Evaline Transcendent

by Timothy Bateson

  Evaline Transcendent

  By Timothy Bateson

  Copyright

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Evaline Transcendent

  Copyright © 2017 by Timothy Bateson. All rights reserved.

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  http://timothybatesonauthor.weebly.com

  timothy.bateson.author@gmail.com

  Cover Design: Timothy Bateson

  Interior Design: Timothy Bateson

  Contents

  Dedication

  Chapter 1 - Starflight

  Chapter 2 – Descent

  Chapter 3 - Awakening

  Chapter 4 - Memorial

  Chapter 5 - Planetfall

  Chapter 6 - Kármán-III-Delta

  Chapter 7 - Contact

  Chapter 8 - Discovery

  Chapter 9 - Compromised

  Chapter 10 - Rebellion

  Chapter 11 - Revelation

  Acknowledgements

  About The Author

  Also By This Author

  Dedication

  This is for all my crazy fellow indie authors, who’s dreams encompass entire worlds. But especially for all those who have taken the time to help me become a better writer, designer, marketer, and editor.

  I wouldn’t be half the writer I am without your support and advice.

  Chapter 1 - Starflight

  Evaline was a state of the art artificial intelligence system, designed and built specifically to provide oversight aboard the Miranda Two colony ship. To call her a mere computer was to do her creators an injustice. Her entire consciousness was spread over twenty distributed processor cores, and miles of cables, sensors and feedback units. With such a vast array of processing power at her disposal, she could perform calculations and compare scenario outcomes with speeds that far exceeded the average computer.

  There were multiple backups of her personality matrix, as well as a multitude of redundancies built into her core systems. In fact, Evaline had been created that way, so she could serve throughout the Miranda Two’s twenty-year journey from Earth to Kármán-III-Delta.

  Her job so far had comprised of examining reports from subsidiary computer systems, formulating action plans for those systems, and overseeing the successful arrival at their destination. At a glance, her responsibilities might seem mundane, but every decision she made had to happen in mere pico-seconds. Any failure to reach a rapid conclusion and recommendation could result in a tragedy beyond measure.

  Alongside monitoring the systems of the Miranda Two, Evaline also monitored the life-signs of over two-thousand hibernating colonists, a power system output that outstripped the average city, and a hyper-drive that propelled the ship at speeds exceeding that of light. Once these kinds of speeds had been considered impossible, but before the breakout of the last war, scientists had cracked the problems behind moving a ship into and out of hyperspace. And it was those systems that had been among the most experimental technologies installed on the Miranda Two.

  A signal came from the navigation computers, letting Evaline know that they were approaching the outskirts of the Kármán-III planetary system. Evaline ordered the shutdown of the hyper-drive engines. Since the deceleration from one hundred and twenty percent of light-speed would rip most ships apart she also activated the inertial dampers, allowing them to handle the excess forces.

  Every decision that Evaline made, from this point forward carried unknown risks, because the Miranda Two had launched at short notice. A series of nuclear detonations in Earth’s lower atmosphere had preceded the breakout of yet another war over dwindling resources. As a result, her creators had rushed the departure of their second attempt at establishing a remote colony, leaving an unknown number of systems unfinished. The Miranda Two was launched before final testing on her systems had been completed and Evaline had only limited repair options without human intervention.

  Evaline was performing a quick review of the ships performance when a jolt rocked the Miranda Two as she crossed the threshold of light-speed and reentered sub-light space. In the process, several of the craft’s hull panels stretched a few microns, and Evaline ordered a structural stability assessment from the onboard engineering computer. The results were not encouraging. Several panels had stretched beyond their original design tolerances, and she noted that information in her report for the Captain. When the colonists emerged from their hibernation pods, she would present her recommendations based on the known facts.

  The Miranda Two coasted toward Kármán-III-Delta under the momentum left over from the deceleration. Over the next week, Evaline watched their destination grow from a point of light, to a bright green and blue globe. Bursts from reaction thrusters slowed the craft and adjusted her angle of approach for her insertion into an orbital trajectory.

  As the effects of the planet’s gravity increased, Evaline received reports of more stress being placed on the hull plates. The damaged panels were putting a strain on those around them. Evaline realized that atmospheric maneuvers could push the craft beyond its design limits, but they had come too far to turn back. There was insufficient fuel for a return to Earth, and there always had been. The Miranda Two’s passengers were on one-way trip, even though many had been led to believe otherwise before being placed into hibernation.

  Evaline knew that the ship held a limited volume of gas in the reaction thrusters, and that adjusting their approach profile was risky. However, she ordered the navigational computer to plot a new descent pattern designed to decrease the forces applied to the hull by passage through the atmosphere.

  Once satisfied the Miranda Two was in a stable orbit, Evaline fired up the communication and science systems, and set them to studying the planet. It took mere moments to report that only a single signal showed any signs of the Miranda One or the colonists. The automated beacon broadcast a formal declaration of where the craft landed and nothing more. The original plan had called for the colonists to land the Miranda One and then use her parts to assemble the colony itself. Reports reaching Earth showed that they had started that phase of the mission, but their last communication had terminated in the middle of a sentence.

  If the colonists were still alive there should have been several active channels driving the colony’s communications. The lack of the regular comms chatter suggested that the colony had lost power or that the colonists were dead. Even still, it was Evaline’s duty to make sure the Miranda Two made a safe landing on the surface below, and deliver her human cargo. Evaline chose to keep the descent phase on hold while she waited on the results from the science computer.

  The analysis of the planet was inconclusive. Scattered structures suggested that the colony had spread further than the landing site. Since the Miranda One had arrived ten years ago, that was to be expected. But the scans showed far fewer life-signs than a colony of that age should have produced. Either there was a high mortality among the colonists, or the birth rate was lower than expected.

  Nothing in the atmospheric, radiation, or biological readings gave any indication of an answer. There was a slight instability in the plate tectonics, but Evaline determined it was within tolerable limits and issued the order to begin the descent phase.

  Chapter 2 – Descent

  The Miranda Two’s maneuvering thrusters fired, slowing her orbit. A few coordinated bursts adjusted th
e craft’s pitch, her nose raised and the heat-shields glowed a bright red. The ship tore through the upper atmosphere, wind roaring past her, as Evaline continued to assess the reports coming back from the other systems. She saw that a significant number of heat-shields were failing, and ordered their ejection, allowing the secondary layer to soak up the punishment.

  A huge blast of pressure caused thirty heat resistant panels to be ejected from their housings. Unfortunately, not all of them cleared the upper hull plates, and five struck the ship before whirling away. Small dents and micro fractures appeared in the ships delicate skin. Many of them deep enough to allow the mounting heat to fry internal circuits mounted against the hull.

  An alarm signal announced a fire within one of the bulkheads separating the habitation and cargo sections from the hyper-drive section. It was a small one, but it burned through a bundle of wiring before Evaline could activate the fire suppression systems. Circuits damaged by the shift to sub-light speed sparked before finally activating, allowing the fire to burn for a few seconds longer than it should have. It was too late to address the issue directly, and Evaline considered closing the bulkheads and jettisoning the damaged areas. However, her standing orders were to preserve as much of the ship components as possible. Every component she was forced to jettison was one less part that the colonists could use to ensure the success of their new home.

  A loud klaxon announced an error in the hyper-drive containment field, which should have been inactive. Twenty years in deep space and there had not been a single error in this critical component. But now small fires cut Evaline off from the few sensors that could make any sense of the information coming from the drive section. As a result, Evaline could not decide if the klaxon was a real concern or just a harmless glitch. Even worse, she couldn’t even determine if the drive was still active. Several attempts at determining the status of the drive resulted in conflicting reports, and Evaline knew she had to make a difficult decision.

  On the one hand, she could detonate the couplings that kept the hyper-drive section attached to the hull of the landing craft, and leave the colonists without their most powerful power generator. Or, she could attempt a landing with the drive active, which risked a full containment breach that would almost certainly destroy the Miranda Two, and a large portion of the surrounding area.

  In the end, there really was only one decision she could make, even though it exceeded her level of authority. She’d already crossed the line once, by extending the hibernation period of the crew, and it was too late to wake them now to get guidance.

  For the safety of the colonists, Evaline made the difficult decision to jettison the hyper-drive, and explosive bolts severed the connection between the sections.

  A massive jolt threw the landing craft forward and the hyper-drive backward. A quick series of calculations showed that the drive would splash down in a body of water, and sink beyond the point of being retrievable. However, the safety of the colonists outweighed the loss of the valuable equipment and the power generation of the hyper-drive components.

  Chapter 3 - Awakening

  With the worst of the descent behind her, Evaline set about analyzing the atmosphere of the planet that would become the new home of her precious cargo.

  The hull and interior of the craft had remained pressurized throughout the journey to stop the hull from collapsing under pressure differentials caused by maneuvers. Keeping that internal environment habitable had been unnecessary, since the colonists had arrived aboard in hibernation. But now they were waking, Evaline’s job was to make sure they emerged from their hibernation pods into a breathable atmosphere rather than the decades old air. It was important to get this information exactly right, because her next job involved adjusting the mix of gases in the internal atmosphere of the Miranda Two until they matched the outside conditions.

  There was a moment of concern that the data from the Miranda One had been inaccurate, but Evaline found the information she received to be a match for her predecessors, within a reasonable margin of error. The science computer provided a baseline for the atmospheric gas mixture, and Evaline used that as the basis for her initial instructions to the environmental control systems. A few additional calculations indicated that she needed to make a minor adjustment to the levels of certain trace gases. She instructed the systems to adjust the gas mixture until it was a little closer to the atmospheric conditions that the colonists had been used to on Earth.

  The next step was to wake the colonists, and prepare them for the landing process. Evaline set the chambers to slowly bring the colonists out of their twenty-year hibernation. The mission profile had specified that the colonists should be awake for the landing, but not at which point they should be awakened, so she also set herself a reminder to place the final landing sequence on hold until the crew was awake.

  In the hibernation bay, needles injected stimulants into the blood streams of the colonists. The purpose of the stimulants was to overcome the drowsiness that came from an extended period in hibernation.

  This part of Evaline’s cargo was essential to her mission, but no human had spent so long in deep sleep. Even the Miranda One’s crew, which spent even longer in deep space, had spent mere months at a time in a state of hibernation.

  When the Miranda One launched, the technology had been far more primitive. Safety concerns had meant her crew endured six months in hibernation before being revived for six months and then going back into hibernation. Later studies showed that thawing and refreezing put a greater stress on the human body than an extended stay in hibernation. Between improvements in the technology and revised risk assessments before the Miranda Two’s launch, the survival chances of the Miranda Two’s colonists were at least double that of their predecessors.

  Several minutes passed as the Miranda Two completed her approach and prepared to land near the site of her sister ship’s beacon. Evaline wondered why the transmitter was so far from the original landing site, but a single scan of the evidence spoke for itself. A massive crater cut right through the wreckage of the Miranda One. The science systems reported that a meteor had struck with enough force to rip through the ship. That impact crater was large enough that the Miranda Two’s science system should have reported it during the orbital passes.

  Incomplete reports worried Evaline, so she started a complete diagnostic of the science system. While that ran, she returned her attention to the environmental controls and medical reports on the colonists.

  A whirring sound from the hibernation bay announced the first of the pods opening, and instruments reported that Captain Erikan’s revival had completed. Per protocol, Evaline tapped into the holographic projectors to provide a more crew friendly interface. While uploading the image composite she had created for herself during the journey, she decided to get down to business.

  “Good Morning, Captain Erikan. Should I present a status report?”

  It took a handful of seconds for Erikan to register the question. Extended periods of time in hibernation took their toll on the body and mind’s responses to external stimuli, and Evaline waited for a response. When it came, the Captain’s voice was clear and crisp.

  Rubbing sleep from her eyes, the captain glanced around the chamber as she tried to get her bearings, and locate the source of the voice that had addressed her. Not finding anyone else awake, she scanned the room again, before remembering where she was.

  “Time check please, Evaline”.

  At that moment, the holographic projector in the hibernation bay flickered into action, presenting the digital representation of Evaline’s personality. Now instead of a disembodied voice, the captain’s eyes could focus on the tall redhead that flickered only occasionally between image refreshes, but it still took her a moment to register its presence.

  “The current time is nine twenty-three and fifteen seconds, ship time, Captain. If you wish, I could try to synchronize with the Miranda One computer to establish a local time”.

  It wasn’
t until she had vocalized the idea that Evaline realized that this was something she should already have done. How this subroutine had not already been triggered, Evaline couldn’t explain to her satisfaction, and she added the incident to a growing list of her behavioral anomalies. She was also very careful to keep the momentary concern from showing on her holographic features, so as not to concern the captain of such a trivial matter.

  “Not yet, Evaline. Let me have that status report. How far are we from Kármán-III-Delta?”

  Evaline checked back on the diagnostics, and the hologram drew a hand-pad from its pocket as she pulled what information was available into a concise form. A secondary routine was setup to check for updates, but Evaline decided that the early results were enough for her first report. As she gave the report, she also setup a routine to establish connection with the Miranda One.

  “Arrival at Kármán-III-Delta occurred three months behind schedule. This is in line with a gravitational anomaly we encountered during the second year. We incurred no damage, and all systems reported green. I opted to leave the colonists in hibernation through the approach and landing phases. The jolt from hyper-space was harsher than expected and stressed several hull plates. I jettisoned several heat-shielding plates during the descent, which resulted in multiple upper hull impacts and forced the premature separation of the hyper-drive. We are making our final approach to the Miranda One landing site. Evidence suggests that a meteor strike may have destroyed the colony. I need instructions on how you would like me to proceed”.

  Erikan rose as Evaline continued to check the reports from the medical computer. A few exercises and tests proved that the Captain was fit for duty and capable of a brisk walk to the bridge.