Serendipity

by Dennis Ingram

  “If we cut thrust, we’re going to die,” David said. “Guaranteed.”

  John shook his head. “If we cut thrust, we die. If we don’t reduce power, we die. If we wait, we have to shut down the reactor, and there’s not enough accumulator power to start it again, and we die. How do you want to go?”

  David’s eyes locked on John’s. Time seemed to slow as the permutations rolled through his mind. He saw no good options this time.

  The automated alarm warning blared again, jarring his thoughts. His brow furrowed. His head snapped up. He knew what to do.

  “Hope?”

  “Yes, David.”

  “What do you recommend?”

  John’s eyes widened. For the first time he could remember, David had asked someone other than him for an engineering opinion in a crisis. David looked at him.

  “Time to trust her, John. No one knows Hope like she does.”

  “My analysis is ice is blocking the intake,” Hope said. “Only one option does not require us to shut down the reactor or cut thrust.”

  “What is it?” John asked, frowning.

  Hope told him.

  Elizabeth watched as Hope came alive, the long plume of ice crystals sparkling with reflected sunlight. She let out a long breath. It would be OK now, she told herself. It must be OK. Opportunity had come and gone. Now Hope would boost clear. She’d be gone for a long time, but the people Elizabeth cared about most would survive.

  Her father. Her mother. David.

  Sabine slipped an arm around her shoulder and gave her a gentle shake. “That’s it,” she said. “We’re safe.”

  Elizabeth smiled. Then she spotted something out of the corner of her eye. Her smile faded as she watched Hope drift away from her exhaust plume. She’d stopped thrusting, much too soon. “Oh no,” she said. “No.”

  19

  “Hope, get us links to Elizabeth and Nigel,” David asked. “As fast as you can.”

  He nodded to John and Nathalie. “Talk to Elizabeth. I’ll talk to Nigel.”

  They looked at him, faces grim, understanding what he wanted them to do.

  Elizabeth’s face appeared on screen. “Lizzie?” John said.

  After a half-second delay, Elizabeth reacted. “Dad? What’s happening? Why aren’t you accelerating?”

  Nathalie sniffed. A tear escaped one eye and floated away.

  “Lizzie, there isn’t much time,” John said. “Hope will try to get us clear, but – but we might not make it.”

  “No! No, that can’t be! Can’t Jack bring you home?”

  Nathalie smiled, putting on her bravest face. “Jack has no fuel left, ma chérie. He can’t save us this time. But you, you will be safe.”

  Tears welled in Elizabeth’s eyes. She shook her head as she comprehended that her world was about to collapse once more.

  “You must be brave now, my Elizabeth. You must be brave for your sisters, brave for your brothers.”

  “Please, Lizzie. Do this for us,” John said.

  An alarm blared through the cargo hold and the red emergency lights came on.

  “Promise us,” Nathalie and John said together. “Please.”

  Elizabeth nodded, sending more tears floating. “I will, Papa. I will, Maman.”

  Meanwhile, David finished talking to Nigel. They had already agreed what would happen now. Nigel would assume command of the colony and see them through to safety. David held no fears for them. Nigel, he knew, would focus on making sure everyone had a future to look forward to.

  “Hope, see if you can patch me through to Kevin.”

  “I will try, David, but Broken Hill will soon turn over the horizon.”

  The alarm blared through the cargo hold and the lights dipped to red. A connection was established, but instead of Kevin, his eldest children, Vasily and Joyce, answered the call. David took the few seconds he had to say his own farewell.

  “Vasily, Grace. You are the heads of our family now. Take care of the others.”

  Joyce covered her mouth with one hand but nodded. Emma buried her face into Joyce’s neck. Vasily nodded too, his expression serious, his image flickering. Only seconds remained.

  “I love you. I love you all.” Those were his final words as the link failed.

  David closed his eyes for a moment, wishing he’d had more time. “We’re ready, Hope. Execute.”

  Hope had a simple solution. Her emergency standby tank still contained scorching hot water, as she hadn’t yet cycled through cold water from the fuel tank. She planned to cut the reactor power to the minimum then dump the entire contents of the standby tank into the aft tank all at once. Then, she would bypass the standby tank and feed cold water to the reactor.

  As before, there would be a delay between the hot water draining into the main tank and picking up the flow of cooler water. More than enough time for the reactor to overheat and breach. An event more likely than not, but when you know not doing it will cause certain death, all of a sudden those odds looked good.

  “Commencing procedure,” Hope announced, the calmness of her voice jarring with the seriousness of the situation. The others waited, data pads and phones set to show the ship status, the reactor core temperature prominent.

  “Injecting emergency standby tank contents,” Hope said.

  The core temperature spiked.

  “Warning, reactor temperature alert! Warning, reactor temperature alert!” The alarm blared and they exchanged nervous glances.

  “Hope, can’t you shut that thing off?” John asked.

  “I’m sorry, John. It’s an automated system on separate circuits. I have no control over it.”

  John licked his lips. He knew that already, but he needed to say something to break the tension. He glanced at his phone and swallowed hard when he saw how fast the core temperature was rising.

  “Hope!”

  “Trust me, John.”

  “Warning, reactor critical! Warning, reactor critical!”

  John closed his eyes and clasped Nathalie’s hand, then Heidi’s. He snatched a look to discover they all held hands in a circle. Ernie, Heidi, and Nathalie all had their eyes screwed shut, as if that could somehow hold off the end. David smiled when he noticed John looking. He looked calm as he waited to meet his fate. John shook his head and shut his eyes again. A klaxon sounded and the room flooded with red light.

  “If I get out of this, the first thing I’ll do is fix that bloody alarm.”

  It blared on and on until it seemed to reverberate in his skull. He gritted his teeth and held on to Nathalie and Heidi for dear life. After a while he realized two things:

  1) The alarm still sounded

  2) That meant he wasn’t dead.

  He opened one eye, then the other, and reached for his phone. The whole scene seemed surreal, the alarm blaring, the red light and the microgravity making his movements slow and dreamy.

  The screen of his phone blinked red, the reactor temperature at critical levels. But as he watched, it began to cool. He willed it to keep dropping, and somehow it did.

  The alarm stopped, and the lights changed to white again.

  “Increasing thrust,” Hope said, and they sensed the floor press into them again.

  “Hope … the core temperature …” John said.

  It had stopped just below critical.

  “It is necessary, John. If we do not increase thrust now, we will not survive.”

  John exchanged a look with Nathalie. They’d gained a few more minutes of life, but they would suffer the suspense of every second.

  He felt heavier and his eyes switched to the accelerometer. Hope now accelerated at 0.28 gravities and the rate still increased.

  “Hope? How are we accelerating so fast?”

  Then he noticed the reactor power output – one hundred per cent. “Oh. Never mind.” They hadn’t run it past eighty percent since the accident on the way to Tau Ceti, limiting it as a precaution against another core breach.

  Still their acceleration climb
ed, and John’s jaw dropped when he saw it hit 0.37 gravities. John’s eyes flicked to the core power levels again; one hundred and fourteen percent. His eyes lifted to meet David’s and they shared an understanding. This was a do-or-die effort, Hope was giving her all to pull them clear. Low mass and high power let her accelerate at levels way beyond her design limits. They could only hope she survived it. That they survived it.

  The alarm blared again and the lights dropped to red. John saw the reactor hit critical again. This time it wasn’t because of a blocked inlet pipe; now, the water from the tank couldn’t flow fast enough to cool the raging captive star driving them onward.

  “Oh, man, I don’t think my heart will survive this.” He looked at David and shook his head.

  The idiot was grinning his head off.

  The reassuring background hum of Hope’s drives intensified until it sounded like a swarm of angry bees. They sensed a vibration through her hull, like Hope had become a vast piece of unbalanced machinery. Hope lurched and they all grabbed for a handhold, hearts in mouths.

  “What was that?” Nathalie shouted over the incessant wailing of the alarm, her fingers white on John’s arm.

  John glanced at Heidi. “Must be the ice seal!”

  Heidi nodded. She hoped so, because if not they were in deep trouble. She hoped the tank had enough water left to cushion the blow and the ice didn’t clog their water inlet.

  As if to play on her fears, the groan of tortured metal echoed through the hull. Every second seemed like it would be their last.

  “HOPE! How much longer?” John asked.

  “One minute, ten seconds,” came her reply, her voice loud against the alarm.

  John looked at the core temperature. His eyes darted around, looking for signs of something, anything, falling apart. He patted the wall. “Hang in there, Hope.”

  One minute and ten seconds seemed an eternity. Time crawled by, instant by instant.

  The core did not breach.

  Hope’s hull did not fail.

  At last, their acceleration fell away. The core temperature dropped again as the power demand reduced and the cooling water kept up. The alarm stopped, and the main lights came back on.

  “Never understood why they do that,” John said.

  David raised an eyebrow.

  “Why would they think that bloody alarm and red lights would somehow make it easier to fix something?”

  The corner of David’s mouth ticked up in a smile. “Maybe that’s not what they had in mind. Maybe they wanted to get your attention.”

  “That part worked. It bloody well did.”

  They had only a minute to savor their success before Hope made them aware they weren’t safe yet. “John, there’s a breach in the main tank.”

  “Same one?” John asked. “Did the ice seal break?”

  “Yes.”

  “How much fuel is remaining?”

  “Three percent.”

  John looked at David. They were almost out of fuel. What remained would boil off fast.

  “Hope, set course for Opportunity,” David said. “Maximum safe thrust.” He glanced at John. “It’s use it or lose it. We can’t go home, our only hope now is to catch up with Opportunity and make repairs.”

  John nodded, understanding. David was right – if they didn’t move now they’d lose their fuel. It might stay liquid even in the near-vacuum in the tank, but it would boil off as fast as it melted. Now they raced against time to make use of as much fuel as possible before the tank drained dry and they had to shut down the reactor.

  He glanced at his phone. The core temperature had cooled to a safe level. Still high, but safe.

  “Course plotted,” Hope said. “Engaging thrust.”

  Once more they felt the ship accelerate, although with less force this time. Hope kept acceleration down to one fifth of a gravity.

  “Nathalie, how far are we from Opportunity?” David asked.

  “Fortunately, not far,” she replied. “Serendipity’s gravity had more effect on us, but we accelerated more. We only need a short burn.”

  “That may be our lucky break,” David said.

  “Lucky?” John laughed. “You don’t think we just got lucky?”

  “Luck had nothing to do with it,” David said. “Hope saved us. She’s still saving us right now.”

  “That’s not all,” Heidi said. “Hope saved everyone else too. If she hadn’t pushed Opportunity out of the way, it would have destroyed Haven and the others may have died.”

  “Our daughter,” Nathalie said, “we are so proud of you.”

  “And thankful,” John said.

  Hope paused before replying, her voice pitched just the right way to inflect modesty. “I did what I could.”

  “You did more than enough,” David said. “We owe our lives to you. I only hope we can repay you for your suffering.”

  “We will,” Ernie said, reminding them he was still there. He’d been quiet through the whole drama, bearing it with quiet strength. “That’s my department. I’ve already signaled the AI controlling the bots on Opportunity and they’ve restarted work. We’ll put Hope together again, better than new!”

  John smiled and squeezed Nathalie’s hand. “Better than new!”

  Hope’s acceleration died away. “I am turning now,” she said. “We’ll coast for five minutes then decelerate. We’re nearly there.”

  Elizabeth had never been so glad to see solid ground in her entire life. Her legs felt rubbery after so long without gravity, but she didn’t want to be inside the shuttle for a moment longer.

  She took a step outside and drew a deep breath, fancying she smelled the freshness of the air even through her mask. Her heart lifted, the weight of her worries evaporating. The war was over. Opportunity had missed Serendipity. Best of all, the three most important people in her life – her father, mother and David – were safe.

  Zoé pressed into the back of her legs and she turned and scooped her up. “Come here you little rug rat,” she said, tickling her tummy. Zoé squealed and squirmed to get down, but Elizabeth kept a tight grip. She carried her down the steps, holding the rail with one hand and Zoé with the other. Zoé broke away once they got to the bottom and went skipping off toward the airlock. Elizabeth sighed, knowing she’d have to chase after her. She gave up as the rest of the little ones poured from the shuttle in a tide of joy and enthusiasm. They chased after Zoé, a few stumbling as they struggled to regain their ground legs.

  Sabine put a hand on her shoulder. “Thank God that’s over.”

  “Oh, I don’t know, it wasn’t that bad,” Simon said, joining them.

  “Yes it was!” came an emphatic chorus. “One child puking once is bad enough. A whole week of multiple children puking multiple times in zero-g is beyond bad,” Elizabeth said.

  “Beyond bad,” Sabine said, punching Simon in the belly.

  “Ooof!” he said, pretending it hurt. “Look on the bright side, everything else will seem good now!”

  Elizabeth and Sabine and Joyce all glared at him. He held up his hands. “OK, OK, it was bad.”

  Elizabeth snorted and turned to walk off at the best pace she could manage. “We’d better catch the little puke bags while we still can.”

  The rumble of the blast doors died away and Kevin blinked in the midday sunlight. He heard a yell of delight, and before he knew it, became a rock in a river of children running for freedom. He looked up, pleased to feel sun on skin after being cooped up underground for a week. “It’s going to be great,” he said.

  Vasily and Joyce joined him, trailing behind, their youthful joy drained out of them by the events of the past few days. They’d been up and down, then up again, so many times they didn’t seem to believe it was really over. “When will we see them again?” Joyce asked, meaning her father and the others.

  Kevin shrugged. “I’m not sure myself, yet. It depends on how long they take to repair Hope. They might even need to go into stasis.” He squeezed her shoulder. “A
ll that matters is we know they’re coming back. What do you say we head down to Haven and get the place ready for them?”

  Joyce flashed a sudden smile, her face lighting up. “Yes! Yes, let’s do that.”

  In the distance, Jill kicked up a cloud of dust as she settled to the ground in front of the administration building.

  Kevin led the way, squinting against the glare. The rest of the adults followed, branching out to track down the children and herd them toward the waiting shuttle.

  “Time to go home,” Kevin said.

  Plink.

  John looked up at the sound.

  Plink.

  Plink, plink, plink.

  He’d been expecting it, but it still came as a surprise, alien in its implication. A cacophony of hull impacts made it sound like he floated in the middle of a hailstorm, but the source of the disturbance had nothing to do with weather.

  John looked at the external view on his phone, which revealed Hope floating among the stars, next to Opportunity. A cloud of bots streamed from Opportunity to Hope, landing on her hull and spreading out all over.

  “Time to go,” he said. David and Nathalie waited aboard Jack. The three engineers had stayed behind to help prepare Hope for her refit.

  “Are you OK, Hope?” Heidi asked.

  “Yes, Heidi, everything is proceeding to plan. It’s time for you to leave, though.”

  “Right, we’ll see you in a week,” John said, and led the way to the airlock.

  Three weeks had passed since they’d flown past Serendipity, and the changes to Opportunity were dramatic. The bots they’d left on the surface had repaired damage to the thrusters and arrested Opportunity’s spin. Then they burrowed into the interior, mining and separating the elements they’d found – iron and silicon, rare earth metals, and organic compounds. They had assembled new machines, construction bots, and fabricators, converting the raw materials of the asteroid into a manufacturing facility capable of building a spaceship.

  Or repairing one.

  All the knowledge of fifty years of improvements to materials and technology was available to them, together with a plan not only to repair Hope, but to rebuild her.