by Blair Wylie
Then Fitzpatrick turned to the pilot and said with a smile, “I’m no expert of course, but I think that was an amazing bit of ‘flying’, Ensign Sarawak, if that’s the right word for what you just did to get us safely docked.”
Ensign Sarawak just initially smiled back from the pilot’s seat. He looked very young, but actually he was a very experienced helicopter pilot. He was also a highly proficient drone pilot. All of those acquired skills helped him master the piloting of the troop shuttle. Then the Ensign said sheepishly, “Actually, the self-docking system worked perfectly. I was just ready to manually override if necessary. But thanks anyway, sir.”
Commander Yamato was suddenly looking very grim, and he said quietly, “That may have been the easy bit, Captain. We hope you won’t have to live up to your nickname, and become a ‘mad beast’ or whatever, should there be something really nasty still alive over there.
“Okay, the Ensign and I need to get back to work, and then get our own suits on, too. And you need to get your suit on and fully buttoned-up. Make sure everyone uses the buddy system we practised to double-check seals, radio connectivity, air supply, et cetera.”
Ninety-six minutes later, Commander Yamato ordered the hatch to be opened. First Sergeant McIlroy worked two levers near the hatch in sequence. There was a very slight hiss of air for a few moments. Then McIlroy pulled on the edge of the hatch to open it fully.
The four work party members in the caisson module were all hovering inside near the open hatch. Their helmets were lightly covered with frost, but a name and rank could clearly be read on the top of each helmet.
Captain Fitzpatrick pulled himself into the nearly weightless environment of the caisson, and shook gloved hands with Lieutenant Clayton. He then snapped off a salute as best he could while wearing his bulky spacesuit.
Lieutenant Clayton, Sergeant Ngubo, Corporal Mitterrand and Private Klopp all returned the Captain’s salute. Then Captain Fitzpatrick asked quietly over the radio command frequency, “Are you and your guys all right, Lieutenant? I can’t see your faces very well. This frost is a real pain in the butt. Over.”
“We’re making out all right, Captain,” replied Clayton. His voice was loud enough to be clearly heard, but it sounded a bit hoarse. Clayton paused for a moment and then he added, “You can see that we had to cut away the hatch. The edges are a bit ragged, with some sharp burrs. We’re sorry about that. We did our best, but it would have required a lot more grinding in this confined space to smooth them all away. So, every Ranger will need to be especially careful when they pass through the portal we just made.
“The skin of the hull is aluminium, and the structural members are titanium and high-strength stainless steel. Thankfully we have achieved a full seal, and our bolts and welds have secured us in place very well.” Clayton paused for another short moment, and then he added, “Captain, we’re all a bit bushed right now, but I’m sure we’ll soon get our full strength back. We can still help the company out if you need us for something. And we would sure like to do that. Over.”
Fitzpatrick thought for a moment, and then he replied, “We might have to force entry into a few places in there, and if so, we’ll want to do that very carefully. The rest of your platoon will be coming over in the last shuttle. As planned, attach yourself to Lieutenant Yang’s platoon. He’s your senior anyway, Lieutenant Clayton, so follow his orders to the letter. And, ah, thanks for volunteering, again. You’ve all done really well. Now, stand down and out of the way for a bit until the first squad is all inside. Over.”
Then Captain Fitzpatrick pushed a button on his wrist-mounted control panel, and he said loudly over the radio ‘operation frequency’, “Ranger Company, I’m going in now with First Sergeant McIlroy. When I give the okay, Sergeant Van Der Meer’s squad will follow us inside, to conduct the initial site inspection.
“If we can open a hatch to gain entry to a spoke or shaft leading to the toroidal section, Commander Yamato may do another drone flight for us to check out what’s in the ‘donut’ before the shuttle departs. Then, if things look okay, Lieutenant Yang will come over with his assault platoon, and bring in all of our weapons and tools. When all of the accessible areas in the cylindrical section of the ship are known to be secure, the rest of the Company will follow us.
“When we’re all inside, our first priority will be to help Lieutenant Ghandi and his platoon make their way to the bridge. Commander Yamato and Sergeant Gonzales have a lot of critical work to do for us in the bridge area, including getting some power back on inside this ice box. First Lieutenant Sweetwater and I will be the communication conduit between our two groups to coordinate operations over the command frequency. Keep your radio chatter to a minimum over the operation frequency. Give everyone who might need to say something the opportunity to do just that.
“Okay, that’s it for now. Let’s you and I get moving, First Sergeant. Over.”
25
As expected, it was pitch dark, and there was no gravity inside the Warrior Flagship. A thick layer of frost on everything inside the vessel made it especially difficult to move around. It proved awkward to get a firm grasp on things with bulky, gloved hands. And finding a firm foothold to push off or to get some useful leverage was frustratingly difficult as well.
Captain Fitzpatrick and Sergeant McIlroy were both wearing head-mounted, forward-directed lamps. The lamps helped a bit, but the narrow halogen beams also made an obviously alien and surreal place even more eerie and mysterious.
McIlroy eventually found a useful metallic flange on the lid or door of what look to be a large sealed bin. He secured a battery-powered lamp to the flange. A permanent magnet on the bottom of the lamp held it firmly in place. When he turned the high-intensity, 360 degree lamp on, he and Fitzpatrick immediately got a better sense of the environment they were in.
The interior of the fuselage of the vessel was cylindrical, and perhaps fifty metres across. The internal dimensions were hard to judge properly. There were hundreds of cubical and cylindrical containers or modules of various sizes fastened in place around the interior circumference. There no apparent order to the arrangement of anything. It all looked rather haphazard.
There was also a crooked, semi-cylindrical corridor of sorts running right down the centreline of this part of the vessel. The passageway averaged about fifteen metres in diameter. There were handles and rails everywhere on the containers and modules, presumably to help human-like creatures find useful handholds to move around a bit more easily.
Fitzpatrick concluded that it must have been a weightless environment most of the time in this central corridor. The ship was spinning, so artificial gravity would increase as one moved away from the centre of rotation. And it would be unlikely for any Warrior to have to come into this part of the ship during periods of acceleration or deceleration. If the engine compartment was anything like that on the Indefatigable, one would want to be well away from that part of the ship when the radioactive plasma drive was engaged.
He imagined that they would find fully-gimballed seats in the toroidal section of the ship. The Warriors could make use of such seats when hard manoeuvres were performed. Well-designed seats could provide a degree of comfort, and compensate a bit for higher, variable-vector G-forces.
“Sergeant McIlroy, this place looks like a warehouse or storage area, next to the engine compartment, which must be on the other side of that rather imposing bulkhead,” suggested Fitzpatrick over the operation frequency after a few minutes of looking around. “And that looks like the outline of a closed sliding door in the centre of the bulkhead. And there is no obvious way to open that freaking door, either. Over.”
“Yes, I agree, and this place is lot bigger than what the drone images suggested to us, Skipper,” McIlroy said calmly in reply. “Thankfully, I’m not picking up any unusual radioactivity on the Geiger counter. In fact, the background radiation reading in here is a lot lower that what we would probably measure in space outside of the ship. That suggests
some effective shielding is in place. And that’s a pretty useful design feature if one wants to survive a long interstellar space voyage. Over.”
“Okay, thanks, First Sergeant. So, it’s probably safe enough to start the real search of this place. We’re definitely going to need some more help with that effort.”
“Sergeant Van Der Meer, I know you’ve been listening in. Come into the Flagship now with your squad. Let’s first see if there’s anything moving around in here, and if there’s anything in here that resembles a dead body. If we cannot find any obvious threats, Commander Yamato will then join us in here too, but maybe after he pilots another drone flight for us. For that, we’ll first have to see if we can find a way into the toroidal section. Then when everything checks out okay, Ensign Sarawak can start ferrying over the rest of the Company. Over.”
“Roger, Skipper, we’re leaving the caisson module now,” replied Sergeant Van Der Meer immediately. “Over.”
26
The Ranger scouting squad completed a systematic visual inspection, but it did not find any Warrior corpses in the cylindrical section of the Flagship. They also did not find anything that might pose an immediate threat to their survival.
But every Ranger knew that they had not been able to look inside what looked to be hundreds of modules, cabinets or storage bins. And it was still uncertain if some of the odd-shaped and different-sized metallic modules might contain machinery that was needed to operate the ship.
But there was no obvious way to safely force entry into bins, boxes or modules. They literally could contain anything, including hazardous, flammable or explosive materials. Everything was sealed-up tight, and Captain Fitzpatrick decided that was probably not such a bad thing, for now.
Seven structurally-essential, cylindrical ‘spokes’ connected the toroidal section of the Warrior Flagship to its cylindrical fuselage. The tubular spokes were all the same diameter when viewed externally. However, the scouting squad quickly discovered that four of the spokes were completely inaccessible. They were sealed-up tight. A lot of piping, and many different sized conduits, presumably for power and telemetry cables, led into those four spokes.
There were elevators in two of the other spokes. Presumably the elevators were used for moving both equipment and Warrior crew members around between the two sections of the ship. But with the power off, there was no way for the Ranger scouting party to make use of those elevators.
There was a square, metallic hatch that they thought must lead to the interior of the seventh spoke. They knew it was a hatch because there were obvious hinges along one of its edges. There was also a wheel in the centre of the hatch. When Captain Fitzpatrick was satisfied with their immediate security, he ordered the incredibly muscular Sergeant Van Der Meer to see if the wheel could be turned by hand.
Van Der Meer had to strain for only a few moments to get the wheel turning. He managed to turn it one full rotation, and then a small gap appeared at the edge of the hatch on the other side of the hinges.
“Give it a steady pull now, Sergeant, and see if it will open up some more,” ordered Captain Fitzpatrick calmly over the operation frequency. “Over.”
Every Ranger that was watching nearby had a spear or a stabbing sword ready for use. A blaster was not something they wanted to use in this strange, confined place, with no idea what a stray shot might hit.
Sergeant Van Der Meer instantly obeyed. He managed to widen the gap another few centimetres, but it required all of his strength.
Lieutenant Clayton and three of his Special Equipment Rangers were hovering twenty metres or so away from the hatch. Captain Fitzpatrick had seen them come out of the caisson module twenty or so minutes before. They all looked fit enough again, and profoundly interested in what was going on. So, Fitzpatrick had decided not to order them to standby somewhere well out of the way. Now he thought they might be of some immediate use. So he said, “Lieutenant Clayton, come closer, have a look at this hatch, and tell me what you think can be done to open it all the way. Over.”
Clayton floated over and had a close look at the hatch. Then he said, “Turning the wheel probably retracted mechanical locking dogs, Captain. Either the hinges are frozen or corroded, or there is a hydraulic dashpot of sorts that is now working against us. Since the hatch did move a bit, I bet we can pry it open with an electro-hydraulic jack. It will probably be best to take it really slow though. I don’t think we should risk permanently deforming or damaging it until we know there is no other way. Over.”
Captain Fitzpatrick paused to consider the suggestion for a moment, and then he ordered, “Right Lieutenant, then get right to work on that operation. Over.”
A few minutes later, Sergeant Ngubo and Corporal Mitterrand managed to insert the end of a device they called ‘the jaws of life’ in to the crack at the edge of the hatch. Then they hooked up a braided-metallic hose to the power unit on Private Klopp’s back.
Lieutenant Clayton worked the controls on the power unit to slowly open the jaws. Ngubo and Mitterrand had to reposition the hydraulic opening device a few times to obtain the proper leverage. The hatch seemed to free up a bit as it was being displaced. The team of specialists then skilfully used a simple block and tackle to complete the job of fully opening the hatch.
Captain Fitzpatrick peered into the open hatch for a few minutes. Then he said, “The shaft looks clear as far as I can see. I can’t see the other end of the shaft, but Commander Yamato said it is about one hundred and eighty-six metres long if it terminates at the near edge of the toroidal section.
“There are two ladders inside, and the tunnel appears to be wide enough for two guys moving back-to-back, wearing suits like ours. If there’s a closed hatch like this one at the other end, we might have a bigger problem on our hands….” He trailed off with a shake of his head inside his space helmet. Then he said, “Over.”
“I can check that out with this pistol-like sonar and laser device, Captain,” offered Lieutenant Clayton. “It will measure the distance to the first solid reflective surface. Over.”
“Okay, Lieutenant Clayton, have at it,” ordered Fitzpatrick. “Over.”
Clayton carefully aimed the pistol up the centre of the tunnel, and after only a few seconds he declared, “Two hundred and twenty-one metres, Captain. That means if there is another hatch down there, or up there I guess, it must be open. Over.”
“Right Lieutenant, thanks very much,” replied Fitzpatrick calmly, while successfully hiding his relief. Then he said, “Commander Yamato, you have probably been following all of this with the video stream from our head-mounted cameras. What do you think? Can you fly the drone up this tunnel for us, and have a look around inside the torus? Over.”
The drone was parked nearby, stuck with an electromagnet to a flat, frosty metallic surface. It had six rotors arranged in a hexagonal pattern, and it was about a metre-and-a-half wide from rotor tip to rotor tip.
Yamato was back at the co-pilot seat of the shuttle craft. Without hesitation, Yamato replied, “Piece of cake, Captain. Strictly speaking, you were actually looking down that tunnel. So, we will have to fly looking down while we traverse the inside of the spoke, as there will be something close to full gravity when it gets over to the toroidal section. But that’s no big deal. I’ll just take it real slow and easy, if that’s okay? Over.”
“That’s definitely okay, Commander, taking it slow and easy is appropriate,” Fitzpatrick replied calmly. “We only have one drone with us, and we need to do this right.
“Okay, we will all back well away from the hatch, right now, and you can get started, Commander. Over.”
27
About six hours later, Commander Yamato hailed Captain Fitzpatrick over the command frequency. Fitzpatrick did not immediately respond. He was in a deep sleep with his feet tucked under the edge of a container. He had positioned himself near the open hatch that they had confirmed provided access to the toroidal section of the massive Warrior Flagship. It had been the first time in over
thirty-six hours that Fitzpatrick had felt it would be safe enough to shut his eyes for a while.
Commodore Chamberlain and First Lieutenant Sweetwater were able to hear the hail, and they both joined Commander Yamato with polite pleas for Captain Fitzpatrick to wake up. They made sure Fitzpatrick knew they were both monitoring the conversation when Fitzpatrick said he was fully awake and alert again.
“I just set the drone down in there, Captain, in a place that looks to be a bit out of the way,” Yamato began. He was no doubt excited, but his voice sounded calm and controlled. He was obviously functioning well on very little sleep.
Yamato paused for a moment to converse privately with Ensign Sarawak who was sitting beside him in the cockpit of the shuttle craft. Then he said, “I know you have a small televiewer with you, Captain, but I suspect it would have been very difficult to make out what we observed during our long flight around the toroidal section. And no doubt the frost on your helmet glass is still problematic. For what it’s worth, I think it’s great that you managed to get a bit of sleep while we did our reconnaissance sortie. Hopefully it’s my turn now?
“But first, I’ll give you an overview of what happened. There definitely are corpses in there. But there is nothing especially gory to speak of anywhere. The place is frosty, but clean. The bodies just look like they are sleeping, albeit in sometimes contorted positions.
“I counted exactly fifty corpses in total, all frozen solid of course, and all fitting the outward, physical description we have for Master Warriors. It looks like they were killed instantly where they stood, or at their work stations, or in their seats or bunks, by the gamma ray burst from the Alpha robot ship.
“There are fifty fully-gimballed chairs in there too, mostly in what must have been the bridge area. There is a work station of sorts attached to every chair. It’s quite an impressive, technically-advanced set up, actually.