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

by Anne Spackman

  “No, I don’t think that will work,” Kansier answered slowly, quieting his own sense of the absurd. “In fact, I know it won’t.” Why had they dared to believe it possible to use this alien ship? he wondered. Still he knew there was nothing to be gained by inaction. “We can’t get to the engines–we can’t even access the area where the power is coming from.”

  Some of the crew just stared at him; several suddenly caught their breath.

  Erin looked over to where Scott Dimitriev was still trying to gain control of his instruments, adjusting switches in a vain effort to affect the ship’s navigational computer. The sight struck a nerve inside her; glaring down at her screen, she cursed their powerlessness.

  I wish I had never heard of this spaceship!, she thought angrily.

  “Damn you, whatever you are!” She cried, kicking the console. “You won’t get the best of us!” At the same instant, she felt her mind wrestling the intruder that had suddenly appeared in her consciousness; crushing it in her fury, she pushed past it, allowing the energy that flowed from her mind to reach the mental image she had created of the engine room.

  “Dammit, work, respond!” She cried.

  Then there was silence.

  “You won’t believe this, sir. The ship’s engines are responding now,” lieutenant Bekker suddenly announced with a kind of stunned relief, drawing Dimitriev’s concerned eyes from Erin; he was glad to see that she was only furious, not panicking. The others stared at her a moment longer, still disturbed and intrigued by her bizarre outburst. Kansier himself chose not to comment on it.

  “What’s the next window?” Kansier demanded.

  “It’s the Ural Base, sir.” Bekker said.

  “Fine then. Take us in as soon as you can.” Before anything else can go wrong, he added to himself.

  In moments, the ship shifted its course in response to the navigators’ adjustments. Finally, they broke through the thick cloudcover of the Earth’s atmosphere, the bright afternoon sun vanishing as they descended beneath the clouds to the mountainous terrain that surrounded the Ural Base.

  * * * * *

  Erin was aware that she had been waking up for quite a while, but she woke suddenly, completely. Disoriented, she looked up at Dr. Knightwood’s anxious face, at her furrowed forehead and her eyebrows drawn together in concern.

  “Are you all right, Erin? Please answer me.” Knightwood asked, and Erin nodded her head weakly, then glanced around at the near-empty Command Center. The three UESRC scientists Cheung, Knightwood, and Zhdanov had remained with her with a few others she didn’t recognize, as had Colonel Kansier and Major Dimitriev.

  What’s going on? Erin thought, confused.

  “She’ll be all right,” Knightwood announced to the others.

  “Where is everyone?” Erin asked.

  “They’ve gone back to their quarters to help the new Ural base technicians and scientists bring their things in and get settled.” Kansier said, his keen eyes still studying her, as though he wasn’t sure that she had fully recovered. “It may take a while, but with their help we hope to repair the bad connection that kept us from controlling the engines.”

  “The Ural Base technicians?” Erin echoed.

  “You must have fainted when we landed,” Knightwood explained. “Erin, we’ve landed at the Ural Base North Astroport. We don’t want to stay here long since we’re in open view, so Zhdanov sent for the top scientists and technicians here to speed things up. It was an unforeseen necessity, one which I’m afraid will make living arrangements a little tight for a while, especially since they have insisted upon bringing their families inside for protection until we depart, in case that alien cruiser arrives before we can leave. That brings their number up to 1200 or so–considering the very limited amount of open space we can access on this ship, we may even have some rearranging to do.

  “But it’s true,” she added with a smile, waving to Kansier that he could go ahead to the Great Bay without her, “inside the Discovery would be the safest place to be if we’re attacked here. In any case, we’re going to keep them on board for a while in case we experience similar technical failures in the next test run. Then we’ll land at the UESRC and they can return here by transport shuttle.”

  “What about the Yokohama team?” Cheung asked.

  “Oh yes. They’ll be here soon. I’m sure you’ll be fine, Erin, by the time they arrive. We received a request from the Council to allow about fifty scientists and officers from the Yokohama Base. They want to study some more of the alien language, and they’ve even volunteered to help in the repairs. And this afternoon we’re going to need everyone’s help bringing in all of the extra supplies and consignments we’ll soon need, so if you’re up to it...”

  “How long have I been–” Erin began.

  “Only half an hour or so, but things have been moving pretty fast.” Knightwood answered, thinking about taking a moment to visit the Ural Base’s communications room to send a private message to Cameron.

  “Perhaps we should consider getting a new third pilot, one that operates better under pressure,” Dr. Davis, one of the UESRC scientists suggested off-handedly. Knightwood glared at him, irritated that he would mention that in front of Erin herself; this was not the time to be making such suggestions.

  Scott stared at the man, suppressing the sudden desire to punch his lights out. Erin had collapsed after they reached the window to the Ural Base, but she had been operating well up until then. And some of the others who hadn’t fainted seemed borderline catatonic when they left!

  “Don’t worry, Erin,” Knightwood whispered. “Kansier’s got the final say on who gets transferred, and he listens to my suggestions,” she smiled mischievously, then assumed a more authoritative air. “Okay, it’s time to get moving.”

  * * * * *

  Once the new crew had finished moving in, the bridge crews, systems operators, and fighter squadrons were given a full day off each week, and their duty hours were temporarily reduced to five hours a day. Many of the younger officers spent some of their new free time pestering the maintenance crews that were always hard at work looking for an elusive misconnection. In time, some of the officers became well-known to the technicians, and exchanged greetings when they encountered each other in the corridors.

  Those that befriended the maintenance crews were soon put to hard work by them; sensing that the officers had more time than they, some of the technicians suggested that the pilots perform small tasks for them, retrieving parts they had ordered from the Great Bay where supplies came in, bringing one piece of equipment to another location where the other technicians might need it, and helping in some of the manual labor.

  Erin spent one afternoon waiting for a part to be delivered in the Great Bay but was informed that the last one had been given out and that the new ones would take a few days. She wasn’t sure where in the ship her new friend Mr. Makarov would be, and so decided to wait in his quarters to give him the bad news. She knew the maintenance crews were given an hour off for dinner, and that the time wasn’t too long off.

  Erin stood outside the door to his quarters a moment and listened for signs of activity within until she remembered that the walls in the Discovery were completely sound-proof. She could still remember the moment on the bridge when Colonel Kansier had begun shouting down the corridor for the maintenance crews to hurry it up.

  They had needed some cables to run a drill, but one of the corridor section barriers had been left up, and Kansier had finally abandoned his bridge crew to collect the things after waiting twenty-three minutes more. Considering the previous communication difficulty, the bridge crew had felt assured he would not hear the broken chorus of snickers that followed his retreat.

  The door swished open at a light touch of her fingers, and Erin entered slowly, calling out for Mr. Makarov. All of the doors in the apartment had been left ajar, yet there was still no answer. Figuring he was running a little late, she decided to sit down in the living area and wait for
him, when something emerged from the sleep room to greet her. In the quiet, Erin’s ears picked out the clacking of four feet dampened by the rug and turned to get a better view of the fluffy grey kitten that had poked its head into the living area.

  “Well, hello there,” Erin sang out. The cat put a tentative paw forward. “Where is Mr. Makarov, kitty, do you know? Don’t be scared. Come here kitty, come on.” Erin tried her best sweet voice, but it didn’t appear to be working. The kitten had just stopped where it stood and continued to look at her, cocking its head in response but refusing to understand her. Erin wasn’t sure what else to do.

  She decided to try again, but stopped, looking at the frightened animal.

  Don’t fear me.

  Suddenly the kitten tilted its head, then trotted towards her and allowed itself to be picked up.

  “See there, now aren’t you glad you decided to trust me?” She crooned to the purring animal while she stroked under its chin.

  The kitten kept her company for ten or more minutes while Erin waited, and though at first she sat impatiently, it continued to mew happily. Erin kept her eyes on the door half the time, but her friend didn’t oblige her with an automatic appearance, so she turned her attention to the kitten again. The most remarkable thing about it, at least anatomically speaking, was the flexible spinal cord she had been stroking.

  The repetitive motion of petting the animal in time began to put the creature past contentment and into a kind of trance. Erin wondered what it would be like to be such a creature, with four legs in close pairs separated by that flexible spine; as she gazed at the grey fur, she heard the quick rhythm of its heartbeat.

  The repetitive heartbeat seemed to be drawing her towards the creature.

  She needed to stretch, and so arched her long back in satisfaction, curling her delicate forepaws fluidly and then stretching back her hind legs. Where to go? She followed where her senses led, without thinking much about it. She braced herself to jump down in perfect balance and landed skillfully upon the bare grey floor. Ahead lay a flat object, and she began to make her way towards it instinctively, her claws ready to scratch to pieces–

  “No,” Erin shouted in surprise, seated still on a chair in the living area and spotted the kitten that had nearly reached the carpet floor rug. The cat had stopped and looked around at her, its left foreleg temporarily paused but poised to continue. “No,” she called out tiredly, feeling her own joints stiff now from prolonged sitting, and she was unable to rise from the chair. “Stop, I said,” she continued, but the kitten didn’t respond.

  Erin felt her thoughts stretching away from her, centering upon the kitten. Her consciousness began to receive external motion commands, feeling the motion of energy and molecules in the nerves and muscles. Then, halting the communication of mind to body, she interrupted the movement and sent out her own stream of thought to the synapses, the space between her consciousness and the cat condensed and meaningless. Opening her eyes, Erin observed the leg frozen in mid-air, the rest of the kitten immobilized by her alien mind’s invasion of its body.

  Erin quickly let go of the kitten, her heart pounding in fear; the kitten sprang forward, no longer interested in the carpet. It hurried away to the other room. Erin heard her own breathing as though she heard a stranger and not herself. The things she could do when she was on her own she wouldn’t allow herself to believe, objects seeming to move within reach when she needed them, glasses never shattering as they fell to the floor, and other strange circumstances; yet she had affected something living this time. Did that mean she would have to believe what she had done this time?

  Just then the door swished open; Mr. Makarov came in, whistling a tune.

  “Oh ho, Miss Mathieson-Blair,” he chuckled at Erin’s surprise. “I’m sorry dat I keep you waiting,” he apologized and bent down, fingers outstretched to the kitten. “Koldoon, ka meen-yeh,” he said but stopped in concern as he glanced at Erin’s face. “Are you feeling all right?” he asked in heavily accented Russian.

  “Of course,” she said cheerfully, collecting herself. “I’m fine.”

  Chapter Four

  The morning of the second scheduled test flight of the Discovery, Zhdanov was rushing about his private quarters collecting printouts and information chips. He had been up all night reviewing assessments on each of the temporary Ural Base crew to be presented before the Council in Central City once the Discovery returned to the UESRC and its environs. But he had left the reports until the last minute because other matters had been on his mind.

  Zhdanov still wondered what had kept official word from the UESF from being sent. Without their orders, the crew had no scheduled course of action immediately following the second test flight. Zhdanov hoped they would not be long in coming. After the strange loss of helm control during the first test flight, rumors had flown through the ranks of younger officers that the Discovery had its own agenda and a “life of its own”. While he found the drama and gossip amusing, Zhdanov was also anxious about the upcoming test run.

  After the first test flight, Kansier had given top priority to ensuring that the bridge crew would be able to maintain helm control.

  But even if the flight goes successfully, we don’t even know yet whether to remain in orbit around the planet or return to the Earth, Zhdanov thought dismally.

  Zhdanov shook his head, recalling his surprise when, several days ago, Kansier had confided in Knightwood, Cheung, and Zhdanov. He had told them that before he had even taken on the role of Captain, that the UESF had asked him if he were willing to take a reduced crew comprised largely of scientists out of the solar system, in order to determine if the Discovery was the Charon alien’s main interest in the attack on the Earth.

  If that proved to be the case, Kansier had volunteered to use the ship as a decoy to draw the aliens away, but he and his crew would remain on board in case the Charon aliens gave up the pursuit in favor of returning to the Earth. At such time, the Discovery would need a manual crew to bring her back to the Earth to defend the planet. How far the chase would last no one yet knew, but Kansier had agreed that if it became necessary, he would leave the Earth behind forever.

  Zhdanov wondered how Kansier was taking the uncanny silence from the UESF, but Kansier was certain to know what had caused the delay. No doubt the council was still arguing about what to do.

  Before the first failed test flight, some of the council had criticized even the idea of temporarily using the strange alien vessel to house Earth officers, with still more than eighty percent of the enormous ship sealed. But Zhdanov himself had been witness to the council meetings. He and the other UESRC representatives were not alone in their feeling that the Earth’s protection lay in the possibility of using the indestructible Discovery, the only ship likely to rival the black monolith out at Charon.

  In all the years that the Discovery had been buried on Earth and throughout the extensive reconnaissance explorations of it, there had been no sign of alien activity within it. While no one had ruled out the possibility that possible aliens on board might make their presence known at some time in the future, the crew had been trained to react in that eventuality, but Knightwood had pointed out that if the aliens were truly humanoid, therein lay the possibility of mutual understanding and even cooperation. In any case, the UESF had reluctantly concluded that the risk was justified for the defense of the planet and its future.

  This was of course, providing that the Earth crew could figure out the last of the Discovery’s complex systems, though the functioning of most of the major operating systems had been determined. Strangely enough, though so much of the ship remained sealed, the Earth crew had access to the bridge and all of its control panels. Only the actual circuitry, the complex interior of the ship, remained closed to investigation, an investigation which would have exposed the innovations of the alien’s technology.

  Without any knowledge of the actual working technology, the UESF had been forced to scrap any plans of replicating th
e vessel’s design. If they wanted to use the ship, they would have to risk the possibility that an alien threat might be on board, even though bioscans had registered no recognizable signs of higher life forms–and the crew itself had to be willing to accept that risk.

  Like some of the other scientists, Zhdanov himself believed that the UESF wanted to outfit the Discovery in order to keep the Charon aliens from reclaiming it. No matter how the war between the races had started, he felt sure the ship would do more harm in the Charon aliens’ hands.

  Nevertheless, Zhdanov often found himself looking over his shoulder. Who knew what lay within Discovery, just waiting for its chance to get them?

  During his last visit to the bridge, Zhdanov had overheard even more speculative rumors about the future mission of Discovery. The officers had heard that the entire crew presently on board would lead the ship away immediately following the second test flight. One of them had helped bring two shuttles into one of the smaller cargo bays; the major felt certain that the shuttles had been loaded on board for the crew to jettison and abandon the Discovery if it appeared that the Charon aliens were going to follow it.

  Thankfully the larger crew did not seem to be aware of Kansier’s orders to remain indefinitely on board.

  Still, the material point was that the Earth had nothing to lose by trying to fly Discovery. No one knew how much time remained before the Charon aliens decided to destroy the planet. The Charon aliens could destroy the Earth at any given moment, and any option to fight them was a good one, however desperate. Such as using the Discovery against them.

  Recently, from what Zhdanov now understood, the Ural Base technicians were closer to understanding the mechanisms of Discovery’s defense systems buried under the hull plating. Even better, the external communications console had finally started working yesterday when some of the Blue Stripes Sky Hawks and some of their new friends had wandered into the communication station and volunteered to help the technician hard at work.