Pilgrim One_Prominence

by Christopher R. Marrs

  “Jegit did say that the clothing was specialized for the manufacturing and recycling systems, guess they don’t want any strays. Considering our options, I’d say you need to hurry it up and drop ‘em!” she said with a little salt.

  Narmer noticed that his fellow passengers were all getting their suits on. A Wer of blues, reds, oranges. A few green. He started to remove his recently acquired joining garments. It was then that he noticed the blood. He was shocked at how much blood was on him. He kept his head down and undressed as fast as possible. He then grabbed the green flexible metallic flight suit. He read the instructions that were printed on the inside. He read them twice and then was able to get the suit on with minimal trouble.

  “A little help here!” Deides said, irritated, “I seem to have closed the outer seal before getting my hair out of the way!”

  Narmer reached around her and undid the seal, freeing her mane. He laughed and sealed her back up, “I could help you out of it later too!”

  “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” Deides cautioned.

  Jegit again, “Let’s move!”

  Narmer, Deides, and the rest of the Gifted grabbed what was left of the packs and headed towards the nearest shuttle, following behind Jegit. They stopped outside of one of the access panels a quarter from the sharper end of the cone.

  “We are in the third bay, so split into four lines and take a seat in the row that lines up with you, store your packs beneath your seat, make it quick.” They entered up the walkway and into the bay, and all did as they were instructed. Narmer and Deides were at the end of the fourth line, watching the other Gifted as they seemed to know what to do. As he entered, Narmer noticed all of the mixed colors of suits on a background of clean but worn white surfaces that made up the bay. The lighting was bright, but not harsh, with light coming from the surfaces all around them. As they sat in the large but firmly padded seats, they were able to see that the entire bay behind them contained mostly empty seats. Jegit took the last seat next to them and had noticed Narmer looking back into the empty bay.

  “It is a shame,” Jegit sighed, “they were a good group of operators. They will be hard to replace.” Seeing the question in Narmer’s eyes, he continued, “they were in the transport that was destroyed, and more were killed or wounded in the firefight. We are hoping more survivors will show up. If not shortly, then for that last shuttle that you saw that launches at midset. We were both supposed to launch at midset, but we are leaving early to increase the odds of more making it out. The first contingent of Guardsmen will join us now to fill up the seats and then we’ll be off. This was a contingency plan, should have been the main plan, but I was outvoted.”

  Narmer, nodding his head, “As has become normal of late, I don’t understand any of this, there are many questions, but I’ll start with these: How does the launch work? What’s an operator? Who’s shooting at us? What’s the plan? Who are you? And who out voted you?”

  Jegit looked at him impatiently, then sighed, “Fair enough, we’ll have time to discuss most of this during the ascent to Nunet. But first, a quick overview of the launch.”

  “This is a standard to-orbit shuttle launch. There are three parts: launch rail phase, aerodynamic phase, and void phase. We launch from here, the large doors ahead of us will open. We will accelerate horizontally down the track via magnetic tractor up to three Kepteyn gravities within three twentynauks. The far end of the track rises to transition us to a half vertical orientation. Once we reach the end of the track ramp and are then shot skyward, the air-breathing propulsiors will ignite and push us faster than the speed of sound. This will take us two-thirds of the way to the void. At this point, the chemical propulsiors will ignite and take us into the void. The shuttle will then begin cycling around Kepteyn, working our way up high enough to catch and dock with Nunet. This will all happen within two chirps. The first quarter-chirp, you will be pinned to your seat. So, kiss your spal, and then strap in. We leave in…” as Jegit looked at his p-tab, “six twentynauks.”

  Deides had been listening in and was leaning close, so naturally, Narmer was going to take Jegit’s advice and kiss his spal. As he turned to Deides, the lights dimmed, and klaxons began to blare. They hastily fumbled getting strapped in. A vid demonstrating the process began looping on the vid screen built into the headrest of the seat in front of them. They watched it a couple of times and then they were able to get it right.

  A timer appeared on the vid screen, counting down from three twentynauks. As the timer got to ten nauks, Narmer could feel the tension of the passengers. At zero nauks, he was smashed back firmly into the padding of this seat. He could not lift his head, and his hands were locked down by the straps. He was unable to move. The shuttle was smoothly accelerating, but at three twentynauks, that changed as did the angle of the craft. It now slowly pointed itself away from the horizon and halfway to vertical. Then an angry, almost animal roar came from behind, and the vessel began to shake. It started to shake more and more violently has the nauks ticked by. And just when Narmer thought that the shuttle would tear itself apart, the shaking subsided. The roar was still heard, but now it was a powerful sound, true and steady.

  Still pinned in his seat, a view was displayed on the vid screen. A view of Kepteyn as the craft hurtled towards the void. The westward facing crescent shape of the single landmass, which was the inspiration behind the universal symbol for Kepteyn, was visible only in a partial outline generated by the lights of its inhabitants. The Wer was a black void next to it. Narmer could not take his eyes off of it. Deides was similarly enthralled with the view. Jegit had his eyes closed.

  Narmer and Deides watched as more of the planet came into view, and they could see both horizons now. A glow began to lighten the eastern horizon and quickly Ria erupted from behind it, momentarily washing out the vid screen until it could adjust. Below them was the entire span of the Wer shimmering in the light. Its blue-green color completely covering the view. Floating just above the water, they could pick out fluffy cloud formations, and then the Nesos islands were visible. He’d aspired to do research from the Nesos, to be on the water, to study the hatmet, to lay in the sun, truly the closest thing that he had had as a life goal. But the Council had cut his career short, so that would now become only a dream.

  Narmer was suddenly homesick, knowing that this would be the first and last time that he’d see his home planet like this. He could see that Deides was similarly affected, but she also showed something else, relief maybe?

  Suddenly, the noise stopped, and his body began to ease up a bit from his seat. The timer now showed one and three-quarters chirps until reaching Nunet. Jegit began unstrapping himself. Narmer moved to do the same, “You might want to keep the torso strap on,” Jegit warned, “zero gravities has a tendency to cause the inexperienced to injure themselves while their insides try to get outside.”

  As the lights came up, Narmer paused for a nauk or two, then unstrapped himself completely. This was something to experience! He slowly eased up out of his seat but then floated too high to be able to garner a handhold on anything. He started to thrash his legs and arms, only being able to strike the seats in front and a few heads of their occupants. “Sorry!” he said amid the growing chorus of curses. Someone grabbed his ankle and pulled him back down. He looked down to see who it was, Deides, of course. She looked up at him, a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth.

  “Sweetness, why don’t you stop showing off and sit next to me for a bit?” she said, mocking him.

  Narmer pulled himself back into his seat and fastened the torso strap and tried to ignore the stares directed towards him.

  Jegit shook his head and said, “And that’s why you are wearing green. So, everyone else knows that you’re a hazard. Now, I have some things to attend to, stay put. If you need something or something explained, ask those around you before you do something on your own. Most of these people have at least been through ascent training, and some have a few actual ascents behind
them.” He slowly launched himself up to the handgrips on the ceiling and then moved towards the center. Narmer observed that there was a hatch built into the center of the ceiling that appeared to provide access to the blister he saw on the top side when he first viewed the shuttle.

  Narmer was taking it all in. People around him were either on their p-tabs, heads bowed over them discussing things, or asleep in their seats. Only a few of them were exploring the surroundings with their eyes like he was. Mostly other ‘greenies.’ The lighting began to dim to a comfortable level, allowing the passengers to sleep if so desired.

  He noticed that Deides was starting to nod off while watching the vid view of Kepteyn spinning below them. As the dark terminus began to move in from the east, he laid his head on Deides’ and let himself slip into the dark comfort of sleep as well. It had been some rise.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Narmer was jostled awake by Jegit as he returned to his seat. He noticed that Jegit looked a lot fresher than he felt and that Jegit was in good shape for a fifty-something ‘old’ guy. Athletic, tall, his hair starting to gray, and way too energetic for the events of this rise. As well as for the time, Narmer noticed on the vid screen that it was almost midset.

  “We are approaching Nunet,” Jegit notified Narmer, “which is the point of no return for all of the passengers. That means something a bit different now than it did in the past cycles. Please refrain from talking to anybody about what you know regarding anything you’ve seen or heard the past few rises. It is operational security. The shuttle and the Nunet crews will be the last to leave for Chon-su. Some have one more roundtrip to perform the final launches this midrise. They need to stay focused before Departure. Currently, they are isolated from the Selected so that no information can be passed between those that are going and those that are not. Most of the crews will be joining us in due time.”

  “Most?” asked Narmer.

  “Most of these crews will be on Prominence, but the rest will be on Vanguard. Nunet is the gateway between the outside world and the Pilgrim Project. In the past, once a traveler moved on from Nunet to Chon-su, there was no going back. No movement, no information, no communication. Everything traveled in one direction. This allowed the project to remain secure, no chance for a misunderstanding, misinformation, or mischief. So far, so good.”

  “You mentioned though, that Vanguard had a scandal,” Narmer reminded Jegit.

  “Yes, in a manner, that is true. As you know the Selection process for Vanguard was a little more, uh, flexible than for Prominence. Some highly motivated people with means and talents. But still normal people in some regards. Someone that had been selected for Vanguard had been working to get his mistress on board as well. I can’t imagine how they thought that this was going to work out.”

  “As in most of these cases, some incorrect thinking was going on. The inevitable happened, his spal, a valuable communications engineer, found out about it. She was in comms after all and was able to find out fairly directly as to what her spal was up to. Some more incorrect thinking occurred, and the comms engineer decided that she would try to ensure that the mistress did not make the trip.”

  Jegit continued, “She was able to stack salacious information about the mistress on top of the normal mission communications between Vanguard and the Council. This information was designed to worm its way onto the cinc and to expose the mistress. Unfortunately, it was attached to mission information that was leaked as well. The Council had to pause the Vanguard mission work in order to investigate. Once that was out of the way, they then had to clean up the leaked information. Not just deleting the information, the Council needed to contain those that were trying to leverage that leaked information in exchange for gaining a Departure Crescent.”

  “Why would that cause a delay?” asked Narmer, “seems like both Vanguard and the investigation could have occurred simultaneously, especially considering the security that you’ve explained.”

  Jegit sighed, “That would be true, except that the person involved with his mistress was the head of security for Vanguard. The Council had to put Vanguard on hold, replace the head of security and perform a top to bottom assessment of that project, as well as perform a sweep and containment operation on Kepteyn.”

  “And that’s where you came in?” Narmer supposed.

  Jegit looked at him with mild surprise, “Hmmm, you’ve impressed me a bit there, Narmer. You are, of course, correct. My job, along with my team, was to ferret out those that knew a bit too much and to bring them in for questioning. This had to be handled secretly, of course, so the Council worked with certain Investigators. Only those that were already Selected could work with Pilgrim related issues.”

  “Investigator Aut-Loren!” Narmer interjected.

  Jegit, with a wry smile, “I see that some of the pieces are starting to fall into place for you. Since the Woodam Las-Dilsa mess involved a Selected Citizen, it was necessary for a security cleared Investigator to handle the case.”

  Narmer protested, “But I didn’t know anything!”.

  “True, but we didn’t know that at the time. And we didn’t know what Deides knew from Woodam, nor what she had told you. So, it was decided that both of you would be making the journey.”

  “This whole thing is a sham then? Deides? The Joining?” Narmer asked while beginning to get angry.

  “Not entirely. We confirmed that Deides could keep the Crescent, as the legal spal, she was entitled to it. We explained the security situation to her and that you’d be coming along so that we could eliminate you as a loose end. It was her idea for the Joining. We agreed that was the easiest way to get you on board with such little time. And we thought that that added a level of legitimacy to anyone paying attention to you and her, namely a certain Investigator. Well mainly her really, as it seems that you didn’t have too many people worried about you.”

  “Thanks, I suppose” Narmer replied somewhat indignantly, “what about all of the other ‘loose ends’?”

  “They are all making the journey as well. Except they will be guests of the containment cells aboard Vanguard. Both ships have them, as people aren’t going to change, there will always be a need for incarceration. Citizen Nin-Brand and Citizen Jal-Brand are going as well. We are not entirely certain of their guilt, and it was deemed unjust not to allow them to depart until we could ascertain their guilt or innocence.”

  “Does Deides know about this?” Narmer asked somewhat incredulously.

  “Yes, I know,” Deides replied sleepily, “Remember, I told you that Jegit had come by to see me while you were being entertained by the Investigator? He laid it all out for me. I guess that I don’t honestly have a problem with it, we’ll be on different ships and we’ll also be separated by time as Vanguard will now be a half-cycle, ten chonts, behind.”

  Jegit looked at the vid screen, “It is almost twentychirps, midset. We will be docking shortly. Keep yourselves strapped in and your mouths shut while on Nunet. We are too close to let things start getting out of hand now.”

  Narmer and Deides nodded in agreement.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Narmer and Deides were able to watch their approach to Nunet on the vid screen. Initially, Nunet was a bright light in the void, awash in the unfettered light of Ria. As they got closer, they, and Nunet were plunged into darkness when the planet’s terminator caught up with them. Now only the navigation lights on Nunet could be seen, appearing as a small ring of floating lights in a black Wer. It looked as though they were going to thread the hole of a very small needle on their approach. But getting closer, a much larger structure began to emerge from the darkness. A myriad of smaller lights added definition to the structure as well as guiding them to the central hub of the rotating spoked wheel.

  The shuttle was closing in on the station, and now activity was visible at the center of the hub. The hub was not spinning, but counter-rotating to keep it stationary relative to the shuttle. There were five docking hatches arranged in a hexago
n on the end of the hub. Three were currently occupied with shuttles docked via their rear ventral mating rings. One of the open hatches began to split in half, and each half swung the entire distance to provide a complete opening. The shuttle’s truncated nose began to rotate up until she then stood on her tail. On the vid screen, the passengers could still see the hub directly as the bottom of the shuttle closed on it. The shuttle drifted closer; its underside slowly neared the hatch. With a solid, firm bump, the station hatch snared the shuttle by its rear ventral mating ring.

  The lights came up to full brightness, and the passengers began the process of unstrapping themselves as instructed on the vid screen. Not quite completely unstrapped, leaving a foot strap on to prevent unwanted floating. Narmer could tell the seasoned passengers as they were able to get up gracefully enough to fold up their seat and grab their pack from underneath without flying off in unknown directions. He slowly aped their actions, and after a few tries, he was able to accomplish his goal. Deides was much quicker, so she entertained herself by watching and offering ‘helpful’ commentary.

  Narmer was looking around the bay and then turned to look behind him. There was activity in the rear bay, it was only partially filled with seats, with most of it left open for cargo. He could see that the cargo was being moved towards the now open hatch in the floor. Large containers were maneuvered by trained handlers that had come on board after docking. They were using footholds in the ‘floor’ to maintain their grip on the shuttle while they were handing containers into the short tunnel created by the shuttle mating ring and the station hatch. The handlers were making quick work of it, handing off to other handlers at the receiving end of the tunnel.

  In short order, the cargo was moved out, and the handlers then starting waving passengers into the hatch, offering assistance as needed. As Narmer observed, the preferred method was to pull oneself along the ceiling using the handholds and then slowly launch oneself at a handler, holding your pack tight to your chest. That way, they could grab any part of you to stop you without the packs continuing their initial trajectory and causing damage or harm.