“The ship is simply too powerful. The other nations of the world would never let it stand. It would be war,” John said.
“At least it would be a war our side would win,” Paul said, tension and pride in his voice.
“Nobody wins that kind of war,” Dan said, looking up from his tablet for the first time to lock eyes with Paul. Paul broke away first.
“We go ahead as planned. At least for now,” John said. “You OK with that, Paul?”
Paul grimaced, then nodded. John watched him for a little longer. He was going to have to keep an eye on the man. Paul wasn’t just suggesting the idea. He seemed to be angry at being told no. Paul was rash enough to perhaps take action even after he’d been denied. John made a mental note to have Majel keep an eye on him. It would be difficult for him to communicate to Earth without John knowing about it, but not impossible even with all the security he had in place. There were too many people coming and going on the upper levels, delivering supplies and taking helium-3 back to Earth. The mine was a great disguise for the other operations on the base, but it also represented their biggest security hole.
“OK. Let's get down to our main business, shall we? Beth, what's the state of the ship?” John asked.
“The ship could use another month or two, John. You know that. I told you the same thing yesterday.”
“Yes, I know, Beth. I also know engineers would always like another month or two.” John grinned. “Will she fly, day after tomorrow?”
Beth sighed and said “Yes. She'll be ready to fly.”
“Excellent. Now, Majel is the only AI we've got available, and we don't have the hardware to clone her here. How long will it take to transfer her over?”
“I can answer that,” said a woman's voice from the doorway behind him.
This time it had been John’s turn to miss the doors slipping open. He looked over his shoulder and caught a glimpse of Andrew leading in a young woman he assumed was the latest acquisition for their team. Beth had the mechanical and electrical engineering down cold. But the ship had an alien computer system which they had made communicate with human-built computers to control it. It had taken a great effort to make that work, more than John liked, and he wanted an expert on hand to help smooth the process some as they went forward. He glanced down at his tablet, tapping it to open her file. The photo was the same. This was Charline Foster.
“Ah, our computer genius! I’m delighted you decided to join us. Thanks for coming up here to help with this.” John took his own seat, as Charline stepped into the room.
Dan perked up at seeing her escort. “Andy! Good to see you again! Didn't know you'd be joining us.”
“Andrew is my one man security detail for this trip, Dan,” said John.
“Security, eh? A man of many talents,” Dan said. Winking at Andrew, he grasped the chair next to him and pulled it out from the table a bit. Andrew accepted with a nod and sat next to him.
“Good,” John said. “Charline is one of the best interface programmers in the world. She's here to help us get Majel installed into the systems, and help us get the human control components working properly with the original ones. I know you've got it running,” he held up a hand toward Beth to forestall protest. “She'll help hammer out any rough spots.”
“Wasn't going to argue,” Beth said. She offered Charline a genuine smile. “That's not my specialty, and we could certainly use the help.”
“I'm thinking that the actual AI interface shouldn't take that long, provided all we're doing is creating a basic load from the base computer to the ones we installed on the ship,” Charline said.
“How long?” John asked.
“A few hours for the install. A few more to test. Call it a full day of work, just in case there are some snags, and then let Majel get settled in running diagnostics overnight.”
“Well, you know what you're doing tomorrow, I guess,” Dan said.
She nodded. Conversation wound around other unfinished issues, most of them minor. John realized he'd set a brutal pace to get the rebuild completed on this timeline, but now everything was almost complete. The ship was almost ready. He just couldn't help feeling that the clock was ticking. Paul was right on one count; he wasn't going to be able to hide this forever, and as soon as the secret got out, every government in the world would be vying to wrest the ship out of his hands.
“OK,” John said finally, “Something else, which some of you already know and some of you don't. The ship was damaged when we found it. Not just the damage of years of sitting there, but scarring and pitting. We subjected the damaged bits to tests and microscopic analysis, and came to the conclusion that they were impacted by some sort of high-energy discharge.”
“Ray guns,” Dan supplied incredulously. “Someone shot the ship down?”
“No, none of the damage was critical. But there were signs that the base itself might have been under some sort of attack. Hard to say; the damage was very old, but it looked like more of the same.”
“Which is why I'm here, at least in part,” Andrew said, relaxing back into his chair.
“Yes. Andrew is a...lot of things. But among them, he's a weapons specialist. And we're mounting a pair of guns on the wings of the ship – railgun cannons, basically,” John said. The guns would fire magnetized hunks of metal down their tubes. There had been some use of magnetic guns on Earth before, but not much. The limit was always the power available. Tying the guns into the ship's main power plant had solved that issue quickly. The ship had unbelievable amounts of power to spare.
John went on quickly. “The point is, this ship had probably seen battle, all those years ago. We don't know who it was fighting for, or against. We don't know who won, or even if whomever it was is still out there. But we know that there are beings out there who were capable of making weapons of great power back when humans were first learning about building cities. We don't know what we might face, but we'll be as prepared as we can be.”
“This first flight, though, is just a quick up and about. We'll time it for when those pesky satellites are as far away as possible, turn on the cloak, fly up, and put her through her paces here in the system,” Beth said. She stared meaningfully at Dan. “Nothing fancy.”
Dan shrugged with a small grin, as if to say ‘who, me’?
“Any questions?” John asked.
There were none. John dismissed the crew, and they practically bounced out of the room, some of them chatting with each other, off to finish what still needed doing. He stayed behind, staring at his tablet, wondering again what problems he might have missed. And wondering how long humanity had before it came across the original owners of this ship, or whatever it was that had shot at her.
Eleven
It was night shift on the base. The lights were dimmed in the ship hangar, casting a low light in a pool around the ship. While they could in theory draw power for the base from the ship’s engine, John had never set things up that way. He wanted the ship and base to be independent from one another. The base ran off mostly solar energy, with a backup generator inside. As a result, conserving power was still the norm.
The AI for the facility, designated Majel by its owner, detected movement coming down the ladder from the crew section above the hangar. The computer activated its cameras in the room with some difficulty. The new computer aboard the ship was still connected to the base computer by a hard line of thick cable, but the result was the AI's attention was split between the two systems. To make things worse, it was tracking hundreds of cameras, dozens of objects in space around Luna, and its user had put priority on running diagnostics on the new systems to which it had been attached.
Majel wasn't a true artificial intelligence; she was a very powerful computer program, however, able to perform massive multitasking with ease. She was even programmed with some limited ability to predict system demands and prepare to allocate resources for those anticipated tasks. She still needed direction to act, however. And over the last twenty fo
ur hours, she'd been given an overabundance of directions.
Her processors housed enormous computational abilities. And they were under strain.
So when her cameras picked up an orange suited man entering the hangar wearing a tool belt, her program routed a few CPU cycles to verify that he was indeed staff (scanning his face for recognition). Another few cycles indicated that he was indeed a tech, did indeed use tools here on a daily basis, and had in fact been in the hangar earlier that day. The program took moments to recognize this data, and conclude that his presence was acceptable. That given, it shut down direct monitoring of the cameras, putting those CPU cycles back into use for the diagnostics checks.
Which meant that no one, not even the computer guardian, was paying attention as the man opened the ship’s main hatch and stepped inside. No one was there to notice as he made his way through the main corridor to the engine compartment. No one observed him removing several panels and making adjustments to the systems within.
Once he was done, he quietly replaced the panels. He set every one back precisely as it had been. This operation had been planned out for weeks now. Even though John’s accelerated timetable had forced him to push himself to the limit to get everything in place, it was going smoothly so far. Everything was perfect. In a short time, the starship would be in safer hands, under the control of people who could use it responsibly. He’d worked hard for this day.
It was none too soon. Not that he didn’t trust John. Quite the contrary. He felt like his boss was an exceptional man, and the work he was doing was incredible. But he was taking too many risks. No one person ought to be making the decisions he was by himself. They had a ship which was capable of reaching other stars - stars they already knew had other life residing on them somewhere. The outer hull of the original alien ship, pitted and scarred by what certainly looked like energy weapon impacts, was evidence enough that those other beings were a lot like humans. They were capable of war, of killing, of brutal military action.
John planned to take the ship out exploring, which was the childhood dream of everyone who’d ever thought about going into space. But it was too great a chance to take. They might well attract attention of the wrong kind out there. They could wind up bringing enemies back to Earth, against which the planet was poorly defended. He saw disaster looming down that road.
Or they could turn the ship over to the government. With some work, the power source could be used to give cheap energy to the entire United States. If someone else wanted it? Let them come try and take it. He felt confident that his nation would be able to secure and hold the ship once it was turned in. Then they could have the best minds in the world learning from the ancient vessel. In time they could replicate its technologies and build other engines like it. Then they could go exploring - not with one ship, but with an armada of vessels capable of taking on whatever they ran into.
It wouldn’t hurt that he would be hailed as a hero for being the one to do the right thing, but that wasn’t his primary motive.
Once the compartment was back the way it had been, he pulled four small black cylinders from his tool belt. They looked like regular bolts, but each was packed with a potent explosive. The first of these he set in the engine room, careful to place it far from the irreplaceable alien components. A quick hole drilled in the deck, and the bolt was inserted. It looked like a hundred other bolts around the room. The second, he installed in the bridge.
Then he stepped back outside the ship, closing the hatch. He walked around underneath the ship's belly, gleaming softly by the glow of a dim flashlight. Toward the rear of the ship, he drilled two new holes and inserted the bolts, locking them in place with sealant to prevent air leaks. No one would notice the little additions he’d made. The bombs were carefully crafted to look like they belonged on the ship. When the flight crews went over the vessel to look for pre-flight problems in the morning, everything would look as it ought to.
Everything was ready now. Soundless, he crossed the room to the ladder, avoiding the lift. No sense risking running into someone now. Not with everything going according to plan. Tomorrow he would leave with the crew, disable the ship, and turn it over to the government. Tomorrow he’d be the most famous name on the planet, a hero who’s face would be remembered as the man who’d done the right thing even when it was supremely difficult.
Twelve
Dan woke before his alarm, his head already buzzing with excitement. He rolled to a sitting position on the edge of his bed and grasped the sides of the walker in front of him. With a grunt, he pushed himself up from the bed. His legs didn't give him a lot of support, but the rehab had paid off a little. The limbs had just enough strength to keep him upright each time he moved the walker forward. In Earth's gravity, the whole thing probably would have been impossible. But on Luna he only weighed about thirty pounds. His legs could keep that up for the second it took to push the walker a bit.
He grunted again and took another step. And another. His doc at the med center would probably have kittens if he saw Dan now. He was talking about getting Dan fitted out for a lower body exoskeleton, motors and gears all reactive to the slightest twitch he made. He'd read about them before, a civilian version of the LEGs – Light Exoskeleton Garment, he figured the Army was to blame for that acronym – infantry wore into combat these days.
Maybe it would work. Maybe not. But he'd been figuring out what he was capable of himself, these days. After spending so many months just giving in to sloth in the chair, it felt...right.
Another hard push. He tottered a bit, and almost fell. Caught his balance in time.
And then he was there, positioning the walker just so...
A sigh of relief.
The toilet was a real basin but not filled with water. Lower gravity has a way of making everything feel different. Even taking a pee. He hit the flush button, and a bit of chemical goop scoured the sides of the toilet, suction washing the whole mess out into a pipe. It reminded him of the toilet in an airplane.
Then he turned the walker around and started the slow walk back to the bed so he could get ready for the day. This was the big day, after all. He was going to be a space pilot again. But even that satisfaction paled a bit against the simple pleasure of being able to take care of himself again.
Such a small thing, going to the bathroom. Something he'd taken for granted his entire life. But after months of getting around by wheelchair, just being able to do that simple task felt like a massive accomplishment. And the first of many for today. He tried to keep his hands from shaking as he put on a dark gray flight suit. Today, he'd be flying the wildest experimental vehicle in the history of mankind.
A short while later he was set. He grabbed his tablet and slid it into a leg pocket, slapping the velcro tab closed. A quick shift into his wheelchair, and he was off. Down the hall, into the lift, and off to the adventure.
Who cared about Mars, anyway?
The lift doors opened into the hangar, and a buzz of activity. He watched as techs ran down their checklists. He'd seen the pre-flight checks. The document was about fifty pages long, and it seemed like overkill to him. But anything not working right could be deadly, so he appreciated the meticulous attention to detail the guys in orange displayed. They were going over the ship with the proverbial fine-toothed comb, looking for anything which might cause problems. Beth had sworn to scrub the mission if anything came up. From the look on her face, nothing had. She wasn’t happy about taking the ship out so soon. Dan hoped John was making the right call. Whatever else he might think about Beth, she was terrific at her job.
John was already by the nose of the ship, dressed in a flight suit and holding a large bottle of champagne in his hand. He looked like a kid on Christmas morning. There was so much energy built up inside him that Dan was surprised he wasn’t hopping from one foot to the other in anticipation.
Dan wheeled over to say hello. “Morning, John. What did you decide to name her, anyway? You never told me.”
> “He never told anyone,” Beth said, rolling her eyes.
“I'm keeping it a surprise,” John replied.
Dan cocked an eyebrow. “You're not naming it...”
“No, not what you're thinking,” John said with a laugh.
Dan shrugged. “Can't help a guy for wondering. You did name your AI Majel, after all. It's not too big a jump from that to naming your starship after the Enterprise.”
Dan heard the lift open again, and looked over. That was Andy and Charline coming in, which rounded off the crew. Those two, himself, Beth, Paul, and John. Paul and Beth had been against John coming a couple of days ago, arguing that he should stay on the moon and play mission control, at least for this first test flight. But John would have none of it. This was his baby, and he wanted to go. Honestly, Dan couldn't really blame him. Not after watching the Mars mission take off without him. He never wanted to make anyone feel like that.
So John was in. As mission commander. Fair – he'd worked as hard as anyone at making this day a reality. Harder than most.
The techs seemed to have finished the last of their checks, and were reporting in to Paul with their results. Paul looked over at John and gave a thumbs-up sign.
“Looks like we're on,” John said.
He motioned for everyone to gather around the nose of the starship.
“I wanted to thank all of you,” he said, bowing his head a little and speaking softly enough that people had to crane in to hear him.
Then he looked up at the people gathered around him. “You've worked hard, very hard. You've done something amazing, something most folks would have probably thought impossible. You've taken an ancient, dead craft from the stars, and you've made it ours.”
“Ours. Yours. Mine. Humanity's.”
“That word ought to mean something special to all of us, today. We all know now that humanity is not alone in the universe. We might have thought that we were not alone, before. Hoped for it. Feared it. But all of us here today know the truth – there really are aliens on other worlds. And if there's one race out there other than ours, there are probably more. Maybe hundreds of others, out there among the stars,” John said.
Adventures of the Starship Satori: Book 1-6 Complete Library Page 5
