board, but had the fieriest personality. Strong tempered and tough, but very fair, she was fiercely competitive and wouldn’t take no for an answer.
She wondered what her dad would be doing under these circumstances.
A sharp rap came from her door. “Come in,” said Captain Kriss.
In came Smitty.
“What is it, First Mate?”
“Well, Captain, I just got back from Engineering, where I was talking to Merc,” said Smitty.
“And?”
“We have no weapons on board, sir.”
“You mean to tell me that this ship is going across the solar system, to a planet we think is habitable, without any form of protection?” shouted Kriss.
“Yes, sir.”
“How in the hell did this occur?” growled the captain.
“Merc says the shipping container with the weapons wasn’t loaded. Remember, we had thirty-one days yet to fully stock the ship.”
“So are you telling me that if A-64 has unfriendly alien life, our only form of defense is a crew of a hundred women and one four-legged pussy?”
“Yes, sir, at the moment, sir.”
“What do you mean, ‘at the moment’?” barked Kriss.
“Merc has already begun the process of designing a weapon,” said Smitty.
“Good,” snapped the captain. “Hopefully she is better at that than catching that damn stowaway. Dismissed.”
Smitty left the captain alone. Just then, there was another loud knock on the door.
“Come in,” shouted the captain.
Pickle stood in the doorway, breathing heavily, a big smile on her face.
“Well, Commander, are you going to stand there smiling, or do you have something to say?”
“I have wonderful news, but I promised the chief science officer I wouldn’t tell you. Connie wants to tell you herself.”
Chapter Fifteen
The keypad made soft electronic clicking noises as the thoughts passed from Merc’s brain to the engineering computer. The flow of her thoughts could be detected by this noise. Sometimes there was a pause, followed by a long, ten-minute sequence. Finally, with a look of satisfaction, she pressed Send. A slight humming noise was followed by flying sparks and a tremendous grinding noise. The 3-D milling machine was already following Merc’s design.
Merc didn’t show it, but inside she was filled with grief. Her whole family gone, and every place dear to her obliterated, all because of some scientist’s creation gone bad. Nuclear fission was supposed to have rescued mankind from the fossil fuel era, but instead mankind had perverted it into a weapon and exterminated itself. And here she was doing it all over again: creating a weapon to protect her colony, hoping against hope that it would never be used against them.
Merc glided over to the massive engine’s control panel. It was like sitting in the cockpit of a monstrous old-world plane. Multicolored LED lights flickered, gauges everywhere. But she was a pro, scanning everything and taking it all in. All sixteen electromagnetic pulse engines were at max power. They would stay that way for six years. It required a tremendous amount of fuel to get this massive ship up to the speed of light. In one year, the ship would pass Earth’s most distant planet, Neptune. In two years, the ship would be out of our solar system, traveling at half the speed of light. In four years, the ship would be traveling at 90 percent the speed of light and pass Earth’s closest star system, Alpha Centauri, thirty million miles away from what was once Earth. At this speed, the ship would begin to travel in time and be in the fourth dimension. Every hour of time passed on board would be the same as two hours on Earth. After the ship reached full light speed at year six, a day on board would equal a year on Earth. At this speed, the ship would truly be traveling into the future, allowing humans to travel exceptional distances in their lifetime. Einstein’s theory of relativity actually had gone one step further, stating that time stands still at the speed of light.
Merc had all these thoughts running through her head. All of this was theory. Never had a ship traveled at the speed of light. Would the ship disintegrate? Would they run out of fuel? And what if time didn’t stand still? Would they all be dead of old age before they reached A-64?
Just then, the milling machine stopped, bringing Merc back to the present. Gliding over, she opened the metal door. Inside was a shiny gold object.
Chapter Sixteen
The temperature in deep space was -270 degrees Celsius, and the cadaver freezer in Science Bay held steady at the same. Connie punched in the release code that allowed the huge circular door to be opened. It was like opening a large vault at a central bank. Its massive bulk was locked by twenty-eight dead bolts. If this door was left open for only a matter of minutes, the inside of the ship, and all its contents, would freeze. At that temperature, all metal became fragile, and could fracture like glass.
Connie was standing in a clear polymer dome that surrounded the entrance to the vault. It was engineered to withstand these volatile temperatures for up to twenty minutes; after that, it would shatter.
The vault door came to a stop. Inside, a large overhead red strobe began pulsating, revealing the interior. Everything inside was covered with long crystals of frost. It was eerily beautiful, like Christmas in space.
Connie walked in hesitantly. Even though it looked beautiful, it was a place of death. Her lungs would have already frozen if not for the heated ventilator mask she wore.
Clumsily, she brushed the ice crystals off. The heavy freeze suit she wore impinged her movements. The ice crystals she had knocked off were floating around like pieces of a broken mirror, reflecting every strobe the red light made. It was almost blinding, but the chief science officer had a purpose.
Soon she had uncovered a long, coffin-like case. Instead of turning around, she kept going deeper into the crypt, sweeping the crystals from the right and left sides of the tunnel.
Strapped on each side were three cases. Connie stopped and examined them carefully. Finally satisfied, she removed one case from the wall.
By this time, the polymer dome was iced over. Connie could hardly see out of the heated ventilator mask; it, too, was freezing over.
More by feel than sight, she found the mitt-sized closing activator. She punched it with her mitt. Nothing happened. She punched it again. Still, nothing happened.
With growing alarm, Connie tried again. It wouldn’t budge. She had already been in the freezer for ten minutes. Ten more and the polymer dome would shatter, and the ship would die.
Connie took two long, slow breaths. She calmly spoke into the mic in her ventilator.
“The vault door activator is frozen. I can’t get it to close, over.”
There was no response in her headset.
“I repeat, the activator is frozen, over.”
Still no response. At just that moment, Susanna, with Libby in tow, entered Science Bay. Susanna was following the captain’s orders and looking for the chief science officer to install a learning visor to fit her baby. She couldn’t see anyone. However, she did notice that the domed-off area that had been see-through was now white. With a puzzled look, she went over to investigate. The baby was asleep on her tether, suckling her thumb.
Connie was going into hypothermia. As a doctor, she fully understood the symptoms. Her brain was slowing down and she had no energy. She knew her body was shutting down; as from a poisonous snake’s venom, she was
becoming paralyzed by the extreme cold. She just wanted to lie down and go to sleep.
Slowly she sat down. I’ll just rest a moment, she thought. Looking up, she saw the strobe. It didn’t even hurt her eyes anymore. It was beautiful.
Her ears heard a faint, far-off noise.
“Commander, respond. This is the captain talking. Commander, respond.”
The second time was very loud and clear. Captain Kriss was yelling. This time Connie opened her eyes.
“Can you hear me?” Kriss’s voice blared into Connie’s headphones.
“Yes, Captain,” she said softly.
“Then by God almighty, get your ass up, Commander.”
Captain Kriss and Pickle had come into Science Bay right behind Susanna and Libby. Immediately, both Pickle and Kriss knew there was a crisis. Pickle grabbed a glow gun from a nearby science station and began heating the polymer dome in a circular pattern. Soon the ice from inside melted enough that they could look in. It was through this opening that Captain Kriss saw Connie slumped on the floor.
Connie turned her head and saw the captain’s face peering back at her. Connie mumbled something into her mic. It sounded like frozen lips and teeth hitting each other.
Turning to Pickle, the captain barked, “Everyone out. Seal off Science Bay. I’m not losing my ship. Connie’s done for. Comlink the bridge and get the first mate here immediately. We have less than ten minutes before this part of the ship will be no more.”
Hearing the terror in the captain’s voice, Pickle was gone, followed by Susanna holding Libby close to her breast.
“Stay with me, Connie,” yelled the captain. “I’m not allowing you to desert this ship, do you hear me?”
Connie had slipped into unconsciousness. Desperately, the captain looked around. Her eyes rested upon a heavy-looking antique microscope. She kicked over and tried to lift it, but it wouldn’t budge. Even in almost zero gravity, she could not make it move.
Just then, Smitty came barreling in.
“Seal the doors permanently!” yelled the captain.
“But, Captain, if we seal them, we’ll die in here,” yelled Smitty.
“Better us than the whole ship,” barked the captain.
“But, sir, the ship can’t afford to lose you. They can me. So you stay outside Science Bay and seal the stainless steel doors. I won’t take no for an answer,” yelled Smitty in the most aggressive voice the captain had heard her use.
“Okay, I’ll seal them. You break the dome with this microscope and try to unjam the door activator. If it’s frozen, break the goddamn microscope over it.”
Within seconds, the stainless steel doors were closed, and the diamond glass safety door locked shut. Reaching for the microscope, Smitty barely made it move. Every muscle strained, and a vein in her forehead stuck out. With tremendous effort, she floated the microscope away from the polymer dome towards the stainless steel doors.
Bracing herself against the stainless steel doors, she held the microscope shoulder high in front of her. Then, with every muscle in her body, she kicked off towards the polymer dome like a medieval battering ram storming the palace gates. The dome shattered into a million tiny pieces. Smitty, flying like a projectile, hit the vault door activator dead center. The microscope bent beyond recognition and fell from Smitty’s hands as emergency steam vents were released.
Chapter Seventeen
“Pickle reporting, Captain.”
“Come in and be seated.”
The stainless steel doors closed. The captain was at her desk writing in the ship’s log. She knew it was old fashioned, but some traditions weren’t worth dropping from the old world.
“Sir, I have my report.”
“Okay, let’s have it,” barked Kriss.
“The good news is both Connie and Smitty will make it. The bad news is, they both suffered third-degree burns over most of their bodies—Connie from freezing, and Smitty from the emergency steam vents. It took only sixty seconds of steam to bring the room temp back up to normal, but it almost cost Smitty her life. Over 90 percent of her body is burnt, and to make matters worse, her lungs froze from breathing in the cold air. So she is on a ventilator, which always runs the risk of pneumonia. We have her heavily sedated, and her entire body is wrapped with skin tape. It will take several days to regrow her skin. By then we’ll take her off the pain meds and bring her back to consciousness. We put nanorobots into her lungs via the ventilator. She was very brave, Captain. She almost gave her life to save Connie and the ship.”
Nodding in agreement, the captain asked, “And what about Connie?”
“Miraculously, the freeze suit protected her from the steam. Her burns came from frostbite. She also is covered in skin tape, heavily comatosed for pain, and is on a ventilator. We put nanorobots in her lungs as a precaution, too. Connie was dead, sir. No pulse, no heart rate. So we immediately placed a cardiac pod on her, started warm air ventilations, and added a warm dextrose drip. After forty-five minutes, her heart started to operate on its own. Her fat actually insulated her and prevented her from dying. But her fat complicated the process of heating her core back up. Still, all mental mapping indicates she has no brain damage.”
“Great news,” barked the captain. “What about Science Bay?”
“Everything is in order, sir. Engineering fixed everything.”
“What about the freezer?”
“All locked and sealed.”
“And the contents?” asked Kriss.
“All secured.”
“Good,” grunted the captain. “Dismissed.”
Alone, the captain finally showed some emotion. A crocodile-sized tear hung to one eye. We almost lost them, Kriss thought. What the hell was Connie doing in that freezer alone?
She then realized why Pickle had first come to get her. There must be human cadavers in the freezer. And one might be male.
Her chief science officer was pulling it off after all.
Chapter Eighteen
It was very humid. In fact, the temperature was 86 degrees with about 70 percent humidity. The moist air was thick and heavy, ideal growing conditions for the plants in the garden. The crew women working there were covered in sweat and looked a little faint, but continued working deliberately. The ship depended on them to feed the crew. A highly evolved system of sprinklers that mirrored a heavy rain followed with high-intensity grow lamps to simulate the rays of the sun. They even had fans set up to mimic the wind, which made the plants hardier.
It was in front of one of these fans that Spice stood, pulling her T-shirt away from her body. As soon as she released the shirt, it relaxed back to its original shape and pressed tightly against her, the dark areolas and nipples of her breasts sticking through. White wasn’t a good color to wear while working in the garden. Her freckles had a smear of plant matrix across them from her attempt to wipe the perspiration from her brow.
Looking around, Spice was satisfied with what she saw. The garden was growing beautifully. Fruit and fig trees were heavily loaded with ripening abundance. The subterranean produce was in its finery, nearly ready to be harvested. The wheat could be cut and dried and milled into flour next week. They even had a rice paddy growing. Her only concern was that they harvest enough to feed the crew and have an excess to be blanched and frozen, dehydrated, and preserved for the future. Also, they had to allow some plants to go to full germination and collect the seed and replant. There could be no break between growing periods or they would starve.
One luxury the garden had was honey. The entire garden would not be successful without cross-pollination. Man had never been able to replicate the bee. So the only insect on board were honeybees. Despite the humidity, they worked tirelessly. Not a single plant was missed by the bees.
Spice decided to inspect one of the hives hanging above the corn. Her father’s love of bees had made Spice lov
e this intelligent insect as well. While in school, she had a biology teacher who loved trees, and through his lectures she gained the same affection. Spice always would say to her crew, “I love trees and bees, and without them, all mankind would die.” Obviously, without plants on Earth, there would have been no oxygen for life to exist. A lot of the ship’s oxygen was generated from the garden’s plants, but not enough to run the ship. Engineering had a large oxygen generator, which made oxygen and hydrogen in a completely closed cycle.
Turning towards the closest hive, Spice gently kicked up off the floor and approached it. Worker bees were buzzing all around her head, but not a single one stung her. She softly touched the bottom of the hive and rotated it so that she could see one of the hive’s four entrances. Guarding each entrance were worker bees, only allowing fellow workers in and out of the hive. Worker bees were all female. Drones were male, and their sole purpose was to fertilize the queen bee. All other drones were either killed or, if they flew out by chance, not allowed back in.
How coincidental, Spice thought. The hive only needs one drone bee.
Just then, Spice looked down at the corn. All the stalks were turning yellow. But one plant was bright green. Releasing the hive, Spice swam down for a closer look. This garden was sterile; there were absolutely no weeds on board. The obvious confusion on Spice’s face was replaced with recognition as she got closer to the green plant. Smiling with this knowledge, she headed back to check on her crew’s progress.
Chapter Nineteen
The orange cat ran and ran on the gym’s track. It felt good to stretch his muscles. For some reason, it felt like Earth. He could actually feel his own body’s weight. Soon his muscles started to get sore, so he slowed to a walk. He wasn’t sure where this track would lead to, but he was curious to find out.
He felt something whiz by, coming to a hover over his head. Putting his ears back, he hissed and growled deep in his chest. His tail twitched and his hair stood up, making his eighteen-pound frame look double its actual size. This was the biggest bird the cat had ever seen.
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