by John Zakour
We have something they still haven’t figured out how to program into computers. To be polite, I call it instinct but it’s really something more. It’s having the guts to do something that seems ridiculous but you know it’s not. It’s reacting to the problem that you know is going to follow the current problem. It’s almost a sixth sense — a way of reacting out of the ordinary to something out of the ordinary. Whatever it is, it’s something scientists haven’t learned to break down into a mathematical formula, at least not yet. So for now there are still some things we do better than machines.
I didn’t bother to look over at GiS but I knew he was shaking his head.
“Baxter,” he said, surprisingly calmly, “you do have incredible reactions, it’s a gift that not many have.”
“Thanks,” I said, taking whatever I could get.
“But…” GiS said.
With GiS there is always a but. In this case I knew it was going to be a big but.
“But,” he repeated, “you have to learn the appropriate time to use that gift. You need to know when to act and when not to act.”
“The adjustment just felt right,” I said.
“Searcher 0.5 is coming into view now,” Zenna announced, saving me from having to go any further with the conversation with GiS.
Sure enough, there on the screen growing larger and larger by the tic was Searcher 0.5; a giant, reflective metal sphere that could move people and equipment faster than light. It was an impressive sight and an impressive technological achievement. It wasn’t as big as a space station, but it could still hold a dozen ships and a crew of up to two hundred organics, non-organics and mixes.
“We’ll talk about this later,” GiS said.
Not if I could help it, we wouldn’t.
“Slow to approach speed,” GiS ordered.
“Right,” I said in my most business-like voice.
Elvin made a few adjustments at his panel. “I have the course laid in,” he said.
“Just follow the computer’s prompts,” GiS reminded me.
Before I could acknowledge, Kymm’s voice came over our intercom.
“Ah, New Houston, we have a problem,” she said cautiously. I could tell she was scared but trying hard not to sound it.
“Why is she talking to Houston?” Zenna asked, not surprisingly not getting the reference.
“What’s up, Kymm?” I asked, over the ship to ship intercom.
“Uh, we can’t slow our ship down or change its course,” she said. “The computer systems aren’t responding!” “What gives, SC-711?”
“It’s not SC,” Kymm said over the intercom. Though I couldn’t see her, I could hear the sweat in her voice. She was struggling with all her might to slow her ship down.
“While I am acting as the master computer for the shuttles, each shuttle has 1,032 other computers onboard that dictate other functions. For instance there is a …”
“You’re taking too much time here, SC!” I interrupted. “I don’t need the whole story, just the main plot!”
Like I said earlier, there are some things computers just don’t get. At least not yet. I’m not sure if they ever will. That’s why I’m glad I don’t have any chips wired into me.
“The other computers are ignoring my commands,” SC said quickly.
“Well, that’s not good,” Elvin said.
For a bright guy Elvin had a way of stating the obvious.
“If I don’t slow down or gain some control soon, I’m going to crash into Searcher! Nothing can help me land at this speed,” Kymm said, as calmly as she could, considering the situation. She was good, I had to give her that.
“Can you move Searcher out of the way?” I asked SC.
“Yes,” SC answered.
“Then do it!” I said.
“I can do it,” SC said slowly. “Only with Searcher locked in orbit and prepared to accept boarding ships, it will take five minutes for me to move it.”
“Why didn’t you tell me that sooner?” I asked.
“You didn’t ask,” SC said.
“We don’t have five minutes,” I said.
“Hence the reason I never mentioned it,” SC said.
“SC, what’s the standard procedure for dealing with an out of control ship?” GiS asked, scratching his head with one hand and his butt with the other.
“We would be forced to use Searcher’s laser cannons to destroy the offending ship,” SC paused for a tic. “Of course the cannons are off line and would take five minutes to activate.”
“Doesn’t matter,” I said. “I don’t like that option anyhow.”
“It doesn’t matter if you like it or not,” SC said coldly. “There is nothing I can do with either Searcher 0.5 or Shuttle K-II to keep the two from colliding.”
“The crash will be devastating!” Elvin said, once again feeling obligated to point out the obvious.
“Yes,” SC agreed. “At their speed and angle of approach, I estimate there is a 57.325 percent chance of the impending explosion also destroying the Searcher 0.5.”
“Really?” Elvin said. “I estimate there is a 57.322 percent chance of them destroying the Searcher.”
“Hmmm,” SC said. “Perhaps you did not properly take into account mass of the ship now that Chriz and Lobi have each put on an additional kilo?”
“Missing the big picture here!” I shouted.
Elvin glared at me. “It’s my job to track every little detail!”
“Track,” I said. Something about that word sparked a chain reaction in my mind.
I thought for a tic more. “Elvin, you’re brilliant.”
“I know that,” he said confidently, even though he had no idea where I was going with this. “Why do you know that?”
I turned to Zenna. “Zen, give me tractor beams, full power!”
“Right!” she said excitedly. She knew where I was going with this.
So did GiS.
“Baxter you can’t grab a shuttle moving at a near light speed with a tractor beam! It’s a nearly impossible shot.”
“Not impossible, but nearly a million to one,” Elvin corrected.
“They just need to cut their engines,” I said.
“Baxter, I know you like to sleep in physics class, but even Zenna knows even if they cut their engines they wouldn’t just stop! The centrifugal force would still carry them forward.”
Zenna nodded. “Yep, even I know that,” she said proudly.
“Yes, but they will slow down!” I said.
Kymm and her crew had been listening to our conversation. “I hope you know what you’re doing, Moon,” she said. “Okay, I’m going to emergency manual override now. I’ve cut the power.”
Elvin looked at his console. “They have slowed down .05 percent.”
“That’s a start,” I said.
“Okay, SC, give me control of the ship now,” I said.
“If you insist,” SC said.
GiS looked at me. He looked at the view screen with the Searcher growing larger and larger by the tic. He looked back at me. “Baxter, even if this works, you’ll never stop it in time,” he said. “They’ll just pull us crashing into the Searcher also.”
I hated to admit it but GiS was right. I couldn’t stop the shuttles. But luckily I didn’t have to stop them, at least not yet. I just had to nudge them past Searcher, then stop them.
“How long until impact?”
“Two minutes and thirty seconds,” Elvin and Lobi both said.
“Plenty of time!”
I turned to Zenna. She was one step ahead of me. She was already under her console making the needed adjustments.
“One electronic pool cue coming up,” she said.
“What are you guys talking about?” Kymm asked over the intercom.
“I’m going to use the tractor beam as a pool stick and I’m going to bounce you guys over the Searcher, then I’ll catch you and tow you back in.”
There was dead silence from the other ship.
&n
bsp; “This is doable,” I said.
We heard a big sigh over the intercom.
“I can do this,” I said.
“I’ve seen you play pool,” Kymm said.
“Trust me,” I said.
“It’s ready!” Zenna shouted.
“Trust me,” I repeated.
“Do I have any choice?” Kymm said.
I was determined to let my actions be my answer. “Give me a laser sighting,” I said.
An electronic circle appeared on the view screen.
“Do you wish me to take the shot?” SC said in his calm computer voice.
“No,” I said firmly. We had had enough problems with computers these last two days. If this was going to work I was going to have to do it myself. “I’ll use the left control stick as tractor control.”
I was surprised that GiS didn’t complain or make any suggestions. It was out of character for him. I figured he either trusted me or had absolutely no faith that this idea would work.
“Slow to impulse power,” I ordered.
“Check,” Elvin said.
I felt the ship slow down. The stars and Searcher were still coming toward us, but not as fast. I lined up the cursor with the back end of Kymm’s shuttle. I held my breath. I adjusted the cursor just a tad. Don’t know why I did. It just felt right. I had to aim and time this perfectly. Well, at least as perfectly as a human could. I pulled the trigger. I took a breath. All I could do now was watch and hope.
I focused on the view screen. Sure enough, Kymm’s shuttle had started to pitch upward. I had hit it. Now the question was did I hit it right? Was I able to deflect it over the Searcher?
We all held our collective breath as Kymm’s shuttle rose higher and higher while at the same time moving closer and closer to the Searcher. It was going to be close, really close. The shuttle passed over the top of the Searcher. It caused a few sparks when it clipped the top ever so slightly, but that was it. We had done it. We saw it plain as day in the view screen as Kymm’s shuttle passed mostly harmlessly overhead.
“We did it!” Zenna shouted.
“Turn!” GiS shouted. “Turn.”
Sure enough Searcher was growing ever larger in our view screen, which meant we were getting ever closer. In fact the Searcher now filled our view screen. Which meant we were way too close.
“I’m turning! I’m turning!” I shouted back.
I jammed the control stick to the right. The ship rolled to the right so hard I thought I was going to put us into a tail spin, but somehow I managed to keep us from flipping. I had to keep her steady now until we shot past Searcher. We were probably close enough to Searcher to reach out and touch it, but the important thing was we weren’t touching it. The force exerted on my ship was incredible, but I knew I had to keep her straight.
“Tell me when we have cleared Searcher,” I yelled.
“I will,” Elvin yelled back. There was silence. There was more silence. Still more silence. Finally Elvin yelled, “We’re clear!”
“You know, there’s no need to yell, you two,” Zenna noted. “You’re both less than three meters from each other.”
“Good point, sis.”
“Sorry, just got lost in the moment,” I said, while holding the control stick firmly to keep the shuttle straight, but gently enough to be able to respond to anything that might pop up.
I took a deep breath. I slowed to sub-impulse speed. I took another deep breath.
“Nice job, team,” GiS said. “But before you get too cocky, remember that all we really accomplished was to not kill ourselves or blow up our ship within the first hour of our mission. In fact, our problems have now put us fifteen minutes behind schedule.”
“Fifteen minutes and twenty two tics,” Elvin corrected.
“All the more reason to regroup and prepare,” GiS said.
Part of me felt like telling GiS off. We had done more than that, I thought, but thinking a bit more, I knew he was right. All we really succeeded in doing was not ending our mission before it started.
“Where’s Kymm’s shuttle?” I asked.
“I was able to get reverse thrusters online so they have come to a complete stop. They are in section 23.7 of this quadrant. They are a mere 1001 kilometers away,” SC answered.
“Actually it’s 1001…,” Elvin started to say.
“Actually, Elvin that super exactness gets old really fast,” I said.
“Agreed,” SC said.
“I’m forced to agree with Baxter, Elvin. There are times when we need to be exact, but we don’t need to be exactly exact all the time,” GiS stated.
“It’s about time you guys told him that!” Zenna chimed in. “It’s not like this is rocket science.” She stopped to think about what she said for a few tics. “Okay, maybe it is rocket science, but it’s still annoying.”
GiS and I nodded our heads in agreement.
Elvin shrank back a bit. “Sorry, sometimes I may get a nano, quantum, wee bit carried away.”
“No problem,” I said.
Kymm’s voice came booming over the intercom. “While I hate to break up your little love fest, my shuttle is dead in the water here and I’m going to need a tow into dock.”
I looked up at the intercom.
“Right, Kymm, I’ll be right there.”
“What does she mean by, dead in the water? We’re in space.” Zenna said.
“Figure of speech, Zen,” I said.
Zenna smiled. “Oh right, I knew that!”
Chapter 10
After what we had just been through, it was easy to use our tractor beam to tow Shuttle K-II into the Searcher. I had towed shuttles in simulators at least a hundred times. The last ninety of them I had done it flawlessly. Even though this wasn’t a simulation, the simulators were surprisingly accurate, so I was prepared. Towing is actually an easy procedure. Just latch on to the ship with your tractor beam, stay 100 meters behind the ship and 30 degrees above it as you guide it to its destination and then gently push it in. Then, after the landing bots roll it out of the way, you drop down to landing level and then land yourself. Easy as pie, or in Elvin’s case, pi. That’s what I kept telling myself.
The only problem was my nerves. We had locked on to Kymm’s shuttle easily enough. Towing it to the sphere wasn’t much harder. We were in gravityless space. The weight of the shuttle we had locked our tractor beam on made little difference in the handling of my shuttle. I just had to remember that there was another shuttle being pulled in front of us that I had to guide into the docking bay. Whenever my nerves would kick in, telling me this wasn’t a simulation and if I mess up we’re dead, I would imagine I was still on the simulator. I know it seems lame but it worked for me. (Once I tried picturing Commander Jasmine in a bikini, but that didn’t turn out well at all.)
The landing bay door on the base of the sphere opened once we were within a kilometer of the Searcher. The Searcher, while not being a floating city in the sky like our base, was still quite large, the size of a big hotel. After all, it was meant to house a couple of hundred beings on long-term missions. The landing bay also wasn’t as super humongous as the one on the base but it was still large enough to house at least a dozen shuttles.
“Ease her in carefully,” GiS said, using his best mentor voice.
I fought back the urge to say, no kidding.
“When the towed shuttle is within 100 meters of the bay, cut all engines, activate the stabilizers, then slowly push her in.”
“No kidding,” I said, failing this time to fight back the urge.
“I know you know this,” GiS said, a bit testy. “I’m just reinforcing it. It’s my job to make sure you do your job right.”
“I’ll tell you when Shuttle K-II is within 100 meters of the Sphere,” Elvin said. He looked at his console and started counting down. As he counted down I lined up our shuttle with the door.
“500 meters, 400 meters, 300 meters, 200 meters, 100 meters.”
I cut our engines and hit the st
abilize button. The ship rocked a bit and then came to stop. I could see into the landing bay through the view window. The other shuttles were lined up perfectly.
Elvin looked at his console. “Kymm’s shuttle is 2 degrees off center to the right of the optimal landing spot,” he said.
Okay maybe it wasn’t perfect, but it was good enough.
I looked at the intercom. “Are you ready, Kymm?”
“As I’ll ever be,” she responded. “This is easy, Moon, just guide us in and let us go.”
“You can do it, Bax old buddy,” Chriz said, apparently for once in his life not wanting to tick me off.
“I didn’t think you liked Baxter,” Lobi said, apparently forgetting that we were in communication over the intercom.
“Ssh, you fool,” Chriz said.
“Quiet both of you,” K-999 ordered. “Scout Moon needs to concentrate.”
I decreased the power of the tractor beam. Their ship started to pull away from us toward the Sphere. As I continued to slowly cut the power of the tractor beam their shuttle moved closer and closer.
“We’re in,” Kymm said.
Elvin looked at his console. “My readings confirm that,” he said, apparently not trusting Kymm’s eyes, bionic or not.
I cut the tractor beam power. Through the view screen I could see Kymm’s shuttle drop to the floor like a big expensive brick.
“Are you guys alright?” I asked through the intercom.
“We’re alive,” Kymm said. “It could have been softer, but we’ll walk away and like they say…”
“Any landing you walk away from is a good one,” I said completing the sentence for her.
“Who’s they?” Zenna asked.
“The landing bots will have them moved out of the way in 300 tics,” SC informed us.
I pushed the handle down just enough to drop our shuttle into line with the bay door and waited. For once in my life I didn’t mind waiting. It gave me a chance to catch my breath and wipe the sweat from my hands.
I turned and looked at my squad.