Orion Lost

by Alastair Chisholm

  “Run,” said Vihaan.

  It was definitely heading for them.

  “RUN!”

  Vihaan grabbed her by her top and yanked her back. She stumbled, almost landed on him, recovered and staggered after him.

  “Close the airlock!” shouted Vihaan. “Ship, close the airlock!”

  “The airlock cannot be closed,” said Ship. “Structural damage has occurred. Internal and external hatches are both dama—”

  Generator Three smashed into the wall behind them.

  Looking back, Beth saw in terrified astonishment that the wall held. The bulkheads were designed to cope with engine explosions; they bent, but didn’t break.

  The window shattered, disintegrating into thousands of pieces that hurtled towards them. Vihaan and Beth fell through the next doorway and Ship closed it with a slam behind them; the glass shrapnel rattled against the door like a sudden squall of rain on a window, and was gone. Spinning slightly in the reduced gravity, Beth stared back through the tiny window in the door.

  The glass, having used up its momentum, was now being sucked back towards the airlock. Behind it, Generator Three had bounced off the wall and was also moving away from them and towards the hatch. Beth watched with her hand over her mouth as it careened towards the exit, and hit…

  …and stopped.

  The frame round the hatch bent with the impact but held, and the generator jammed into the gap, almost covering it. Other small items pattered against it and bounced off, but the generator itself stayed fixed in place, wedged into the exit.

  She became aware of klaxons blaring. Ship was saying, “ATTENTION. ATTENTION. STRUCTURAL DAMAGE IN GENERATOR ROOM TWO. STRUCTURAL DAMAGE IN GENERATOR ROOM THREE. ALL GENERATORS OFFLINE. BATTERY LIFE REMAINING: SIX MINUTES. PREPARE FOR LIFE SUPPORT SHUTDOWN. PROCEED TO EVACUATION PODS. ATTENTION. ATTENTION—”

  “Ship,” croaked Vihaan, “is the fire out? Can we activate the other generators now?”

  “Fires in Generator Rooms Two and Three have been extinguished. Generators One and Four can now be activated.”

  “Activate Generator One and Four!”

  “And switch off the damn klaxons!” shouted Beth.

  The klaxons fell silent. “Generators One and Four are starting ignition process,” said Ship. “Stand by. Battery life remaining: five minutes.”

  They waited, panting.

  “Ignition stage one confirmed,” said Ship. “Generator diagnostics in progress.”

  Beth’s breath sounded harsh in the sudden silence, and her ears rang with a faint whine that wouldn’t stop. Her hands were clenched, but she couldn’t seem to make them relax.

  Ship spoke: “Generators One and Four are online. Ignition complete. Battery status: recharging. Normal lighting resumed. Normal gravity resumed.” The lights were suddenly very bright, and to Beth’s utter relief she felt the tug of gravity pulling them down until they collapsed to the deck, leaning against the door.

  For a while they said nothing, just stared ahead with expressions of stunned bewilderment. Beth listened to her heart hammer in her throat; it didn’t seem to want to slow down.

  Eventually Vihaan gave a long, shaking sigh. “You chose me as your second-in-command.”

  Beth shrugged. “Yeah.”

  “Why?”

  “I… You were the best candidate.” The only candidate, she didn’t say.

  “And yet I was not suitable to be captain.”

  “That’s right,” she said. “I’m the captain.”

  “Why?”

  “My exam score was higher.”

  “That is unlikely.” He said it in a matter-of-fact voice. “My coursework was excellent, and my theory exam score was the highest in class.”

  “Maybe you flunked the interview?” asked Beth innocently.

  Vihaan studied her for a long time, then turned away, muttering something under his breath. She ignored him, and concentrated on the feel of her breath, in and out.

  “Well,” said Vihaan at last. “What do we do now … Captain?”

  Beth shook her head. “Get the Jump drive working, I guess,” she said. “Ship? What’s the status of the Jump drive again?”

  “Jump drive is offline,” said Ship. “Jump field emitters must be repaired. Jump navigation is offline. Jump navigation computers must be repaired.”

  “How do we repair the emitters?”

  “Jump drive emitters are placed round the surface of the ship. Emitters must be realigned.”

  The surface of the ship… Beth rubbed her scalp and felt her hair, gritty and greasy.

  “Could the droids do it?”

  “Housekeeping droids cannot survive external conditions. Only Gizmos are designed for space use.”

  “In that case—”

  “Four Gizmos are currently functioning. Three are damaged. All Gizmos are currently in Generator Room Two. Generator Room Two cannot be accessed.”

  “OK… How do we get the Gizmos out?”

  “Generator Room Two must be sealed before internal bulkheads can be opened. Its airlock must be repaired.”

  “And let me guess,” Beth said, closing her eyes, “we’d need a Gizmo to go out to the surface to repair the airlock.”

  “Correct.”

  Vihaan snorted. “So, we can’t get to the Gizmos until we repair the airlock, and we can’t repair the airlock until we get the Gizmos.”

  “We’ll have to fix the emitters ourselves,” said Beth.

  “How?”

  Beth looked around the corridor. No idea, she thought. And even if we get them working, how do I fix the computer? The only person I know who could manage that is…

  Hmmm.

  “I think we should Wake the others,” she said.

  12

  Captain

  They started with Mikkel and Arnold. Beth stood above Mikkel’s pod and listened as Ship went through its Wake-up script.

  Mikkel Eklund, you are awake… You will start to regain control over your body soon…

  Mikkel Woke slowly, as if from a long Saturday lie-in. His breathing changed, his lips moved as if muttering, and then he frowned and opened his eyes, gazing up at Ship with an expression of mild curiosity.

  “Hey, Mikkel,” said Beth. He looked across at her.

  “Mikkel, there’s been an accident,” she said. “Your dads are OK, and your brother, but Ship can’t Wake them up. It can’t Wake any of the grown-ups.”

  Now he reacted; his eyes darted between Beth’s face and Ship’s hologram and his mouth stretched.

  Ship said, “Captain McKay is correct. All senior crew members were put into emergency Sleep and have been compromised.”

  “It’s OK, Mikkel,” said Beth, holding a hand up. “They can all be fixed; we just have to get to a colony. They’re all fine, I promise.” He stared at her, but his breathing slowed, and he seemed to relax.

  “Captain McKay?” he whispered at last.

  Beth blushed. “Um. Yeah. Acting. It’s a long story.”

  Mikkel considered this. “I’m not going to call you ‘sir’,” he said and Beth grinned.

  Across the room, Vihaan was having a similar conversation with Arnold. Arnold was already sitting up, albeit shakily, and as they talked Beth saw him turn and stare at her. She pretended not to notice.

  They Woke the others in their year, Lauryn and Lucille. The rest of the children on board were too young; Ship refused to Wake them. It also objected to Lauryn, to Beth’s surprise.

  “Lauryn Hopper is too young to be Woken,” it said.

  Beth frowned. “I thought she was the same age as us?”

  “Lauryn Hopper is eleven years old. She is too young to be part of the emergency crew.”

  Eleven? No wonder she’s so small, thought Beth. “Well, it doesn’t matter; she’s in all of our classes so she counts as us. Wake her up.”

  “Lauryn Hopper is too young.”

  “But she’s the one we need to fix the Jump navigation!”

  Ship’s fa
ce was impassive and final. “Lauryn Hopper will not be able to fix the Jump navigation. Lauryn Hopper is too young.”

  “But that’s—” Beth exhaled in frustration. “Well … fine. Fine.”

  “Fine?” asked Vihaan, from across the room. His voice was scornful. “This is how you respond?”

  Beth said, “You heard Ship: she’s too young.”

  “I see,” he said, “and you will do what Ship tells you. And now I understand why it made you the ‘captain’.”

  Beth’s cheeks flushed and a rush of anger raced up the back of her neck so hard it left her feeling light-headed. How dare he—

  “Ship!” she barked. “As captain I order you to Wake Lauryn Hopper and enlist her to the emergency crew.”

  “Is this a direct order?” asked Ship.

  “Yes! Do it!”

  “Very well. Lauryn Hopper is being Woken. Your order has been logged.”

  Vihaan turned and muttered something to Arnold, who snorted. Beth seethed. Had she proved that she was in command? Or just allowed herself to be manipulated by Vihaan?

  It was crazy, anyway. Lauryn was the best systems hacker they had. Beth couldn’t understand why Ship was so reluctant to Wake her at all.

  Once the others were awake, still sitting in the opened sleep pods, Beth, Vihaan and Ship explained the situation.

  Standing in front of them, Beth was aware of how she and Vihaan must look – their clothes, faces and hair covered in grey dust shaken loose during the generator disaster, marked with streaks of sweat. Vihaan stood with his arms folded, facing slightly away from her.

  “So, um… Hi,” Beth said. They looked at her, waiting. She coughed.

  “Um, right. This is the… OK, so there’s been a … an Event. We’re not sure what happened, and neither is Ship, but it had to Jump really quickly, really … unexpectedly. It had to put everyone into emergency Sleep.”

  “Why?” asked Arnold.

  “We don’t know,” said Beth. “But there’s been damage. Maybe an attack. I remember an explosion, or something hitting us? Something bad, anyway. The Sleep discs seemed to have failed too.”

  “Does Ship not know what happened?” asked Lucille.

  Beth shook her head. “Ship’s logs were damaged in the Jump. Its logs are like its memory. It basically can’t remember.

  “Anyway, we Jumped, and we’re here, and we’re not being attacked. There’s no immediate danger –” now we’ve put out the damn fire, she thought, giving Ship’s hologram a hostile sideways look – “and we have power, and oxygen.

  “All we have to do is get to a colony, and they can fix everyone. Ship Woke me up because of my Command score, and I Woke Vihaan. So we’re in… That is, we have command – I mean. I mean, I’m the acting captain.”

  “Why just us?” asked Mikkel.

  Beth nodded. “Ship says everyone younger than us is too young to have a crew role. Everyone older was still awake when the Jump happened, and they can’t be revived. It’s just us.”

  The children looked at each other.

  “So,” said Beth. “Problem: we can’t Jump.” She nodded at Ship, who created a hologram of the Orion in front of them.

  “The areas in red are where the ship’s damaged,” said Beth.

  There was a pause.

  “But … it’s all red,” said Arnold eventually.

  “Yeah.”

  “Mon dieu,” whispered Lucille.

  “Where’s my pad?” asked Lauryn. She’d clambered out of her sleep pod and was searching beneath it. “I left my pad here when I went to Sleep. Where is it?”

  “I don’t know. Ship? Where’s Lauryn’s pad?”

  “It is not here,” said Ship.

  “But I need it to see what’s going on!”

  “We’ll find it in a bit,” said Beth. “You can ask Ship in the meantime.”

  “But I don’t trust—” Lauryn stopped. “I mean, I like to see for myself,” she muttered, looking cross. Her fingers twitched.

  Beth shrugged. “Well, trust me for now. We’ll find it, OK?”

  Lauryn nodded, doubtfully, and stuck her hands into the pockets of her jumpsuit. Beth looked back at the hologram.

  “OK. Critical stuff is working. Life support stuff. But we’ve got no Jump drive, and no message shuttles – we can’t get anywhere and we can’t call anyone.”

  “Perhaps we should just wait for help?” asked Mikkel. “We must be at a Jump point, and there are other colony ships. We could wait for one of them?”

  “Well, that’s another thing,” said Beth. “We’re not where you’d expect us to be. I mean, we’re nowhere you’d expect us to be. Ship, show the map.”

  The image of the Orion faded away and was replaced by a large three-dimensional map of space with tiny dots representing stars.

  “This is Earth’s sun, here.” Beth pointed. “And this is Eos, where we were heading to, here.” The hologram lit up with a jerky path that Jumped across the map.

  “And where we are now … is here.”

  Another point appeared, fully round the other side of the map, hundreds of light years from where they should be.

  “How the hell did we get there?” asked Arnold.

  “No idea. My guess is that the emergency Jump failed, and we ended up by chance on a strand all the way over here.”

  She pointed again. “There’s a tiny colony nearby – Mina Three – about seven light years away. But there’s only one common route to it, and we’re not on it. So we can’t wait, because no one’s coming. We have to fix the Jump, and the Jump navigation.”

  Beth’s throat felt sore. Talking like this was surprisingly hard work. Vihaan still hadn’t said a thing and was looking around as if bored.

  “So we fix the Jump drive, Jump to this colony and we’re safe?” asked Arnold. “That’s it?”

  “Exactly!” said Beth. “Only there’s another, ah, problem.”

  She recounted the events in the generator rooms. Lucille stared with dismay, though Arnold and Lauryn seemed pretty excited by the descriptions of the fire.

  “We have to fix the Jump emitters,” Beth said. “But we need Gizmos for that, and the only ones left are trapped inside the generator room. We can’t get them out.”

  “Well, then we can’t fix the drive!” exclaimed Arnold. “Why are we even discussing it?”

  “Well…” Beth chewed her lip. “I don’t—”

  “We’re stuck here!” wailed Lucille. “We cannot move—”

  “Yes, but—”

  “What are we going to do?” asked Arnold. “We can’t survive forever here—”

  “Hang on, it’s not—”

  “And what if the other generators give out? We’ll lose all our power and freeze to death!”

  “Stop! Calm down—”

  “You’re supposed to be the captain and you’re telling us you’ve got no idea what to do—”

  “Well, if you listen,” snapped Beth, “I’m trying to explain—”

  “But what are we going to do—”

  “Quiet!” snapped Vihaan. “Everybody be quiet now.”

  He stepped forward, his face stern. “Listen to me, all of you. This is an unexpected situation, but it is not a disaster situation. You will remain calm.”

  He gestured around him. “We have life support. There is no emergency. We will investigate, evaluate and establish a plan.

  “Lauryn, you will interface with Ship and get a status report on the Jump systems. Arnold: you’re our engineer. Check out the state of Generators One and Four, make sure they’re OK.”

  He seemed to grow taller as he spoke; his voice stayed calm but cut clean across their panic. It was a kind of magic. Beth was as mesmerised as the others.

  “Lucille, navigation. Mikkel, communications – can we send a signal, is there anyone out there? Check the gravity and oxygen systems too.”

  He faced them all. “This is what we were training to do. This is why we were training. We are the crew and we will
not panic. Yes?”

  Sheepishly the others nodded, Beth included.

  “Good. Are there any questions?” asked Vihaan.

  In the silence Arnold drawled, “Yeah. Why is Beth the captain?”

  Everyone looked at Beth.

  Oh no.

  “Um, well…” said Beth. “Ship, ah, selected me as having the best command abilities.” Said out loud, it sounded ridiculous even to her. Vihaan said nothing.

  “So we should do what Ship says here?” asked Arnold. “I mean, it’s just us. Shouldn’t we decide?”

  “Well, no, because this is how it works, you know, the command structure—”

  “Perhaps we should vote?” asked Lucille.

  “No! Look, Ship put me in charge—”

  “And what have you done?” asked Arnold. “Lost the Gizmos so we can’t repair the Jump drive.”

  “What? I put out the fire! I saved us all!”

  Arnold shrugged. “Well, so you say. But so far, your first command has left us kind of stranded here. Maybe we should consider someone else.”

  Vihaan was staying quiet, Beth noticed, letting things unfold; worryingly, so was Ship. The situation was slipping away from her; she could feel them turning, turning to Vihaan…

  Perhaps they’re right, she thought, biting her lip. Perhaps I should let Vihaan take over. It was only half a percentage between us after all. It was a mistake. He is better at command.

  But then she remembered her interview with Major Greyling. He’s good at command … but he’s not a good leader. Beth had said that, and she knew she was right, somehow. Vihaan was missing something important. It wasn’t just about giving orders; there was more to it. If only she could figure out what that was…

  She stood straight. She had to be confident, take control. Remember what she’d learned.

  “OK, listen up,” she announced, raising her hands. Project confidence. “This is a starship, not a colony, and Ship has selected me as captain. You all understand how this works –” she glanced across at Vihaan – “and so does he. But I’m not going to waste my time, so here’s the deal: we’ll take a vote, one time, me or Vihaan. And once you’ve voted, there’s no going back, understand?”

  She spread her arms. “Hey, I’m not slick, I admit it. I’m still figuring this out.” Head high. Firm voice. “But Ship didn’t pick me by luck. It picked me because my Command scores are higher. Major Greyling’s scores. You know her. She chose me. I will figure this out. I will get us home. Trust me. OK?”