Home Planet: Awakening (Part 1)

by T. J. Sedgwick

  I re-stowed the ax and went prone, peering into the service hatch. A flashlight would’ve been useful, but I didn’t have one so waited a while for my pupils to dilate some more. I still couldn’t see into the dark space so had a feel around inside. It was deeper than I’d expected—maybe eighteen inches into the bulkhead. All kinds of switches and dials and sockets lined the left and right sides. The back panel, facing outwards felt flush and bare. Stroking around the bottom then the top surface of the recess, I felt a small control wheel with five spokes but was unsure of its function. Deciding I could either start randomly flipping switches and turning dials or I could have another feel around, I went for the latter. After a few seconds reexamining the featureless back surface I realized there was another panel, except with no handle, button or any other means of opening it. Then, I pressed the panel and it popped open. Behind it sat what I’d been searching for: the hand-winch, which I quickly pulled out beyond the service hatch, extending the handle. Now free of the confines of the recess, it’d be far easier to turn it and manually open the blast doors. The winch reminded me of the ones found on a sailing yacht. For all I knew it could’ve been made by the same company. Kneeling facing the winch I tried to turn it counter-clockwise. After some jerking and forcing it creaked past whatever was seizing it up and started moving. It rotated with a gritty resistance, but the torque needed was minimal once it got going. It seemed to click on every revolution and the blast doors stayed shut, so I tried turning clockwise—but it was a no go. Perhaps the clicking noise meant the mechanism was somehow disengaged. But why and how and what to do to engage it? I was missing something.

  Five minutes later, after exhausting all other possibilities, I turned the control wheel with five spokes inside the service hatch. I heard a distant releasing of gas somewhere in the link tunnel and assumed it to be some sort of pressure equalization. The noise of flowing air ceased and I tried the open-close winch once more. This time, it took all my strength to get it moving, but move it did. The first turn was slow, but after more than a revolution, I noticed an absence of any clicking noise. Better still, the hairline gap in the center of the door segments had grown to a definite dark vertical line.

  Fifteen minutes of hard work later and the segments had parted enough for me to squeeze through sideways. Hungry and weakening, I dreaded the thought of repeating the same thing to access Module 4. But as I floated into the light of the link tunnel, a welcome sight greeted me—the blast doors to Module 4 were wide open.

  I pushed off the half-open blast doors of Module 5. Floating toward the opening and Module 4, I thought back to swimming as a kid. Cutting through the water of the municipal swimming pool, I’d feel free in the otherworldly space, willing my forward glide to continue for just a little longer. In zero-g the same push off would go for way longer—it was only air resistance here, not the resistance of water a thousand times denser. Before I realized it, I’d reached the end of the link tunnel. That’s when I noticed the metal deck coming up to meet me.

  I didn’t drop straight down—more like a shallow parabola like due to my forward motion. My hands sprung out reflexively, breaking my fall but not saving my knees from a scraping impact leaving my stasis suit ripped at the knees.

  I looked up at the broad corridor ahead and smiled.

  “Looks like Module 4 has gravity,” I muttered.

  I took a moment before pushing myself upright and experiencing my own weight for the first time since I’d awoken—all two-hundred and twenty-five pounds of it. Even though the stasis process had essentially frozen every cell in my body, preserving my strength, it sure didn’t feel that way. It felt a little like getting out of the tub after a long bath, although many times worse. But I stood up okay, so convinced myself it was just the post-stasis weightlessness that had taken its toll.

  Module 4 was the same diameter as all the other modules measuring around a three hundred feet. Lengthwise, they varied—this being one of the longer ones at three hundred and fifty feet. I’d never worked it out, but the floor space was similar to that of a large skyscraper, apparently. And that was per module.

  No wonder they needed to build it in orbit, I thought.

  The module’s top half was devoted to quarters—all two-person rooms except for senior crew, senior military and so-called VIPs like the mysterious Reichs. This was where people slept when not in stasis. With around six thousand rooms, the Juno Ark would have made the top ten of the world’s largest hotels—had it been a hotel and had it been on Earth or even in the same star system. I guessed that disqualified it on at least two counts. The lower half of the module contained refectories, three shops selling basic supplies, two gyms, a sports hall, a training center, admin offices, a civilian shooting range, two bars and even a small swimming pool. Where once one might have expected a cinema, there was a virtual-reality center. The VR rooms could simulate environments from sand dunes to the tropical ocean to outer space. Used for both training and leisure, this was a vital resource for getting the colonists ready for Aura. I very much doubted it still worked.

  “Never say, never,” I whispered at my own thoughts.

  The corridor ahead ran the length of the module, converging on a point far in the distance. The walls and ceiling were standard white paneling punctuated regularly by the gray doors either side. The panels were once glossy but were now matte and dull with signs of mold and dirt around the edges. The lights flush to the ceiling were dead. Only glow strips provided illumination, making it badly lit, although better than the stasis module. The metal grating deck of the link tunnel gave way to silvery-gray alloy covered all over in a geometrical anti-slip pattern. Some of the doors—perhaps one in ten—were open or ajar. The rest were closed. Scanning to the end, I noticed signs of charring on the walls and ceiling about halfway along. Before I started walking, I listened for signs of life. There was nothing but the quiet sounds of the air ducts in the ceiling and the creaking of the hull under external forces unknown.

  “Hello! Anyone there?” I called.

  All that came back was a faint echo. After not speaking much since awakening, my voice sounded alien to me. Like listening to your recorded self, it seemed almost as if it belonged to another person.

  I passed the first open door on my right, peering into the room. Layers of dust and some mold spoiled the otherwise pristine cabin. The bunks were both clear; all the room’s surfaces clear of personal effects. I stepped inside and poked my head into the tiny en suite—nothing. Turning on the faucet, I suddenly realized how dry my mouth was. Not as dry as the faucet. It all looked like a cruise ship cabin ready for its next excited passengers to arrive. One of the smallest, cheapest, budget cabins at that—no space, no porthole and decor with no flair whatsoever. I know because I chased a wanted felon all the way to the Port of Los Angeles and the cruise ship docked there. The guy tried to hide on board. Not the smartest move. Along with the port authority, we isolated the ship and searched it room-to-room. The felon was hiding in closet—again, not a smart move from a not very smart crook.

  Keen to get a closer look at the scorch marks in the walkway, I didn’t search the closet in the quarters and left.

  I investigated three more rooms on the way to the halfway point. Thinking about it—and from the resolving detail as I approached—the halfway point was where I’d find the stairwell down to the next floor. As I walked toward the fourth open door, it looked increasingly clear that I’d been right—the scorch-marks up ahead were the result of a fire. A few more steps and I reached the half-open door on the right, ten yards from the stairwell doors. There was no reason why I chose only the open doors to look inside. But I couldn’t look in every room. After all, I was just passing through to Module 1 and the ship was huge. I pushed open the door and saw a room as untouched as the others except for one thing—the skeletal remains lying on the lower bunk. This guy had been dead a long time as only the bones and his synthetic stasis suit remained. I knew it was a male from the cut of his stasis suit.
He was lying face-up, both hands clutching the left side of his rib-cage. A white gold wedding band with a Celtic weave pattern adorned his ring finger—a personal detail that reminded me this man once loved and someone loved him back.

  “Sorry it turned out this way, buddy,” I whispered to him.

  I gently shifted his hands and saw why—two bullet holes penetrating the suit’s now grubby material. I poked my fingers inside and felt the sharp ends of shattered ribs inside. Yet again, the cause of death was obvious, but the motive was as opaque as before. I checked for a dog tag, but there wasn’t one, confirming one thing at least—he wasn’t military.

  Moving back into the walkway, I approached the stairwell entrance. The soot that had clearly emanated from behind the stairwell doors spoke of a fire that came but burnt out rapidly. I looked closely at the metallic, double sliders to the stairwell that met in the middle. What I had not noticed until then was their shape. They bulged in the middle, which gave way to a thin, black, jagged-edged gap with fingers of melted alloy pointing toward me. It looked very much like an explosion had taken place on the other side. I turned around and examined the opposite wall, darkened with soot and age. A vertical line of micro-shrapnel damage peppered the wall. Around it, I counted fifteen bullet holes.

  None of this told the story of peace and unity we’d all been hoping for when we set off. It also didn’t help me find out what the hell happened and where the survivors had gone. But it was a clue at least. Maybe there’d been a rescue and they’d somehow missed me. And Arnold Reichs. I could have dreamt up theories all day long, but I still believed the quickest way to solve these questions was at the bridge. The fastest route was straight ahead, along the corridor to the blast doors and Module 3, but the cop in me had a different idea. I turned around one-eighty and went back to the bulging doors.

  A control panel did sit on the wall beside the double doors, but there was no point trying the melted, charred mass of plastic and circuitry. Instead, I grasped either door and tried prizing them open. These were not blast doors, but still didn’t move. I wasn’t surprised. I tried the ax and got nowhere, so I placed it on the ground took a step back then landed a massive running thrust kick on the left-hand door. Now I was getting somewhere. Eight kicks later and the alloy door gave way.

  I picked up and re-stowed the ax in my suit leg. Wondering what I might find, I entered the pitch-black stairwell. With soot-covered surfaces and no light strips, only the meager light from the corridor helped me see. The explosion had badly twisted the handrail on my left. I didn’t dare lean on it and looked over to look for evidence of light from below. All I saw was the blackest of black. It’d be pointless continuing with no light, so I went in search of a flashlight.

  Opening the first of the closed cabins, I knew exactly where to look for the emergency flashlight. After all, in my mind, it felt like just a few hours since I was in a room just like it. It felt like only a few hours since we all walked merrily toward stasis. I reclosed the door and removed the emergency escape kit from the hook on the back of the door. Laying it out on the bottom bunk, I didn’t bother unzipping the pressure suit bag. Instead, I went straight for the flashlight in a pouch at the front. I pressed the button but didn’t see it light up. It felt like just a few hours but wasn’t. I tried the next room, then the next. Sixteen rooms later came a cabin with personal effects—some clothes, bathroom products, an unmade bed and a different kind of flashlight. One in a box, unopened, its batteries still as sealed as the day they were made. I’d never been so excited to see such a mundane item before. Having installed the batteries, I pressed the switched and it worked. I clicked it off straight away and headed toward the dark, damaged stairwell.

  On reaching the landing past the bulging doors, I switched on the flashlight and listened while surveying the blackened scene. At the bottom of the first flight of stairs were three bodies—or sets of skeletal remains, to be more precise—their whiteness contrasting the battle-scarred walls around them. The walls around me had taken the full force of the blast, the panels either missing, having fallen to the deck, or bulging outwards. The blast had even deformed the deck plate a few inches. I about-faced and looked at the rear of the doors to the corridor. As expected, pockmarks from shrapnel and small arms fire peppered them all over. What I’d not seen so far were the effects of laser fire, their impacts distinctive with once-molten rims. I descended carefully to the next landing and the three deceased. All three wore tattered uniforms. All three wore body armor and helmets. These three were marines. The one on the left lay face down clutching a laser assault rifle—probably an ML-15. The silvery links of the dog tag caught in the light. I bent down and read the tag.

  Diamond, Richard K.

  565-85-1120

  B NEG

  Jewish

  “Rare blood group … What happened to you and your buddies, Richard?”

  I leaned over and picked up the laser rifle. Dead.

  The center marine still sat up, propped against the wall facing up the staircase. His helmet lay by his side bearing some serious blast damage. I shone the light at his skull, the empty eye sockets and toothy grin seeming to stare at me for a moment as if longing to tell me what happened. The jagged, half-inch hole in the forehead did a better job. I didn’t bother looking, but I was sure if I had, there’d be a nasty piece of metal somewhere inside his head. This guy and his friend lying to the right in the corner both had laser rifles too. Both guns were chargeless. I examined the third marine, but his remains told me nothing more. I recovered three spare clips from the marines’ handguns. All full, all with twenty rounds. I replaced the one in my handgun with a full clip and placed the spares in my fleece pocket alongside. There was nothing more to see there. Three marines had died and a serious battle had taken place.

  I respectfully passed Richard and his brothers-in-arms and descended the opposing flight of steps. If anything, the battle scars got worse. As I swept the steps in front of me, I noticed something about the landing outside the double doors to the next level—it wasn’t there. And I could feel it too, the staircase beginning to flex under my weight the closer to the bottom I got. I shuffled cautiously toward the mangled inside handrail. Casting the light down the stairwell, I saw only clear space for at least two floors with a tangled mess of metal topped with human remains. The force of the blast had splayed the doors to Level 19 to such an extent that they pointed inward toward the corridor. They were as blackened as the stairwell. I saw little point in continuing. Perhaps there was more to learn, but the risk wasn’t worth it at that point. I climbed the stairs, past the three marines and back to the corridor on Level 20.

  The time had come to leave Module 4—once a bustling place full of people and energy, full of hope and expectation. Now, there were only battle scars and the dead. Glad to see the back of Module 4, there was one last place I needed to look.

  Up ahead, three-quarters of the way from the bulging doors to the Module 3 blast doors, was the door I was looking for. Although it looked the same, unlike the cabin doors, this one bore the simple label that read, Cupola. I opened the door and climbed the double flight of metal steps. The word Cupola was Italian was dome. On reaching the top of the staircase, I saw the door to the viewing room and a sense of excitement grew inside me, not because I’d reached the cupola but because of what I saw at my feet. Unless there were some inexplicably bright lights inside, the yellow light leaking under the metal door was from a star—a very nearby star. On opening the door, sunlight filled my eyes for the first time in … what felt like forever. Its power forced my eyes to squinting slits, the yellow light warm and welcome on my face. We weren’t lost in space, drifting light years from our destination as I’d feared. I laughed uncontrollably at what I’d found.

  “We made it after all!” I said quietly but excitedly.

  Then I took stock and reminded myself that most hadn’t.

  After my pupils had time to adjust, I looked through the six-foot diameter viewing-dome above
the twelve-by-twelve foot room. The surrounding ceiling only stood six feet from the floor, a hair’s breadth from my head. Cushioned benches ran around the perimeter of the cupola room—a nice place to meet, star gaze and see the outside world. All the serious observation took place in the Science and Research module—my next destination, Module 3. Shading my eyes from the direct starlight, I began to realize how warm the greenhouse-like place had become. On emergency power, without air-conditioning the room must have been over a hundred Fahrenheit. Shielding the direct glare of the star, I scanned around for planet Aura-c but saw nothing. From training, I knew Aura—the star—was a G-class star, just like Earth’s sun. The yellow light filling my eyes corresponded to what I thought it’d look like and what they’d shown us. That was another good sign. Most of the simulated views I remembered were the same size as I was witnessing through the dome. That gave me hope that the ship was in planetary orbit around Aura-c.