Across the Stars: Book Three of Seeds of a Fallen Empire

by Anne Spackman

  “I’m from Rostov-on-Don, not Siberia–” Nikolai began to protest when suddenly one of the UESRC scientists called the group to silence.

  “Looks like this party is about to start,” Kusao whispered into Erin’s ear.

  Just inside the inner air lock door, Knightwood greeted the teams, her face betraying her excitement. Erik looked from one person to another as the team entered. He saw the amazement on their faces as they boarded the Discovery and remembered the fear and awe he and the other Blue Stripes Sky Hawks had felt several months earlier when they were the first to enter the abandoned ship.

  “Hey, where are we going?” Lieutenant Grayson whispered as the procession continued further into the Great Cargo Bay.

  “Forget that.” Lieutenant Dayton said, straining to see ahead through the crowd. “I want to know what’s in this place,” he looked towards the remainder of W’s old squadron, then to Erik and Erin.

  “Be patient. If we’re going to live here, we should find out soon,” Erik started to say.

  “What’s going on now?” Charbonneau said as Knightwood called the teams to a halt. Knightwood’s voice suddenly interrupted the whispers, booming over the Earth-installed intercom system.

  “Welcome to the Discovery. This is the Great Bay, and if you take a look around, you will see many of the fighters left here by the original crew. In a few moments we will be continuing, but I’d like to take a moment to explain what is expected of you in the next few months.

  “As the new crew of the Discovery, you should try to learn as much about the Discovery’s original crew and culture as possible, and how the ship functions on a grand scale and down to the simplest control panels. When your ship-board duties have ended, you may use your free time to study the artifacts and biological specimens stored in the other cargo bays and in our on-board museum.

  “If you could take a moment to study the undeciphered alien symbols in our museum, any suggestions about recognizable patterns that might be a breakthrough to discovering the Discovery’s systems’ language would be appreciated. You might as well know that our computer code-breakers have yet to decipher the script, so we are in many ways going to be flying in the dark, so to speak. The UESF hoped to figure out the strange alien writing by now, but I’m afraid our cryptographers have made little progress with it.

  “Now, I realize there are many passages within the ship open to traffic–this thing seems even bigger on the inside, if that’s possible.” Knightwood shook her head. “But you’ll need to learn your way around, and the sooner you do will be to your advantage.” Knightwood paused and gestured the groups forward, past a team of technicians working on a UESRC shuttle that had been brought into the Great Bay. Beyond the shuttle, the group finally saw the rows of alien fighters the Blue Stripes remembered, a strange mix of sleek plates and organic-looking infrastructure.

  Erik watched as the Great Bay full of fighter planes drew mutterings of amazement from the crews; the Blue Stripes Sky Hawks heard one of the new pilots ask a technician how much energy it took to keep the place lit up, but the technicians working on the shuttle told him they didn’t know. All they knew was that the Great Bay had been illuminated since they arrived, and its lighting system could not be deactivated. But since the energy source did not tap into the Earth-made energy systems, no one was concerned about the energy cost, and the scientists were too preoccupied with other concerns to give it any attention yet.

  The new additions to the Blue Stripes Sky Hawks began asking if they would have to learn to fly these alien fighters, as if they expected the other Blue Stripes had been privy to every new development. However, Knightwood quieted all of the questions, telling the assembly that although they were working on figuring out how to operate the machines, they were unable to use them yet.

  To Kusao’s mind, the old Blue Stripes Sky Hawks grew strangely silent as they passed the fighters. Erik winked at Einar Suffield-Andersen and jerked his chin towards the alien planes. Nathalie looked up, confused by his gesture, then broke into a wide grin, remembering that Einar had been the first to discover them.

  But suddenly Nathalie’s face grew somber as she recalled Katrin. Looking up at the ceiling, Katrin had walked behind Nathalie that day in April. Nathalie suppressed a desire to turn around, as though if she remained still Katrin would come up behind her again. But it was Ho-ling who stepped forward and laid a hand on Nathalie’s shoulder.

  Ahead, Knightwood instructed the team to keep to the left as they turned a corner onto a moving passage.

  “Hey Erik, you didn’t say anything about moving floors,” lieutenant Grayson scolded, wagging an admonishing finger at him.

  “I didn’t know there were any moving corridors,” Erik protested. “They weren’t working before, believe me. It took us eight hours to get through this place before,” he added, throwing up his hands.

  As they walked on the rapidly moving strip of floor, the group turned their heads left and right to regard the doorways that whisked by, long shadowed corridors that amplified every sound, turning voices into soft, reverberating echoes. After passing into a large elevation shaft which took them up almost to the top of the ship, the team passed down another corridor and finally arrived near the quarters where the Blue Stripes had found the picture and documents on their first visit. As the group turned left again, they were able to step off the moving floor and into a long stationary area.

  At the end of this corridor, Zhdanov, Cheung, Kansier, and several others waited to introduce the squadrons to their new quarters. Erin recognized Major Dimitriev talking to one of the scientists, a pretty young woman whose blond hair had been tied up into a loose twist with a hair clip. The group of scientists turned towards the new arrivals, but it was Zhdanov who stepped forward to welcome them.

  Zhdanov explained that the recon teams had discovered a little over two thousand open suites in the surrounding section, some of them with two or more rooms attached to a central area and sanitary station facility. The plan was to give the larger quarters to married officers and families with children, and some areas had already been reserved for scientists and their families, maintenance crews, and experienced officers arriving from space in the coming week.

  In order to make room for the large crew, anywhere from three to seven members of each squadron would have to share each quarters, as they had at the UESRC, Ural Base, and the other training bases.

  Cheung then informed the new crew that they would be receiving one of the three different Discovery uniforms that had been created. The squadrons knew that the old teams had been re-combined, but they still did not know into which team they had been placed. Cheung explained that each member would find their new identification number and rank code emblazoned upon the epaulettes and chestplate. The new uniforms had already been sent to the new quarters.

  After a moment, Zhdanov and his ten colleagues divided the company into three smaller groups to take them through the maze of corridors in the ship to find their new quarters assignments. Most of the teams realized the divisions had been made according to the new squadron list, but shouts dividing the “blue team”, “gold team”, and “maroon team” meant nothing to them yet.

  The Blue Stripes Sky Hawks were gathered with the other members of the Blue team taken from the Ural Base’s new Kracivii and last year’s Cirii team, Yokohama’s grey-clad Nezumiiro unit, Ruhestadt’s Weisse-Grun team, Liberty Statue City’s Orange Stripes, and several other teams, as well about a hundred individuals chosen from the various bases of Earth.

  “So that’s what they were up to,” Kusao directed at Erik as Captain Hermosillo directed them down a nearby corridor, the second narrow passage on the left side of the main corridor. “Looks like my team’s going to be in the same new squadron as all of you.”

  As the team received their new room assignments, the group began to thin out. Erin heard Hermasillo call her name, then Ho-ling Chen’s as one of Erin’s roommates. The other three were unfamiliar: Lieutenant Jianming Zh
ang from the Hong Kong Astrophysics Academy, lieutenant Nariko Inoue, one of the Nezumiiro pilots Kusao said had just returned to Yokohama from a year around Titan, and lieutenant Nicole Lenoir from the Marseilles Academy.

  Moments later Nathalie Quinn was assigned to a room three doors down with Amina Johnson from the Blue Stripes, lieutenant Sagara Vohra from the Caspian Sea Security Base, and lieutenant Jeanne Drouillard from the North European Science Center.

  When the corridor ended ahead, the remaining few followed Hermasillo up the other side.

  “Room B314 Ross, Garrick, Kusao.” Hermasillo said once they continued back the other side of the corridor.

  “Hey, Ross, I’m taking the sleep panel by the wall,” Kusao said as they entered the room.

  “Okay.”

  “You don’t snore, do you?”

  “No complaints yet,” Erik said, looking around. Several Earth-created sleep panels had been installed, but there was one alien sleeping panel in the room, hidden in the wall but accessible through an access strip on the wall with several light panels. The squadrons had been asked not to use the originals; rumor had it that in some of them a clear, elliptical dome descended over the sleeper, and circulated a not-quite human atmosphere within it. Even the most adventurous were too afraid of suffocation to use the alien sleep panels or chambers; others were too afraid of being caught inside the impermeable dome without knowing how to deactivate it to tamper with the panel.

  “Which sleep panel do you want?” Erik asked Garrick.

  “It doesn’t matter to me,” Garrick said, shrugging. “I don’t think I’ll be sleeping much tonight.” He gave a nervous laugh, gazing about the room as if half-expecting something to pop out at him. Though it had been stripped of alien artifacts, it was still undeniably alien in nature; Erik forgot that the others had not seen the interior of the ship before. There was a computer terminal on the wall, an intimidating array of light panels and controls no one knew how to operate yet, and alien symbols all over the place, on nearly every access panel. On some of them–as in the water closet–Erik saw that new labels in several different Earth languages had been superimposed onto the alien symbols, as if in that simple gesture, the new occupants could assert control over the old.

  Erik shrugged away his fears and started unpacking, then stopped, staring at the pile of new uniforms that had been left on his sleeping panel.

  He picked one up and handed it to Kusao, then found his own underneath Garrick’s. Little had been amended from the alien script on the shoulders and chestplates; additional insignias in familiar roman letters had been added for each enlisted officer. A moment later, he had pulled on the new hallmark of their enlarged team, a uniform of alien design, pale blue with a script of distorted triangles and swirls.

  Should we be using this, even if we can? he wondered, but he knew there was little point in questioning. What could he do, anyway? Nothing, he knew, but follow his orders.

  * * * * *

  Over the next few weeks, various members of the squadron held gatherings in the hours after training, in which the teams related their experiences and attempted to get to know each other. Stories circulated of two Discovery candidates who had gone missing; for a while, the squadrons thought they had been abducted by creatures on board, but it turned out later that they had returned to the UESRC without permission and been discharged from the mission. Both faced three years of solitary for going AWOL, but in the end received a lighter punishment after psychological evaluation, as if the UESF realized that this case was special.

  Of course, it was asking a lot of the squadrons to live inside the alien spaceship, but the two discharged candidates were sentenced to solitary confinement until the Discovery launched, in order to keep word of the ship’s existence from leaking through to the general population.

  After the rumors about the two former candidates died down, the Blue Stripes Sky Hawks found themselves continually questioned each evening to retell their stories, for they had become famous as the first team to enter the alien ship. Arnaud’s fourteen present infiltration team members were equally if not more highly regarded as a source of information; Erik and Erin told their stories time and time again as new people dropped in on the nightly meetings and wanted to hear everything from the beginning.

  A few evenings Erin found herself dragged into another discussion when she would have gone off to explore the ship; sometimes her old friends from the Blue Stripes were in on it and had been sent to seek her out. Though Knightwood had reminded everyone that those who made the best progress learning the alien ship’s functions would become candidates for the primary teams among each squadron, the nightly conversations diminished the competitive atmosphere among the crew.

  Once the Blue team knew each other by sight if not by name, some began to wander over to the Maroon team’s quarters nearby. Gradually, members of the Gold team as well as the nearby Maroon team members found their way to the Blue team parties, and the atmosphere turned celebratory for those who had never known such festivity before.

  Knightwood and the other high-ranking officers and scientists did not mind the revelry going on; in fact, they had encouraged it, sometimes even dropping in on one of the nightly events. It was a good way to relieve fears and nerves, but also as the teams became friendly, each day their drill performance improved.

  And Zhdanov and Knightwood demanded 100% and then some from everyone during training hours. The teams spent ten hours a day training in simulators devised from the actual positions in the command center; some days the squadrons were divided and allowed to test real disaster scenarios on deactivated consoles.

  In the afternoons, most of the new crew had found time to wander back down the highly-trafficked corridors to the cargo bay housing the bizarre alien artifacts; many formed groups to explore unfamiliar corridors into areas where only a few security sentries appeared at intervals. The sentries informed the trainees to return to the corridors and rooms accessible to them; they should not be wasting time searching among the dead-end, still sealed areas.

  The only problem was that none of the Discovery’s new officers were listening.

  * * * * *

  “Ha, so the old coot finally deigns to reply,” Knightwood laughed aloud as she sat down in her quarters, but not without affection.

  The famous Earth scientist Dr. Cameron had taken a month to respond to the video report she had sent him after the council’s meeting. In it she had asked him if he would return to active duty and help examine the alien ship. At the time, the UESF had been confident that they would be able to activate the ship’s engines after several successful test firings; however, there had been a few hicc-ups in testing the generators at full power, and Cheung suspected one of the closed areas around the main engine room might hold a key to generating the necessary engine power that fueled the anti-gravity device.

  At the end of a long day spent among the Maroon team in the simulators, Knightwood had returned to her quarters to find a hand-written message delivered to her by courier from her former colleague. The note reminded her that there was still a problem operating the communications console for transmissions outside the ship; but the present matter called her attention.

  Dear Knightwood,

  I regret that I will not be able to make the party. My research here on the superior resiliency of the new Talex artificial ligaments is just getting to the point where leaving would be quite impossible. I’m afraid the Health Committee out here has asked for a personal presentation. Anyway, we both know there is little point in my getting involved in the UESF tangle again, and semi-retired life suits me well. You must remember that poking around our hot little ship was always less exciting for me than you and Zhdanov. I don’t need to study alien baubles to quell my sense of curiosity. You mentioned that the Blue Stripes were to be a part of the new Discovery crew. If things have worked out, could you please keep an eye on lieutenant Mathieson-Blair for me? If she has any difficulties adjusting, please inform me right a
way. In that case, I suppose a day or two away from my responsibilities could be arranged. Perhaps it may seem foolish of me, but I have grown quite fond of the girl.

  Your Friend,

  Alastair Cameron

  P.S. When are the two of you going to get married? I’ve been expecting the wedding announcements for too long, and an old man gets impatient with waiting.

  Knightwood blushed as she read the last remark; It was true she and Zhdanov loved each other–at least she knew she loved Zhdanov and she sensed he felt the same–but she had thought that this was still a secret between them. Now she wondered how obvious they were to everyone else.

  As for Cameron’s professed fondness for the Mathieson-Blair girl, well that was no secret. For years he had treated her strange childhood illness, and from what she had heard, the young woman’s parents were still welcome for visits and had maintained close contact with the old scientist. Knightwood did not consider it unusual that he would wish to see her if she had difficulty adjusting to life on board the Discovery; she often worried that the young woman’s early childhood memories of the ship’s crash could resurface and cause her post-traumatic stress.

  Yet Knightwood had often wondered why Cameron had become so possessive in the matter of her treatment. He had sacrificed every engagement to personally oversee Erin’s annual physicals. And long ago he had refused to allow either Knightwood or Zhdanov to review her case. Knightwood had dismissed it then, assuming that Mathieson and Blair had asked that the case remain private in order to give Erin as normal a life as possible.

  Yet what of that now? Knightwood didn’t want to have to leave Erin behind if the girl did have difficulties. She remembered the hypothesis which she had formed during that first expedition into the ship that somehow something on board the Discovery, perhaps some lingering alien presence, had made contact with the girl. Though that seemed unbelievable to her rational mind, she had still selected the Blue Stripes Sky Hawks for transfer to the alien ship.

  * * * * *