The last of the systems went down. The shuttle was quiet. They never really noticed how much background noise there was. Now… the silence was shrill against the ears.
Five seconds… ten seconds…
“We’re coming back, right?” asked Claire.
“A few more seconds.”
A few more seconds passed. Even Amelia started to get nervous.
Finally then, one of the monitors flickered and came to life. A few moments later, a line of text displayed… then several more lines and the screen began to scroll.
A second monitor awoke; moments later, another. Amelia’s attention moved quickly from display to display. Steadily increasing white background noise slowly pushed out the silence.
“Initialization diagnostics running on each system as it comes up,” she said.
Systems continued to come alive, each running through startup diagnostics before going online. Over in the pilot’s seat, Claire leaned to her right, glanced at one and then another monitor.
“Di-ogs are finding a few things.”
“Sweeping the floors wasn’t enough,” said Amelia. “Repair processes initiating.”
They watched as several displays stopped scrolling; status lines posted every few seconds as diagnostic programs monitored repair subroutines. One by one then, repairs completed and the systems continued their boot-up.
“All systems read green,” said Amelia.
“They all read green before.” Claire spoke as she turned to helm and navigation. “Helm likes me.”
Amelia had slid forward and was systematically verifying all systems. She continued to work with one hand, not yet ready to set aside her mug.
Claire grumbled to herself. She tapped at a keypad, grumbled and swept a finger across a second panel.
“Helm responds, but engines are still quiet,” she said. She brought up another monitor, tapped half a dozen keys, waited, gave a slight hmmph sound.
“What is it?” asked Amelia.
“Helm is up and active, but one of those initialization di-ogs of yours is still running in the background; I think it’s kicked in a couple of repair processes. Knowing what we know, I’d say when helm tried knocking on the engine room door, it couldn’t find it; sent out a repair crew.”
“That might take awhile. I need more tea,” said Amelia. She swung her seat around and stood up. “All other systems are good.”
Claire called over her shoulder to her sister’s receding figure.
“Systems up doesn’t do us a lot of good if I can’t steer this boat. To do that, I need power. I want engines.”
§
Amelia stood in the middle of the main cabin, holding her mug in both hands. There was really no hurry to return to the cockpit. Systems were all back online, Claire was monitoring the repair processes of the interface applications. They would know soon enough if they had their engines back, and in the meantime there was nothing she could do about it.
She took a sip of her tea, looked over the rim of her mug at the computer station.
There was still the matter of the message. She had never been able to get it out of her head. There was something odd about it. Standard message, open channel… sure, there were things that could go wrong over time, but this just didn’t look right. The gibberish that came in place of the video feed… it wasn’t what she would have expected if the message had been corrupted at the source, or if there had been a problem with the feed.
There was a faint, dull rumbling that she felt rather than heard. It came up through her feet. After a few moments it faded into the background, was gone then unless she consciously reached out to feel and hear it.
The engines were back.
All was well. Claire would once again be tolerable.
Amelia took another sip of tea, looked again in the general direction of the computer station.
Suddenly then… what if it wasn’t a general distress call or a warning? What if it was a message directed specifically to them? What if somehow, someone knew they would be coming this way?
Danny…
And then Amelia realized why the message, standard and on an open channel, had been garbled. It hadn’t been corrupted. The envelope packet containing the vid was encrypted after all, was made to look unencrypted but corrupted.
Danny had wrapped it in code that only his sisters would understand.
Amelia quickly worked her way around the table and sat at the console. She pulled out the keypad and began working just as Claire stomped into the cabin from the cockpit.
“We’re good to go, Amelia.”
“Yeah, yeah…” Amelia ignored her sister; her attention went from monitor to keypad to monitor.
“D’you hear me? We have engines. We’re moving.”
“Got it, yeah,” Amelia mumbled distractedly.
Claire was baffled. “What are you doing?” How can Amelia not be totally psyched?
“Message,” said Amelia, too focused to be drawn away from the flickering of the monitor. “It’s from Danny.”
“What? How can—”
“Remember the cipher?”
“What?”repeated Claire. “Of course. D-C-A. About as unbreakable as a glass of orange juice.” As kids, they had created a childish code they used to encrypt messages to one another. They called it D-C-A, for Danny, Claire and Amelia.
“The message we’re getting isn’t corrupted. The packet is wrapped in an encrypted envelope, meant to look corrupted.”
“But how can it be from—”
“Got it,” said Amelia. She leaned back her chair, folded her arms confidently across her chest. The monitor in front of her flickered from lines of text to an image of Danny.
“Surprise,” said Danny.
“Geez,” said Claire. She moved around to stand beside Amelia.
“If you’re seeing this,” the recorded video message continued, “then I’m guessing you’re Claire and Amelia. So… hello there, Claire and Amelia.”
“Hello,” droned Claire.
“We tracked your shuttle’s path from our last observation, figured you’d be coming by here on your way back. Man, you are really way the heck out there, huh?”
“Bit of an understatement,” grumbled Amelia.
“So anyway, we knew this parking lot was here, had a pretty good idea you’d want to be awake traveling through it, and that you’d be slowing down some. A parking lot is as good a spot as any to park a probe with a message for you to pick up.” Danny grinned. “Smart, eh?”
“Brilliant,” said Claire tiredly.
Danny looked serious now. “A lot has happened since we last spoke; some things you need to know.”
Amelia tilted her head slightly and looked up to Claire. “I don’t remember him telling us a whole lot the last time, do you?”
“Vague is the word I would use.”
“I wish I could say that things are getting better, but… not so much. Maybe a little, around the edges.” Danny frowned, his expression grew thoughtful. “Turns out, it wasn’t the Jensauri, by the way. Surprise, surprise, we’ve joined forces. Happened not long after each side realized the other side wasn’t the bad guy. The bad guys call themselves the Takiree. Not from around here; I mean, they are like from seriously far away. And the most humbling factoid of all? They’re not actually at war with us. They’re at war with some other really bad guys back in their home neighborhood.
“Now you’re asking, so what’s our part in all this?” continued Danny. “I’ll tell ya’. We’re a resource in their little squabble. We’re being conscripted. Collected, shrink-wrapped and shipped off to the other side of the galaxy to fight in their war.”
Danny’s face contorted slightly and he made a mental shrug. “That, at least, is the latest rumor. No one’s actually been there and come back. This is coming from a few folks who’ve managed to escape the Takiree before they were vacuum-sealed.”
“Always one with a pleasant turn of phrase,” said Amelia.
“But
enough of that,” said Danny. “By the time you see this, a lot will have changed, including the facts. I just thought it best you not be completely in the dark as you make your way back. ‘Beyond there be dragons’, as they say. Best you know there are in fact dragons.
“And speaking of lizards, Planet X should be your next vacation destination. It comes highly recommended by those in the comprendo.”
“In the comp—” started Claire, grimacing.
“Counting the days till we see each other again.” Danny’s somber expression froze on the screen, and then it was gone. Claire and Amelia stared at the blank monitor for several seconds.
“Danny looked older,” said Claire finally.
“Some,” said Amelia. “Not enough.”
“Waddya mean?”
“The date stamp. The message was created just over thirty one years ago.”
“Right. We’ve been on vacation almost three times that. He’s aged what? Maybe ten years?”
“So he’s spent quite a bit of time in cryo.”
Claire frowned again and nodded toward the blank monitor. “I don’t see why that was encrypted. Nothing to hide, except the coded Planet X reference.”
“I don’t think it was encrypted for the content,” said Amelia. “He didn’t want anyone to know we were out here. Better a corrupted distress call than an open letter to Amelia and Claire.”
“Right. Makes sense,” said Claire, nodding slowly. “So… you gonna make sense of Planet X, decode and point us to where he wants us to go?”
“Danny had to do some painful twisting to get to lizards. That and X, I should be able to figure it out.”
§
Claire and Amelia sat quietly looking out the forward viewport. Amelia rested her head on the back of the seat, her hands wrapped around her mug, which she held close to her chest. Several of the forward monitors were active.
The last of the derelict ships showed up first on the monitors. Amelia glanced once at the display, looked out again beyond the viewport. It was several minutes more before they were able to see it; a tiny speck of gray against the black.
Another cruise liner. It passed far to their left. Still, lifeless… empty.
The last of the graveyard ships. Ahead of them now lay only darkness.
Amelia waited, looked over then at Claire. Claire hadn’t moved. She continued to gaze out the viewport.
“We can go now,” said Amelia.
Claire gave a slight nod, nothing more.
“You okay?”
Claire nodded again, slowly. All those empty ships… all those people…
“I’m fine,” she said. Claire straightened, leaned forward, absently reached out to the nav keypad.
“Next stop, Planet X.”
Episode Five
“Planet X”
They were midway into their fourth orbit of Planet X. From the data coming in, Claire and Amelia knew the conditions on the surface were survivable if not particularly pleasant. The air was breathable, if barely; nothing toxic, but there wasn’t a whole lot down there to generate much oxygen. Vegetation was sparse, water more so. It was an arid world with a thin atmosphere.
The planet was slightly smaller than Earth. It circled a star slightly larger but slightly cooler than the sun, though the orbit was somewhat closer. With that, and the rotation and axial tilt of the planet, and the makeup of the atmosphere and landscape of the surface, the days were hot and the nights were bitterly cold.
“I don’t care,” said Claire. “We’re landing.”
Amelia shrugged. Of course they were landing. “Just be sure to put us down close to the pod.”
“But not too close,” said Claire. “I haven’t walked twenty feet in a straight line in ninety years. I’d like a chance to stretch my legs.”
They had been able to locate the pod easily enough. It was the size of a shuttle and was about the only thing on the planet that wasn’t sand, rock or scrubby shrub.
As to the contents of the pod… they had no idea. Danny had sent it halfway across the quadrant, to this specific planet, and hadn’t given them a clue as to what was inside. All they had was their brother’s cryptic message telling them that they needed to visit Planet X.
Amelia was standing in the cockpit, one hand resting on the back of Claire’s pilot seat. The image of the planet below filled the forward viewport, mostly shades of brown and gray.
She slowly shook her head. “Not the most inviting of worlds.”
“Probably why Danny chose it,” said Claire. She reached out and swiped a fingertip across one of the keypads in front of her. The monitor came to life. “Strap in, Sis, we’re going down.”
§
The scene beyond the viewport shifted from that of the planet to the black blanket of space as Claire adjusted their inclination and guided the shuttle into lower orbit. Descending then into the upper atmosphere, the view changed from black to gray. There was a slight buffeting as the ceramic shield covering the bottom of the shuttle began to heat up.
Claire and Amelia were all business now. Bringing a shuttle into a planet’s atmosphere was serious, and not something either of them did very often. Both knew what needed doing, however, and both went about getting it done.
Amelia felt a change in weight and pressure as the craft’s gravity plating deactivated. She absently checked her safety harness, but her focus was on their descent and their position in relation to the location of the pod.
Claire was silent. She was monitoring the trajectory of the descent, letting the ship’s systems make the necessary corrections and only infrequently making adjustments of her own. She had entered the descent plan into the system prior to initiating the sequence, and it was progressing normally.
Amelia studied the monitor. The screen displayed their position against a simple graphic of the ideal path. Beside the graphic was a column of constantly updating numbers. “Right on course,” she said softly, almost to herself. “Altitude 20,000.”
Claire took a moment to glance out the forward viewport. It was daylight. The sky was clear, tinged a dull tan color. The shuttle began to level out; the curve of the horizon crept up into view and the surface of the planet spread out below them; rolling dunes and downs and hollows brushed with dark brown swathes of shadow and rock. As they continued to descend, scrub brush and even a few scraggily trees became visible.
“Five miles to pod,” stated Amelia.
Claire monitored their decreasing speed and continuing gradual descent. She prepared to take manual control of the shuttle. Seeing this, Amelia settled back into her seat, her harness self-adjusting.
“You sure?” she asked.
“Of course I’m sure.”
Amelia gave a half-grin. “Not a problem.”
“Good.”
“Two miles,” stated Amelia.
Claire flipped a switch, ran a fingertip across the keypad panel. “On manual.”
Amelia had her eyes forward now, looking out at the terrain, which was quickly rising up to meet them.
“There’s the pod,” she said. The pod, an oblong capsule about fifty feet long, had settled into the sand at one end of a shallow hollow a thousand feet across. A rocky crag rose up behind it, forming a ridge that curved around to the left.
A cluster of short, rocky spires stood in the very center of the hollow.
Claire continued past the hollow, came around and guided the shuttle back in. She approached a wide, level spot opposite the central rock cluster from the pod. Hovering eighty feet above the surface, she pressed a keypad on the side panel. An indicator light came to life, turning amber. They both heard and felt the landing strut apparatus, unused for decades, open and shift and crank and begin to extend. The struts locked into position, the indicator light changed from amber to green.
Claire lowered the shuttle to the surface of Planet X.
Disengaging their safety harnesses, Amelia and Claire stood and looked out through the forward viewport. The shuttle was facing the
center of the hollow. The rock formation stood about two hundred feet in front of them. They could see the pod another few hundred feet beyond, on the other side of the formation, and the rock wall rising up behind the pod. A sand-drift had pushed up against it, partially burying it.
The pod was just over fifty feet long, thirty feet in diameter, and had a smooth windowless surface.
“It’s a standard supply pod,” said Claire.
“Hmm.” Amelia frowned. “It looks like you’re going to get your walk.”
§
After all this time in the shuttle, stepping out into the open was unnerving. No walls, no ceiling… the brownish gray shell of the sky overhead seemed way too far away. The ground beneath their feet was firmer than they expected. They discovered a hard surface beneath a thin layer of fine, gritty sand.
They were wearing light, one-piece suits designed for moderate conditions such as this. The suit would keep them from getting too hot or too cold. A simple face mask attached to a small oxygen canister would supplement the thin atmosphere.
Twelve steps from the shuttle, Claire whispered a satisfied yes, and skipped her next step. Glancing over at Amelia, her sister grumbled “yeah, yeah”, the words muffled by the face mask over her mouth and nose.
They worked their way around the rock formation. It was clearly a natural formation, but it still managed to create the impression of some kind of primitive pagan monument. They continued forward, the pod now about a hundred feet directly ahead of them. From this distance it looked partially buried in the sand, which was surprising, now that they knew of the hard surface just beneath the thin layer of sand.
They approached the access hatch near one end of the pod. The bottom half of the door was buried in the drift of sand that had pushed up against the pod. Since the door opened outward, they would have to clear it away before they could get inside.
They dropped to their knees and began scooping with their gloved hands.
Amelia noted that considering the hard surface just below the sandy layer, the pod couldn’t have half-buried itself in the sand during its landing. The sand that had collected against the side of the pod got there after the pod landed.
Sisters in Space: The Complete Series Page 7