Alpha Rising

by G. L. Douglas

  “If you say so.”

  Her big blue eyes twinkled. “B-I-B-L-E, Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth.”

  Bach handed her a tube of water and repeated, “If you say so.” He checked the viewscreen as he sat. “Ya gotta wonder how the AstroLab’s crew’s doing, lost in space with Luke Lynch as commander.”

  She groaned. “Yeah, I heard he’s a tyrant.”

  “They don’t call him by his last name for nothing. Personally, I think the old man has made one flight too many.”

  Faith slid her gold cross back and forth on the chain. “But he has a way of getting the best performance from diverse personalities.”

  “That’s what worries me. Kaz is a diverse personality all by herself. I hope old drill-sergeant Lynch has compassion for his rookie astronaut. She’s young. This is a lot for her to handle.”

  “I’m betting he’ll try to take command of this ship on the way home.”

  Bach smirked a little. “He can’t. He doesn’t know how to fly this one.”

  *****

  CHAPTER THREE

  Bach watched incoming feed on a data panel. Beyond Mars, space/time delays between NASA and the Wizard made timely receipt and transmission of electronic communiqués a persistent problem. “Finally, fresh information,” he said, then read aloud, “‘Last stats hold. AstroLab and crew believed safe with main powerplant down.’”

  Faith talked as she typed on a keyboard. “They’re probably psychologically numb. Space has such an impact on emotions.”

  After checking a radarscope, Bach said, “Nothing resembling the Lab registering. Their backup systems must be at minimum or we’d have detected them by now.” He shook his head. “If there were a way to fly the Lab and crew home, Deni Kambo would do it. She piloted my last spacewalk mission. Hard to believe I’m involved in her rescue.”

  Faith nodded, then reached up and snagged Kaz’s picture from the air for a closer look. “She’s very pretty. How long have you been together?”

  “Ten months. We were both part of the Viking mission prep crew. She didn’t launch with us, but I admired her technical skills and enjoyed her feisty attitude. Tracked her down later and we’ve been together ever since.” He paused, then chuckled and added, “It’s a good thing I like people who speak their mind, ’cause Kaz’s thoughts run from her brain to her lips, uncensored.”

  “How’d she score a spot on the AstroLab?”

  “She’s a technical whiz. Aced every phase of training and suggested a modification that was approved and incorporated. She’s only twenty-six. Got drafted into an experimental astronaut space program straight from high school.”

  “Sounds like a great lady.”

  “Yeah, my little Latin spitfire.” He raised his eyebrows. “You got a special man?”

  “First, Almighty God. Then, Paul is my true love on the earthly plane. He’s in Jerusalem right now.”

  “Jerusalem?”

  “With the American Anthropological Society’s research team, carbon dating artifacts at Hebrew University—piecing together evidence of Noah’s ark.”

  “Interesting. How’d you meet?”

  “Two years ago I was on the balcony of my condo watching a spectacular meteor shower. They were comin’ down one a minute. Paul, a handsome archeologist working on The Noah Project, was on the balcony next door. I’ve been fascinated by Noah’s ark since I was a little girl. I have a huge collection of Noah trinkets—plates, snow globes, jewelry.” She paused for a breath. “We’ve been together ever since that night.”

  Bach smiled. “Sounds like the two of you were meant to be.”

  “Yeah, and we both love God’s kingdom. I traverse the stars; Paul explores terra firma.”

  Bach flipped through papers on a clipboard. “Know anything about G.R., the doctor on the AstroLab?”

  She shuddered. “Oh, yeah. He instructed my medical class. He’s an excellent doctor, but a little strange. He cracks jokes at odd times, and snorts when he laughs which draws attention to his Neanderthal-like face. So the class always laughed, but it wasn’t at his jokes. Worse is his irritating habit of beginning almost every sentence with, ‘In my opinion.’”

  “Uh-oh.” Bach rolled his eyes. “I bet Kaz breaks him of that before we get back home.”

  *****

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Lost in deep space in the AstroLab, Lynch, Deni, Kaz, and G.R. performed like trained professionals the first few days of their crisis, but their reality changed for the worse when repeated attempts failed to restore the main powerplant or regain contact with Earth and they faced the fact that they were helpless to get back home on their own. One of the few positives was that their Artificial Gravity (AG) unit remained functional on backup power.

  Kaz tapped a stream of data into a computer at her mid-ship workstation. Lynch hovered nearby, his lived-in face and close-set blue eyes riveted to her activity. She shifted in her seat. “Please find something else to do. I can’t concentrate with you hanging over my shoulder.”

  His nostrils flared as he spoke. “Just hurry up with that feasibility study.” Six strides of his long legs took him back to the cockpit. He interrupted Deni, seated at her pilot’s position, and complained in his thick Tennessee drawl, “We’ve accomplished nothin’ drifting in space. We’re gonna link up with the old space station.”

  Deni hoisted her six-foot, two-inch frame from the pilot’s seat and stared at the commander face to face. Her eyes opened so wide the whites looked twice the size against her dark brown skin. “Too big a risk. Too far away.”

  Lynch’s chest rose with a hard breath. “We’re not gonna get back home in this ship. So you got a better idea, Deni?”

  “Yes. Let’s try for planet Urusa. Kaz’s idea to use the spacewalk jetpack’s power as transitory propulsion is a good one. We can make it to Urusa if it works.”

  “I ain’t sacrificin’ the jetpack’s powerpacks on speculation. Urusa may not be a biosphere. We’re better off usin’ that power to head back to our solar system to link up with the space station. We could eventually be rescued from there.”

  G.R. grew tired of holding his tongue and yelled from aft cabin, “In my opinion, you’re both rushing ahead blindly with an all-or-nothing mentality.” His primitive looks and casual humor made it hard for his crewmates to take him seriously in technical matters. “You know NASA’s doing everything possible to find us. They won’t be looking for us at the space station—it’s opposite of where we are. They’ll be looking near Urusa. We need to stay put. Our chances of being rescued are better if we don’t do anything rash.”

  “NASA doesn’t have a spacecraft suited for a rescue where we are beyond our solar system. You know that,” Lynch almost yelled. “But the space station’s nuclear powered heat ’n’ communications relay systems should be functional. We’re two weeks down without power and we only got a week’s worth of food, at best. I will get us home.”

  G.R. headed to the cockpit and confronted Lynch. “They abandoned that depleted relic three years ago for good reason. Don’t tell me you haven’t heard the whispered rumors among the astronaut community of unethical experiments by foreign countries using that space station.”

  Lynch looked at his crew, yelled, and shook his finger at the same time. “Don’t give me any more crap!” A cord-like vein divided his forehead and his voice intensified. “I’ve ridden more flights than all of you combined; lived through emergencies, oxygen cutoffs, power malfunctions, unexplained phenomena, and g-pukin’ rookies who thought they had all the answers, but the fact remains I’m the commander of this ship, and we’re goin’ to the old space station.”

  A three-foot-long feasibility report spewed from Kaz’s data center. She tore it off and shoved it at Lynch. “Here’s your sim, Commander, you figure it out.” She stormed to aft cabin choking back tears and looked through a viewport into total darkness. “What if we don’t make it? I’ll never see Bach again … or my parents … or my cats.”

  On her he
els with the printout gripped in one hand, Lynch roared, “Cats? Kaz, cats?” The vein on his forehead bulged again. “We’re in a life or death situation and you’re worried about cats?”

  Her brown eyes locked on his face. “You just made me more determined not to spend my last days here with you.”

  The commander clamped his hand over Kaz’s arm and shoved the papers under her nose. “Didn’t you absorb the data you referenced? We can reach the space station. Look at the stats.”

  The young rookie’s hands shook so hard she couldn’t read the printout. “I can’t function under this microcontrol.”

  G.R. pressed to her side to study the simulation for linkup under one of the overhanging gull-wing-shaped docking ports on opposite sides of the wheel-like space station. He shook his head. “In my opinion, we should stay put.” His big brows furrowed. “What worries me most is potential for biohazards left over from old medical research. I got a wife and three kids.”

  Lynch took the printout from G.R. “They also grew hydroponic food. There’s a chance we can regenerate those projects. And there should be oxygen canisters aboard.” His drawl turned hot, “I ain’t wastin’ any more time. Return to your workstations.” He pointed at Kaz. “Run a sim usin’ the jetpack’s fuel canisters. Get it done. One way or another, we will dock with the old space station.” He spoke to Deni in the cockpit without looking at her. “Get your controls reset as soon as Kaz gives you the specs. We’ll try a manual fire of fuel canisters for propulsion.”

  Deni leaned back and folded her arms across her chest. Her angry black eyes almost shot sparks. “The space station’s too far away. This isn’t a one-man show, Lynch. I don’t like the risks and neither do the others. You’re gambling with our lives. You know we’ll have just one go at docking. If we screw up, we’ll be so far off course that NASA will never find us.”

  Lynch leaned to within inches of her face. “I’m the commander and you’re the coxswain, and this is a command. You sit ’n’ do what you were trained to do.”

  “I wasn’t trained to take your foolish risks.”

  “Feel free to leave at any time. But until then, you’re hereby ordered to orchestrate the rendezvous.”

  *****

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Bach and Faith were five days into their mission, with no sign of the AstroLab, when he asked for NASA’s approval to search beyond the target area. Waiting for the reply, he focused on surveillance systems while Faith monitored heat, motion, and energy sensing devices. In the last two hours they’d detected three objects in deep space, but none met the Lab’s profile.

  Faith fired off rounds of communications signals and listened for a response through her headset. “Nothing.”

  Bach stared into the star-studded blackness beyond the porthole. “They’re out there somewhere. Why haven’t we found them? This equipment can detect a fly on Mars.”

  Faith fiddled with the cross on her neckchain. “What if we don’t?”

  “We’re gonna find ’em,” he said firmly. “But it makes me sick to think that if we fail, millions of dollars will be made by people on Earth turning our crewmates’ disappearance into extraterrestrial madness.”

  She looked at him with an odd expression. “Do you believe aliens exist?”

  “Didn’t in the past. But to have lost the AstroLab without a trace in uncharted territory … maybe there are little green men on Urusa who didn’t want company.”

  Faith tucked the cross inside her jumpsuit and pondered Bach’s comment.

  “But I’m betting the crew’s okay,” he added. “Their combination of raw talent, experience, and guts will prevail.”

  “What if they’re on Urusa? They were just a day away when they lost communications. It’s a safe risk. Where else would they go?”

  Bach shrugged. “Maybe there’s something hiding out here that astronomers haven’t discovered.”

  “Like what?”

  “A peculiar warp in the space-time continuum just beyond our solar system that sends unsuspecting travelers into a domain where neither light nor radio waves can propagate. A space inversion where other worlds, other universes, exist.”

  A weak whistle slipped from Faith’s lips. “Other universes? I’ve read about stuff like that. It would be awesome, but so far I don’t buy it.” To change the subject she focused on the latest data from Mission Control. “I wish NASA would hurry up with that go-ahead, Urusa in particular. If our guys are there, we’ll just make it in time.”

  “Yep. Pressure’s on.” Bach said. Then, like all astronauts, he talked to himself. “Adrenaline rush’s what I love most about this job.”

  With screens flickering, lights blinking, fans and motors droning, the two huddled at the sensor panel and processed incoming data. When a doorbell-like chime went off at mid ship, Faith drifted through the cabin to silence the noisy tracking device. The display screen showed a large mass surrounded by an energy field in Earth’s solar system, but far from both the Wizard’s search area and the AstroLab’s last known whereabouts.

  A half-hour later, an affirmative communiqué from NASA reached the Wizard. Bach printed a copy and read aloud. “‘AstroLab’s crew in contact. Docked with space station.’”

  Faith pointed over his shoulder to something on the page. “Look! A warning! The ship didn’t get there under the crew’s control.”

  “Whew.” Bach read more. “‘Powerful, unexplained forcefield catapulted Lab through space like a rock from a slingshot. Released ship at space station. Lab’s communications systems inexplicably regenerated on backup power one hour later. Unhurt crew awaiting arrival of Wizard and crew.’”

  Energized at learning their fellow astronauts were alive and in Earth’s solar system, Bach and Faith readied for the rescue. “We’ll dock the Wizard beneath the space station’s other gull-wing,” Bach said. “Then the Lab’s crew can jetpack-ferry two over, one back, until we have ’em all aboard.” He took a deep breath. “Hopefully, we’ll be on the sunny side of the space station.”

  Faith nodded, then read the last line on the communiqué. “‘Anticipate possible dangers from the forcefield en route to the space station.’”

  *****

  CHAPTER SIX

  Bach and Faith piloted the Wizard through deep space without incident. As Bach had hoped, they arrived at the space station on its sunny side. They welcomed the sights of the AstroLab safely docked and a view of planet Earth in the distance. Anxious to reunite with their fellow astronauts, they successfully linked up under the second gull-wing docking port.

  But when Faith tried to report to NASA, alarms screeched, gongs clanged, and the cabin plunged into darkness.

  Bach shouted, “Total power failure!” His voice coarsened, “No oxygen regeneration system; no heat.”

  With only faint light coming through the portholes to work by, Faith tried to initialize an emergency communications link. “Everything’s dead!” she yelled to Bach.

  Cabin temperature dropping at five degrees a minute, Bach called out, “Hurry, pack up what you can. We’ll cut through the space station to the AstroLab.”

  The Wizard’s cabin temperature was now at fifty degrees.

  The two struggled into their spacesuits in zero gravity and bounced around the cabin gathering breathing devices, medical supplies, personal effects, a flashlight, and all the dehydrated food they could fit into two duffel bags. Bach grabbed the ship’s huge log containing paper copies of processing equipment data, mission details, codes, and ship schematics. In addition to records stored in computers, crews documented details of every mission in journals as an emergency reference.

  Wearing air packs and carrying all they could, Bach and Faith crawled through the Wizard’s docking port to the space station’s hatch. Bach opened it, then, as if swimming, the two propelled themselves through the airlock by flashlight, surfacing near the flight deck. The station’s nuclear powered, temperature-controlled interior fascinated Bach, and he took in as much as he could in a curs
ory glance while drifting by. Seconds later they reached the airlock on the space station’s far side and hastened through to the docked AstroLab. Bach opened the Lab’s exterior hatch and entered the ship with Faith.

  The four aboard the AstroLab had watched Bach and Faith dock with the space station and wondered why they hadn’t made contact. When they heard noises coming from the airlock they realized who it was, and as soon as their comrades entered, Kaz, Deni, and G.R. welcomed them. Lynch stood aside with arms folded across his chest, impatiently tapping his foot.

  Artificial gravity brought Bach and Faith to a dizzying halt after days in weightlessness. Feeling disoriented, their bodies as heavy as lead, both braced themselves against the ship’s walls as they pulled off their helmets and slid the airpacks from their shoulders.

  Holding in excitement at reuniting with her fiancé, Kaz helped Deni move helmets, airpacks and supplies from the aisle.

  Lynch stepped in front of Bach. “What are you doing over here? We were supposed to board the Wizard. And how did you get our hatch open?”

  “Hold it a minute while I adjust to gravity.” Bach leaned over with hands on bent knees to ease his light-headedness.

  Kaz glared at Lynch and helped Bach to a seat at mid ship. Deni led Faith to a jumpseat in the galley.

  Lynch moved to mid ship and hovered over Bach. “Bach, what’s going on?”

  “Fill you in … in a minute,” he said weakly.

  “You’re on my ship now. You’ll defer to me as commander.”

  Bach took a deep breath. “Okay, Commander. As soon as we docked … we lost all power. No backup, no emergency systems. Had five minutes to get out alive.”