Star Runners

by Clayton J Callahan

  She took his hand, and without a word left his office, softly closing the door.

  ***

  The Yang-He dwarfed the space station it was docked to by a wide margin. A massive ship, ten times larger than any spacecraft mankind had built before, it measured a full three kilometers in length and with accommodations for a crew of over fifty, and it birthed two Gazelle Class shuttles. The aft end was consumed by the Ferris wheel like structure that comprised the newfangled Buganda Jump Drive. Protruding from the hub was the connecting causeway wherein a tram car could take you to the crew habitat. The habitat itself resembled a dented beer can and rotated to create the one-G that humans required for sustained space flight.

  Beyond that structure, a tram car proceeded through the causeway and on to the bridge. No comfort was provided for the watch standers, however, as the bridge was a zero-G environment, but it only had to be endured for a few hours at a time, so that wasn’t considered of great consequence by the designers.

  Naturally, Robishaw felt her place was on the bridge. At the moment, however, she found herself in the beige and white halls of the habitat with a datapad in one hand and her other hand about to pull her damn hair out. “No, no, no,” she said to the galley chief. “We have to store non-refrigables in the aft locker.”

  Chief Sanchez shook his head. “Ma’am, with respect, I’ve got seventeen pallets o’ dry goods, and my boys are going to be hard-pressed to walk halfway across the ship every time we run out of salt and napkins.”

  Robishaw looked at the waiting delivery guys just beyond the chief’s shoulder. “Chief Sanchez, are you trying to make my life hard?”

  “Not today.” The old spacer replied with a shrug. “But for tomorrow I haven’t made any plans as o’ yet.”

  She checked the datapad. “Okay, I can shift around the medical supplies to the amidships hold I suppose.”

  “Thank you, Ma’am.” The chief replied and then added with a wink, “I’ll be sure to go a little easier on you tomorrow.”

  “Thanks, Chief, I need all the help I can get.”

  Sanchez and the delivery guys shuffled past while Robishaw consulted her datapad for the next headache on her horizon. They still awaited two tons of water and three game tables for the rec room. Personally, she couldn’t care less about the game table, but a voyage without water would surely bust everyone’s moral.

  “Excuse me, miss?”

  Looking up from her pad, Robishaw took note of a mousey looking dude in a green Explorer Corps uniform one size too large. The uniform bore captain’s rank. “Yes, sir?”

  “Um, I suppose I’m supposed to check in with someone in charge. I’m Captain VanDer.”

  Only decades of military discipline kept her from rolling her eyes. Instead, she held out her hand, “Welcome aboard, Captain. I’m your first officer; Helen Robishaw, at your service.”

  He took her hand and gave it a weak shake. “Um, should I salute you or do you salute me?”

  Oh, boy, she thought, this is going to be a long voyage. “If I were back in the Re-United States Space Service, I’d salute you. But the Confederation Explorer Corps is a civilian agency, which means you get all of the authority of a commanding officer but none of the ceremony.”

  He nodded. “Very well, that suits me.”

  “Shall I show you to your stateroom, sir?”

  “No thank you. I know the deck plans by heart.” He sheepishly lowered his eyes. “In fact, I drew them. I’ll want to see the engine spaces first anyway.” He held up a small gadget. “They gave me this com-link back on the station. Do you have one too?”

  Robishaw held up hers. “We all have one, sir. You can use it to contact any member of the crew at any time.”

  He nodded. “Excellent, excellent. Well, I suppose that’s all for now, right? Nice to meet you…”

  “Robishaw, First Officer Helen Robishaw.”

  “Right; Helen J. Robishaw, Commander, R-USA, Space Service, detached duty, personnel number 988718824. Five commendations, two for valor. Married. Two children. I read all the crew’s personnel files last night. Good day.”

  And as he gaily stepped into a tram car, she buried her face in her hands. They were scheduled to make one test jump next week and then return to Earth, but with a captain like him, she imagined the trip would seem a lot longer.

  ***

  Robishaw strapped herself into the acceleration couch and took a deep breath. This was it. In T-minus ten minutes, she and the rest of the crew would do what no human being had ever done; slip the bonds of this universe through the veil of the “jump point” and enter another universe. “What’s to worry about?”

  “First Officer, did you say something?”

  “No, Captain, just talking to myself.”

  VanDer lifted an eyebrow but made no further comment.

  One by one, the rest of the crew floated onto the bridge. Most of them occupied the “choir benches” in the back where they would sit snugly crammed together for the duration of the jump. The effects of the new drive being somewhat unknown, the Explorer Corps insisted that everybody be as far away from the damn thing as possible when it powered up.

  She checked her screens. No one had reported in yet. But then again, VanDer hadn’t given the word, and it was now T-minus six. “Captain, I believe the officers are ready for check in.”

  “Oh, right. Stations report.”

  “Fourth Officer, Medical, go.”

  “Third Officer, Supply, go.”

  “Second Officer, Engineering, go.”

  Then it was her turn. “First Officer, Operations, go.”

  “Very well,” VanDer replied. “Initiate the drive.”

  Third Officer Yu inserted his key and gave it a turn. A shudder rumbled across the bridge as the turning drive three kilometers aft began its gyrations. For the last year, Robishaw had slaved over the theory, specs, and designs for the Buganda Jump Drive, but its complexities were beyond her comprehension. The manuals read like incantations from some lost sorcery to her and, she suspected, most other mortals as well.

  However, from what she'd gleaned, during the early millennia of the universe, a whole lot of stars had gone supernova. Their demise left “tears” in the fabric of space-time. When triggered by the energy created by the Buganda drive, those tears would suck a ship into an alternate universe where different rules of physics applied. Once in the B-Universe, or hyperspace as the media liket to call it, the ship would be pushed in an instant to the next tear or “jump point” and B-Universe would spit them back into the A-Universe light-years from where they began.

  Was this whole project built upon a base of sound assumptions or merely egg-headed wishful thinking? That no longer mattered, because they were now at T-minus three, and like it or not, she was about to test the late Benjamin Buganda’s hypothesis.

  As she suppressed a dry gulp in her throat the supply officer, young Mr. Manny, spoke up. “Captain, do you have anything prepared?”

  “Pardon me?”

  Upon seeing the captain's blank stare, Manny elaborated. “A speech? A phrase? A quote? This is after all your ‘one small step for man…’ kind of moment.”

  VanDer seemed to puzzle it over for a long while as the clock ran down. At T-minus 23 seconds he announced, “This should work.”

  And then pow! The drive hit full spin, and the Yang-He zipped two light-years away from Sol and reappeared one light-year from Alpha Centauri. Robishaw checked her pulse. Yep, she was still alive, and the stars visible out the bridge’s canopy were truly amazing. This was a sight no human had seen with the naked eye before, the vastness of interstellar space. Previous trips across the galaxy had been taken in slower than light ships with colonists and crew in suspended animation until they reached the orbit of planets that appeared habitable from Earth. Inwardly, Robishaw wondered who the braver space travelers were, the crew of the Yang-He or those crazy bastards of over one hundred years ago.

  “Yep,” VanDer announced smugly, “it wor
ked.”

  ***

  The rec room held only the command staff and some senior technicians but still felt crowded. Ironically, aside from the bridge, it was the largest room on the Yang-He. Robishaw sat next to a vacant chair behind the game table they appropriated into a conference table for the meeting. She checked the time and wondered where the captain was? After all, he’d called the meeting so she thought he’d be on time for it. Also, if she had to listen to one more of Yu’s fart jokes she’s probably be marching off to the weapons locker and could not be held responsible for what came next.

  “Good day, everyone.” Captain VanDer entered with a ream of papers tucked under his arm. Handing the stack to Manly, he said, “Manly, you’re the supply officer. Can you supply everyone with a copy of our orders?”

  “Aye aye, sir,” Manly replied as he started passing around the papers.

  The captain took his seat next to his first officer, and Robishaw whispered in his ear, “What orders? The mission was to make a successful jump and return home.”

  “There’s more to it than that,” VanDer replied while he waited for everybody to get a copy. “Now, as you all can see, the successful jump was not all Dr. Buganda had envisioned for the Yang-He. We are to proceed to Proxima Centauri and make contact with any human civilization that may have spawned from the USS Isis.”

  “The USS Isis?” Chief Sanchez asked.

  “Yes. That was the name of the sleeper ship that departed for Proxima Centauri one hundred and fifty-five years ago. It should have arrived in the orbit of a planet then known as PC132 about seventy years ago, and with luck, we may just find a thriving human civilization down there.”

  Yu rubbed his forehead as he read the new orders. “And if we don’t?”

  VanDer seemed to miss the point of Yu’s question. “Excuse me?”

  “If we don’t find a thriving human civilization, what do we do then?”

  The captain smiled. “Why we go to Alpha Centauri and see if we can find one there.”

  Robishaw fought hard to keep surprise from making an appearance on her face. These orders sounded way out of left field. They were vague at best and left a lot of room for the captain’s interpretation. She was certain that military personnel had nothing to do with drafting such orders and chalked it up to a political maneuver by some Explorer Corps bureaucrat.

  Manly raised his hand. “Excuse me, sir, but why are we just finding out about these orders now? And on paper documents?”

  Robishaw noticed how VanDer shifted in his seat and wiped his hands on his pants before answering. “Director Clemens didn’t want word getting out for security reasons.”

  Robishaw had tried to remain passive but couldn’t help but blurt out, “Security reasons?”

  “Yes,” VanDer replied. “There were some concerns that the Empire of Brazil would sabotage such an effort to keep the Confederation from expanding its sphere of influence beyond the solar system.”

  That answer sort of made sense as the Empire was the only real rival to the Great Confederation. Sure the Brazilians had all of South America and half of Mexico under their boot, but the Confederation included member nations on all the other Earth continents and Mars as well. Adding extra solar states could be seen as a threat to the balance of power back on Earth, but Robishaw still felt that Clemens himself should have told the crew all this before the launch.

  However, she was still the first officer, and it was her job to support the commanding officer in any way she could. “Right,” Robishaw said. “You all heard the captain, and you’ve all received your orders. Attend to your divisions and prepare for our next jump to Proxima Centauri. We’ve got a lot to do and a short time to do it. Dismissed.”

  As the assembly broke up, Robishaw took another look at the new orders. Impressed into the paper, she found the four-pointed star of the Confederation in an official watermark. As one used to receiving her orders electronically the document seemed anachronistic, however, everything was in order—and she’d spent a lifetime following orders. So she busied herself in the preparations for a second jump and left her concerns on the shelf for the time being. After all, an officer’s work was never done.

  ***

  In a clear voice, VanDer barked out, “Stations report!”

  “Fourth Officer, Medical, go.”

  “Third Officer, Supply, go.”

  “Second Officer, Engineering, go.”

  The captain’s new tone reassured Robishaw. He at least sounded more comfortable with his role. In her turn, she announced, “First Officer, Operations, go.”

  “Good,” VanDer replied. “Initiate the drive.”

  Second Officer Yu once again inserted his key and gave it a turn. The shudder rumbled across the bridge like before as the drive began turning. Robishaw thought that perhaps the shudder was a bit more intense than the last time, but couldn’t be sure. As first officer, her station was equipped with an “abort” button, but she was loathe to use it for just a gut feeling. Thankfully, when she rechecked her panels, all systems flashed green providing all the reassurance she needed.

  The countdown clock ticked away, but this time no one asked for any dramatic words from VanDer. Jump drive had already been proven possible. Now, it was their job to prove it useful. When the clock reached zero, she felt the same quirky sensation as the Yang-He was sucked out of the universe and spat back in at a spot one point five light-years away.

  Her panel quickly rebooted with new star charts. Robishaw checked the ship’s position twice before reporting, “Yang-He on station in Proxima system. Approximate travel time by ramjet to planet PC132, three days and seven hours.”

  “Very well,” VanDer replied. “Stand down from jump stations. Everybody can go back to what they were doing now.”

  “Sir,” Robishaw asked, “would it be a good idea if we attempted radio communication with the colony at this time?”

  VanDer seemed skeptical. “Why? We haven’t been able to communicate with the colony before.”

  “True, but that was using sophisticated laser communications systems from Earth. And at three light years, it would have been six years between question and reply anyway. Radio has a much shorter range but is much easier to maintain. Perhaps they lost laser communications years ago, but their radio systems may still work.”

  “A fair hypothesis, Ms. Robishaw, thank you. We can give it a try, right?”

  Even the excess crew in the “choir boxes” stayed on the bridge, and the silence could be cut with a knife as Robishaw spoke into the mike. “This is the CEC Yang-He. We are an exploration ship from Earth now arrived in the Proxima system. If anyone can receive my transmission, please reply.”

  Anticipation filled the room as the anxious crew waited for the slow-moving radio waves to reach the distant planet. If anybody was on the other end, they were taking a long time to answer, and Robishaw started to wonder if the colony had simply failed to survive. Then, a crackle turned into a cough. A man on the other end was clearing his throat. When he spoke, he said, “This is Dr. Apple of the Isis colony; greetings to the CEC Yang-He. You say you are from Earth? That’s a comfort to know. What nation do you represent and what are your intentions?”

  VanDer nodded to Robishaw. “Tell them we come in peace.”

  Robishaw figured that would sound a bit corny by itself, so she chose to elaborate a bit. “We represent a multi-national confederation formed fifty-two years ago called The Great Confederation of Mankind. Our intentions are peaceful. We wish to reestablish contact with extra-solar colonies for mutual benefit. What is your current situation?”

  “I didn’t tell you to ask any questions,” VanDer snapped.

  “Sorry, sir, I didn’t mean to overstep.”

  He seemed to think about it a bit. “Well, it’s a question that needed to be asked anyway I suppose.”

  A while later the radio came back to life. “Yang-He, this is Dr. Apple again. We have formed a sovereign government and established a base called Centra
l City. There are about 100,000 of us now. Unfortunately, we are currently in a state of crisis. A plague has decimated our population, and we have yet to find a cure. Victims lose all their body hair and suffer fevers and convulsions. One in three cases is fatal. We can send you all our medical data by electronic file. Can you offer assistance?”

  “Can we?” Robishaw asked VanDer.

  He rubbed his chin and said nothing as minutes ticked by. The fourth officer, Harrigan, was a fully qualified physician but VanDer didn’t so much as look at him. Finally, he said, “Yes, it’s a purely scientific problem after all. Although I have no biological training myself, we have some of the best medical staff available onboard. I’m sure we can come up with a solution given time. Tell this Dr. Apple to send his files. We’ll get to work on the problem right away.”

  Robishaw smiled approvingly. “Yes sir, I’ll tell him that we’re here to help.”

  She sent her message, and within hours, the med staff was working on the data they received round the clock as the Yang-He traveled at its best sub-light speed to the colony known as Isis.

  ***

  When the Yang-He passed over Central City, the story came into sharper focus. A twelve-acre cluster of white buildings surrounded by armed guards and razor wire appeared on the viewscreen that separated the source of Dr. Apple’s radio transmissions from the rest of the settlement. And as for the rest of that community, nothing could be seen but shanty towns and swampy terrain.

  Robishaw handed her captain a data file. “Our medical staff thinks they may have a way to arrest the disease’s progress, but it will need to be tested on actual victims of the plague. Dr. Harrigan calls it an anti-mitotic; a drug that blocks transmission of a disease but doesn’t necessarily cure it. Still, it’s the best his staff could do, and all of the landing party is receiving it as a precaution.”

  “Thank you, Ms. Robishaw.” The captain scratched his chin while he gazing at the viewscreen in his office. “Tell me, where do you think our shuttles should land?”

  “First off, sir, I recommend we only send Shuttle One and keep the other Gazelle in standby. I don’t see any clear fields that would make for a good landing site in the vicinity of the colony. However, there is a piece of especially flat, rocky ground two kilometers to the north.”