According to every calculation, there were no mapped or documented dangers anywhere along their current course between where they were and their programmed destination. Yet the ship had clearly identified something out there, something in their direct path that required a significant course correction.
Before heading down to the power closet, Amelia had worked her own computer systems outside of the nav system and verified that the reason for the course correction came from something that the ship had seen in their path, and not due to information in their databases. Whatever the ship was seeing wasn’t documented.
And based on the calculated course correction, whatever ship was seeing was big.
One of Claire’s primary monitors came alive, the screen filling with data. She reached out a swept a finger across a panel, slowing the display. She studied the rows of data, the fonts in white and yellow and blue.
“Hey Amelia,” she said, the hint of growing anxiety. “Speed it up, please.”
“I’m on it, Claire.”
“No… really.”
“What is it?”
“We finally have data coming in on what’s out there. Half a million miles across, and goes on like forever.”
“So, not a planet then.” Amelia’s voice sounded way too snarky so far as Claire was concerned.
“No,” Claire stated flatly. “Not a planet.”
“Asteroid belt? Undocumented?”
Claire was studying the data very carefully. “Similar indicators… but I don’t think so.”
“Why not?”
“The data coming in is wrong.” Claire was frowning at the screen. The data didn’t make sense. Claire ran it through several diagnostics, but the results were all the more confusing.
The screen flickered and flashed as a new set of data began to feed.
“Oh, boy,” said Claire, hardly a whisper.
Amelia hadn’t heard her. She had completed diagnostics on half the systems. “Nothing wrong with the systems themselves,” she said.
“There better be,” said Claire. “And you better fix it. Like, right now.”
Amelia hesitated, an oppressive silence. “What is it, Claire?”
“Ships. Hundreds of ‘em. Thousands.”
“An armada?”
Now it was Claire who hesitated. She was staring at the monitor. Looking up at the forward viewport then, there was still nothing visible.
“Graveyard,” she said at last.
“What?”
“A graveyard. We got dead ships coming up fast.”
“How fast?”
“You gotta give me something. Real soon.”
Back in the power closet, Amelia was on her knees with the bottom panel pulled out and the interior exposed. Several indicator lights were blinking.
“I can give you reverse thrusters,” she said.
“We can’t maneuver with reverse thrusters.”
“But you can slow us down.” Amelia had her hands in the panel’s guts.
Up in the cockpit, Claire shifted position and began working at her helm board.
“Reverse thrusters responding.” Claire looked forward. “This is going to take a while.”
§
Claire stepped down from the cockpit and into the main compartment, dressed now in her standard coveralls. She looked over at her sister Amelia as she went to the water dispenser.
“Where are my engines, Amelia?” asked Claire.
Amelia was hovering over the keypad in front of the computer station. Four hours had gone by, and other than getting cleaned up and changed, neither had taken a break.
“Stapled to the hull.” Amelia leaned back, away from the computer, turned about and looked at her sister. “How are we looking?”
“I disengaged reverse thrusters five minutes ago. We’re coasting in slow; at current speed, about two hours to the first ships.” Claire stepped over to the table and sat down, water glass in hand. “Are you finding anything?”
“The engines are fine, engineering control systems are fine.”
“So far, so good.”
“My thoughts exactly. I’m thinking maybe something hiccupped in the main computer system itself.”
“And computer systems is what you do.”
“I can usually find my way around, but not really.” And engines, not so much.
“So it’s fixable,” urged Claire.
“Probably.”
Claire lifted her glass, realized it was empty and stood up and walked over to fill it. “How do we have thrusters when engines are down?”
“Reverse thrusters are outside of the engine systems. Simple jets, straightforward control box, separate power control.”
Amelia heard a short, sharp beep from behind her. She turned slowly about to face the computer station. There was an unfamiliar display was on the screen.
“Well, that’s new.” She leaned forward and started tapping at the keypad.
“That’s no proximity alert,” said Claire. It didn’t sound anything like the proximity alarm. And besides, they were still hours out and the ship was already monitoring every object out there.
“No, it’s not,” said Amelia. “We’re getting a signal.”
“From the graveyard? From one of the ships?”
It took Amelia a few more seconds. “It looks that way. I think there’s a message behind it.”
“Voice or text?”
“I don’t know yet.” Amelia was leaning close to the monitor, working at the keypad. “Standard channel, automated signal. Our approach must have triggered it.”
“And the originators are probably long gone,” said Claire. “Can you retrieve the message?”
“I’m trying to now.”
Claire stood beside her, arms folded across her chest, frowning down at the monitor as Amelia brought up and as quickly wiped lines of text from the screen. “Probably a warning; stay away, bad things here…”
“No doubt,” said Amelia. If you’re reading this, you’re already doomed. She kept at the keypad, finally gave a sharp nod.
Claire caught the gesture and turned to look directly at the monitor. “You got it?”
“I got it. Video.” Amelia checked the file; clean, standard delivery, nothing untoward about it. She attempted to open it. A screen full of gibberish splashed onto the monitor. “Hmm.”
“What, hmm?” asked Claire.
Amelia was working at the keypad again. “It doesn’t figure. It’s a standard video message on an open channel.” She finally waved a hand at the monitor. “Everything looks good, but all I get is… this.”
Claire gave a grunt, retrieved her water and started up into the cockpit. “A dire warning it might be, but right now we could really use engines. I would suggest that this wait until we have engines.”
§
Claire and Amelia were both in the cockpit, monitoring their passage through the graveyard via ship’s systems, both with an eye to the forward viewport. At the moment there was nothing to see, but the nav and tracking displays were alive with activity; thousands of dead ships drifting in space, some no more than three or four hundred miles apart. Four hundred miles was nothing in space. The graveyard was dangerously crowded with floating hulks.
“There,” Claire stated. She was reading the nav monitor. “Six hundred miles, twenty degrees to port.”
“Got it,” said Amelia, monitoring her own tracking system display. She lifted her gaze to the viewport, looking ahead and just to the left. Nothing at first… then finally, “There it is.”
She was looking at a gray dot in the distance, set against the black backdrop. It was several minutes then before it began to take on form, growing slowly and steadily larger.
“It’s big,” said Claire. She was still watching the details displaying on her monitor.
Amelia leaned forward slightly, unconsciously, as if those extra few inches would help; she watched the ship draw nearer. It took on the shape of a long, rectangular box, a pair of power nacelles mounted on the to
p and three landing bays protruding from one side. It was still and lifeless.
“It’s a cruise liner,” she said.
They both watched through the viewport as it passed on their left, barely a mile to port. Amelia slid back in her seat only after they were well past the ship.
“That was way too close.”
“Two more on the way,” said Claire, again focused on the nav monitor. “One to port, the other to starboard.”
Amelia studied her own display. Eleven hundred miles ahead; it looked like they were headed right between them.
And then the numbers on her screen started changing, driving the real-time running calculations crazy. “Do you see that?” she asked.
“One of ‘em is moving,” said Claire. “Slow drift. I think we’ll be all right.”
Reaching the pair of ships several minutes later, they could see that the small ship coming up on their right was in a slow-motion tumble, drifting slowly in their direction but well to their right. There was a shadowy smudge on the hull, starboard side, far aft.
“I think that’s blast damage,” said Amelia, though at this distance it was impossible to tell for certain.
Hours passed as the shuttle worked its way unguided through the graveyard. They passed dozens, hundreds of ships. Some came near enough to see detail; portholes and landing bays, antennae, identifying markings. A few showed signs of having been attacked. Most were simply abandoned; dark and lifeless.
One of Claire’s side panels flickered and scrolled text. She mumbled something to herself, swept a finger across the panel and then activated another process. She turned back to nav control and brought up another display, scrolled and swept aside text.
Amelia watched it all in silence. She knew what it meant. She returned finally to her own systems, sought the ship that the shuttle had flagged and was tracking.
“Oh, boy…” she mumbled.
“Yeah,” said Claire.
They were heading directly into the path of a wandering ship. All calculations put them on a collision course. The dead ship and their shuttle would be arriving at the same spot in space at exactly the same time.
“Twenty minutes,” said Amelia.
Claire shifted to helm. “Bringing reverse thrusters back online.”
“Any slower, we may as well get out and walk.”
“We only need a few seconds and the ship will pass ahead of us.”
Claire activated reverse thrusters, watched her monitors as the tracking system continually recalculated both ships’ courses.
She shut down reverse thrusters. Their speed had dropped another ten percent. She watched the monitors as Amelia searched through the forward viewport. Calculations showed the approaching ship was now on track to pass ahead of them.
“I think we’re good,” said Claire.
“Here it comes,” said Amelia.
The ship was of a configuration they had never seen before. It was large and boxy, had the appearance of rooms being haphazardly added onto it over the years. It had also been damaged a number of times, perhaps from striking other dead ships as it wandered the graveyard.
It passed slowly in front of them, near enough that they could see the seams of the hull plating on the side facing them. It continued its course to their right, and only moments later they crossed its path and were safely past.
Amelia and Claire both slid back into their seats. Claire immediately returned to their nav and tracking systems. Amelia let out a sigh, glanced at her monitors once and then stared out the viewport.
“Okay. So… we’re barely moving.”
“And we’re not crashing into anything.” Claire studied her displays. “We’re clear for awhile.”
“It’ll take years to get out of here.”
“Not if you fix the engines.”
“Ah. Yes.” Amelia stood up and started out of the cockpit. “I’m on it.”
§
Claire sat alone in the cockpit. The lights were off, there was only the faint shimmer of two of the small monitors in front of her, these splashing an eerie glow onto her face.
She was looking out the forward viewport. Out there, in the dark, were dozens of ships, some drifting, some slowly tumbling, most floating dead in space. Some showed signs of damage, most did not.
The shuttle traveled silently through the graveyard, passing the long-abandoned ships. Claire kept one eye on the monitors, watching the calculations scrolling across the screens, as she watched the ghostly images beyond the viewport.
The shuttle’s tracking system indicated that they should pass safely through this crowded sector of the graveyard, but that could change at any time. It would only take one of those drifting ships to bump into another for both ships to change trajectories and for one of them to cross paths with the shuttle. If this happened, Claire had to be ready to kick in the reverse thrusters and hopefully slow them down enough for the untoward ship to pass safely by.
§
Amelia was sitting at the computer station in the shuttle’s main compartment, where she had been working for hours, working her way through the ship’s computer systems, trying to discover the reason behind the failure of the engines, barely understanding half of what she was digging through.
She did know that the problem was not in the power control system; nor was it in the main systems, the brains of the ship.
The problem was in the interface, the connectivity between the two systems. She just hadn’t as yet been able to track down exactly what that problem was. More confusing still, the ship’s ongoing running diagnostics hadn’t even seen a problem.
Amelia didn’t know enough about the shuttle’s complex computer systems, nor how they operated and interacted with one another, to figure out what was going on… or not going on.
Claire stepped down from the cockpit and into the cabin just as Amelia growled to herself and leaned back from the console.
“Amelia?” asked Claire.
“Nothing,” sighed Amelia. “Frustration.”
“Ah. I know it well.”
Amelia turned about and looked up at her sister. “I take it we’re clear.”
“For the time being.” Claire sat on the corner of the table, put her feet up onto the chair.
Amelia turned a few more degrees to look directly at Claire. She told her what she knew for certain, as in, what wasn’t wrong, and then what she suspected, that the issue was somewhere in the interface.
“So, what’s the connectivity?” asked Claire. “Are we talking physical lines? Can we replace ‘em? Why didn’t the ship’s systems see the problem?”
“It’s a series of comm utilities; system software. And I don’t know why diagnostics doesn’t see it.”
“Maybe it does see it, but doesn’t see it as being a problem.”
“Possible; which in itself is a problem,” said Amelia. She looked at her sister a moment more, then slowly turned about in her chair. She came full circle, again faced Claire. “In any case, the brains and the engines aren’t speaking to one another.”
“Eighty years without so much as a break, who’s to blame ‘em?” Claire frowned, slid off the table and dropped into the chair. “So, options… can we shut everything down and reset? Clean the decks?”
Amelia again spun her chair slowly about, speaking softly as she turned full circle. “Not a bad idea, really. Computer systems do get cluttered with time. Maintenance systems are supposed to take care of housecleaning, but from what I can see, I don’t think it’s happening like it should.”
“Maintenance itself needs a bit of housecleaning; brush away the cobwebs.”
“Maybe,” Amelia said doubtfully.
“Um… one question, Amelia. Shutting everything down… what if everything doesn’t come back up?”
“We won’t be shutting down environmental systems. They’re isolated from the other systems. But I’ll be careful. Honest.”
“I’d appreciate that.”
“This was your idea.”
“Now you’re just making me nervous.”
§
Early morning; Claire was alone in the cockpit, gazing out beyond the viewport. She was lost in thought and wasn’t really looking at anything.
This little diversion was going to make their situation a bit difficult. Adrift, traveling dead slow for days, and once they got their engines back it would take time to get back up to optimum speed. If her rough calculations were any indicator, they were going to need some luck.
They would definitely be digging deep into their stores.
Amelia came into the cockpit, two mugs in hand. She handed one to Claire as she sat in the copilot seat, mumbling a barely intelligible “’morning.”
Claire took a sip of her tea. “Thanks. You look like you could use both of these.”
“This is my second.” Amelia had spent the evening prepping for the shutdown / reboot, and had gone to bed with her mind still diligently at it. She hadn’t gotten much sleep.
Claire stared down into her mug. “This is going to work, right?”
“I don’t know,” said Amelia. “I can guarantee we won’t be any worse off than we are now.”
“So, the atmosphere won’t get sucked out of the cabin.”
“The atmosphere will not get sucked out of the cabin.”
They sat in the silence then. The dark beyond the viewport seemed to reach into the cockpit.
Amelia looked to Claire, an eyebrow raised. You ready?
Claire lifted her mug in toast. Let’s do it…
With that, Amelia turned to a side panel on her right. She typed at the keypad with her free hand, her other hand holding her mug to her cheek. The small display flashed and scrolled. She held a finger above a key; a slight hesitation. Without saying another word, she pressed the key.
She leaned back, turned forward and took another sip of her tea. Monitors and panels began to go dark, one after the other. The cockpit grew steadily darker until there was only the one small overhead light panel glowing.
Claire gave an anxious survey about the cockpit. Air? She couldn’t tell. She glanced at one of the narrow air vents. Was there air coming through? She resisted reaching up to it.
Sisters in Space: The Complete Series Page 6