The Colony Ship Vanguard: The entire eight book series in one bundle

by John Thornton

  “Yes, the Committee has looked at the possibility of finding another habitable planet, but we know that search would take far longer than finding the colony ships. Those are seven places we know could support human life, and the plan is workable,” Lorna nodded to Jubal.

  Michael stood and gave an overview. He spoke with almost no emotion. Paul and Gretchen were trying to hear him, but with the murmurs in the room and Cammarry saying, “This could be really exciting.” It was hard to hear.

  Michael sat down. Paul had missed most of what he said.

  Muriel’s voice carried a bit better. She said, “Yes, basically that is what will be needed, and yes there are large challenges to overcome. But is there really any other choice?”

  “Michael and I volunteer for the first mission!” Jamie said it in a clear and loud voice.

  “She would volunteer. Always reckless and foolhardy. That is our Jamie,” Paul said with contempt. Only Gretchen heard his comment. She squeezed his hand in support as the meeting broke up. Paul sat there and watched as Jamie and Michael departed. He almost felt sorry for Michael who seemed to be brooding in melancholy. But Jamie’s bouncy enthusiasm prevented Paul from completely feeling sorry for Michael. “I hope she does not get him killed too.”

  4 discussion, to go or to really go?

  Paul and Gretchen walked around the areas of the dome for several hours. They spoke little, not sure if the general public was supposed to be aware of what they knew. As Paul looked at the technicians doing maintenance, the teachers leading the age mates in the classes, the people working at the biological unit food farms, and the others walking back and forth, he wondered what they might do if they knew there were less than one hundred and twenty days to live. Paul’s mind wondered about many things. ‘Would they go crazy, as did the people in Dome 3? Did the people in Dome 3 know they were doomed? Was that what made they quit the maintenance? Did hopelessness lead to evil behavior?’

  Meandering along, they passed the long and tall rows of sealed, cubes where the food was produced. The taupe colored fungi biologicals were housed in row after row of stacked cubes as high as the dome. ‘Will these food rations even be needed? There is more than enough for only one hundred and twenty days.’ He shook his head a bit considering and estimating how much would be needed for only one hundred and twenty days. ‘They could probably stop production right now.’ But he did not say anything out loud.

  Paul looked closely at the people they passed. He gazed into their faces, and when they caught his eye they often smiled or waved. A young security officer, Zunang, walked by and gave him a huge smile. Her uniform was neat and proper, her silky black hair nicely combed. Her almond shaped eyes were pretty and there was an innocence in her muscular stride. ‘How would she and the security teams maintain order if there was no hope?’ The stun baton on her belt made him remember again the horrors of Dome 3, and the murdered police staff. He looked away quickly.

  “Gretchen, I need to go back to the apartment,” Paul said.

  “We can talk better there anyway,” Gretchen replied.

  “Paul?” Cunda the artificial intelligence asked.

  “Yes, Cunda,” He replied as they walked toward their apartment.

  “LeeAnn and Roy are at the apartment. They asked if I could summon you,” the AI stated.

  “They are back?” Paul was surprised. He knew they had each been on solo missions. “Yes, we will be there right away.” Paul broke into a trot toward his apartment. Gretchen followed. They both took the stairs two at a time as they went to the proper level.

  Squatting in the hall were LeeAnn and Roy. They both looked very haggard and sullen.

  “You are back!” Gretchen exclaimed and rushed forward. The other adventurers stood and greeted her.

  “Come inside,” Paul said as he grasped the shoulder of Roy. “I want to know what you found.”

  “No, trust me. You do not,” Roy said. His usually happy eyes were sunken and his lips pursed.

  The four of them entered the apartment. Gretchen and Paul sat on the bed. A couple of chairs folded up from the floor and LeeAnn and Roy sat down.

  “You were on solos, right?” Gretchen asked after a bit, since neither Roy nor LeeAnn volunteered anything.

  LeeAnn, her blonde hair pulled back into a short ponytail, looked at Roy and finally answered. “Yes. I was assigned to look for Dome 4, and Roy went to Dome 22.”

  “They were both dead,” Paul said, not as a question, but anticipating what he could see in LeeAnn’s large brown eyes.

  “No just dead, my friend. Not just dead,” Roy said. “I did not even load in the data stick. I threw it out into the dust. I know I should have made a report, but who will care? There is no purpose, no reason, no…anything.”

  Paul sucked in his breath. Roy was extremely conscientious typically making methodical notes and overly detailed and precise observations. His hands were shaking a bit; his breathing was fast and shallow.

  Roy said in a halting way, “Dome 22 was not as bad as Dome 3,” Roy’s hazel colored eyes looked at Paul, then away. “But it was really bad. Basically, it looked like they had sectioned off their dome, repeatedly, over and over. They sealed in one layer at a time as the dome’s systems failed. I had to work my way inward from outside layer after layer. I could tell where one stand had been made by the decomposition of the bodies and state of the seals.”

  Roy halted and looked at the other three. LeeAnn was looking at the floor.

  “At first I had hope. But it was all bogus. The outward most layers were efficiently sealed and clean. That gave me some false hope. The closer I got to the center, the less sophisticated were the seals and the more remains and scattered debris I found. And there were were bodies. Dried and out just abandoned there where they had fallen. The last survivors had made some kind of shelter around the reactor. Maybe a dozen of them, but they were all dead long ago.”

  “But you made it back safely,” Gretchen said as gently as she could. She had never seen Roy so despondent.

  “Hurrah for me. I made it back here. But to what?” Roy replied. “To what?”

  “We still have a functioning dome. None of our downsizing was required, it just happened,” Paul said, but he lacked much emphasis.

  “Paul, you do not understand,” Roy stared into Paul’s eyes. “The last group of people in Dome 22, they overrode safety procedures and shut down their own reactor. They just shut it down and gave up. They all wanted to die.”

  “We are not giving up. Roy, there are new plans. Brink and the other engineers have designed new machinery and new technologies. There are plans happening,” Gretchen said.

  “Once this place was designed for ten thousand people. Now we have less than fifteen hundred? The age mate groups are smaller than ever. We too have shut down big sections of our dome. We are just like Dome 22, only not as far along the path. What is the use?” Roy stated.

  Silence descended upon the room. No one spoke for a while, and the tension in the air was thick.

  “LeeAnn, what happened to you?” Paul asked. He was unsure he wanted to hear, but he did seek to help his friend to ventilate her experiences.

  LeeAnn looked up, her eyes filled with sorrow. “Dome 4 was dead. Nothing as dramatic as what you or Roy saw. It looked like there was a sudden and unexpected dome breech about twenty years ago or so. Not just a single breach, but multiple breaches, all about the same time. None of their systems would respond to fusion power. Even the physical and mechanical systems were almost totally seized up. I had to manually crank open the doorways to make entry. Radiation levels were the same inside as outside. There were no records to bring back, expect for my personal observations. I made a quick walkthrough, but everything was dead and dust was filling it all in. So I too just tossed the data stick before decontamination. I agree with Roy, what is the use?”

  Paul and Gretchen could not answer. The silence was growing long when Paul’s artificial intelligence interrupted it by saying, “Paul, D
ave and Constance are outside of the apartment. May I let them in?”

  “Yes, please,” Paul replied.

  The door opened. Constance stood in front of Dave. Her deep brown skin and short black hair seemed to be far lighter than her mood.

  They entered and two more chairs, the last available in the apartment, folded up from the floor. They sat down.

  “I see there is no good news from your solo missions either,” Gretchen observed. “Michael reported earlier about his mission to Dome 11, and that dome was dead. Roy and LeeAnn found dead domes as well.”

  Dave nodded toward Roy, “Dome 1 showed multiple explosions inside the dome. Everyone dead. Waste of my time.”

  Constance reported in her professional manner, “I went to Dome 5. All the people were just gone. All systems were powered down on purpose. Every AI was wiped of memory. I tried to restart the primary systems, but all I got back were ‘Unable to Comply’ messages. The dome's water and air systems were kaput. I did find one room, I think of it as the last one. That apartment had words written on the wall. ‘Abandon all hope.’ That was it. No bodies, no blood, or gore, or mess, or explosions. Just a plain scrawled, ‘Abandon all hope’ and some old paper books lying around.”

  “No people at all? No bodies? Where did they go?” Gretchen asked.

  “The only thing I could figure was they all just individually walked away from the dome. No tracks of course. How long do tracks last in that wind and dust? There were no outdoor vehicles missing from what I could tell. They had four airlock bays with well labeled stations for their vehicles. Not bad tech level, no fusion packs, no RAM materials from what I could tell. But those were big vehicles and each had pressurized cabins. They were all just sitting there waiting. They looked new and never used. Strange, no one ever used them it looked like, yet everyone was gone,” Constance said. “It was the eeriest thing I have ever seen. Just a big empty dome, and nobody there. I think they suited up and all just walked away.”

  “They were the smart ones,” Roy said bitterly.

  “There is always hope. The Committee has a plan,” Gretchen said. She then related the plan to try to recover a colony ship.

  “So they want to send us on some idiotic mission in space now?” Roy asked.

  “Jamie volunteered to go, and Michael seemed to agree,” Paul related.

  “That reminds me,” Gretchen said. She then addressed her personal AI. “Delphi? Please replay the comments at this morning’s Committee Meeting. Something about an overview of the plan.”

  Delphi answered, “Yes Gretchen. I will provide that.”

  A three dimensional display appeared hovering over the toileting area which was the only place in the apartment where it could be shown. Michael was in the display and he said, “First, we must find those colony ships, and if they still survive, which no one knows, we have to get there. And we can send how many? You say it can only be two? So two people must go to the ship in faster than light travel, a new technology that has not been proven over long ranges. Then on that colony ship, in who knows what shape it is in on that ship, two people build a receiving pad out of one hundred year old spare parts? And what if the humans on those ships are not open to new visitors?”

  “Is that the section you wanted to see?” Delphi asked.

  “No,” Gretchen replied quickly, knowing that Michael’s tone and words were not encouraging, but rather sarcastic and disparaging. “I was thinking about what Muriel said about the possibilities, that there was hope in the new plan. Is that correct Delphi?”

  “Yes, conjectures show that the plan has a chance for success. However, in Michael’s crude manner, he expressed the essence of the proposed missions. Shall I replay the entire meeting so you can take his words in context?”

  Dave shook his head, got up and walked out without saying another word.

  “First solos to dead domes, and now these suicide space missions?” Roy said. “I came back here to listen to this nonsense?” He too got up and walked away.

  Gretchen tried to intervene, but he just stepped past here easily, not listening to her objections. She tried to encourage them to listen to the whole Committee meeting, but they did not listen.

  “Paul?” LeeAnn asked. “Would you go back to Dome 3 again?”

  “No,” Paul replied honestly.

  “That is what I thought. Thanks for being honest.” LeeAnn stood and departed as well. She looked more depressed than when she had first entered.

  “Constance?” Gretchen implored. “There was a lot more at the meeting. The Committee’s plan has hope, and there are reasons for it. Brink made some new technology work, and the…”

  Constance waved away any more discussion. “Perhaps. I need to sleep now. Goodbye my friends,” Constance said and got up and departed. “It was an honor to know you both.”

  “Constance? Do you want company? I could stay with you?” Gretchen asked.

  “No need. But thank you both,” Constance walked through the door and away.

  Gretchen looked at Paul and said, “These solo missions are too hard and emotionally exhausting. Those four looked horrid. The solo missions must be stopped.”

  “Agreed. But I do not think that is our biggest concern. None of them even heard about the fact our dome will fail in less than one hundred and twenty days,” Paul said.

  “I know!” Gretchen exclaimed. “As discouraged as they were, I could hardly tell them that part, could I?”

  “I did not want to inform them either. Maybe after they eat and rest they will feel better. We can try talking to them then. But I am afraid for our futures,” Paul said.

  “Shall we contact someone else about them?” Gretchen asked.

  “I am sure the officials already know they are back. The decontamination process is monitored,” Paul said, but his heart was heavy.

  5 second committee meeting

  The next morning, Gretchen and Paul got up early and went to the ricochet court and worked out vigorously. Again Gretchen won, but it was good for both of them to exercise. They saw a few of the techs going about their business of repairs and maintenance.

  Back at their apartment, a summons arrived announcing another meeting with the Committee.

  “That was fast. It must mean good news,” Gretchen replied. “Maybe some of the reports submitted have been helpful? Or we are all going to support those who came back from solos?”

  “I doubt it,” Paul replied. “Remember, Roy and LeeAnn did not even submit the data sticks for analysis.”

  They washed quickly and hurried to the conference room.

  “Well, yes, we are all here,” Muriel said glancing at Paul and Gretchen as they sidled into seats in the room. There were some empty seats, and Paul wondered why Muriel would say they were all there.

  Clearing her throat, Muriel continued. “Last night four of the adventurers self-terminated. LeeAnn, Roy, Dave, and Constance had returned from their missions to other domes last night. They were all found dead in their apartments this morning. The bodies are being recycled. Files are available through the AI. There were no personal messages left behind. Only Constance filed a report, and hers confirms our fears about the dome failures.”

  Gretchen was stricken with grief. She started to say something about how she had spoken with them, but then hesitated. ‘What would I say?’ she wondered.

  Paul was looking intensely at Jamie and Michael. Jamie’s eyes were watering a bit. ‘Does she really care?’ Paul asked himself. ‘Maybe she actually does?’ Michael looked stern and concentrated; much as he had the previous time Paul had seen him.

  Paul puzzled about his own mixed and jumbled feelings. Last night he knew those four were discouraged, but were they suicidal? What had he missed? Could he have helped? Should he have done something else? Call Doctor Chambers or Doctor Carolyn? Paul was emotionally busted up but snapped out of his introspection when Jubal’s AI, Artificial Intelligence spoke.

  Artificial Intelligence announced: “Information arriv
al from faster-than-light robotic probes. Shall I display results?”

  “Yes, please do,” Muriel answered. Now Jamie was all perky and eager to go. Paul wondered if the sorrow he had seen on her face had really ever been there. He then looked to the center of the triangular table where the three Committee members were staring.

  Artificial Intelligence asked, “Do you want detailed reports on each probe or a general overview?”

  Muriel responded hastily, “Begin with general overview, and make detailed reports available to all here.”

  “Robotic probes found and landed on all seven colony ships: Vanguard, Warren, Marathon, Conestoga, Eschaton, Trailblazer and Zubalamo. All colony ships show some level of functioning technology. All also show readings of an acceptable atmosphere inside. All colony ships also show positive signs of biological life inhabiting colony ships. Robotic probes have placed exact targeting beacon on each colony ship. Piloted faster than light scout ship mission success now estimated on 95% or better for reaching colony ships. Unexpected and unexplained premature failure of robotic probes on Marathon, Eschaton and Trailblazer shortly after beacon placement; however, all beacons still functioning. The four remaining probes are expected to reach their life expectancy in four hours. Beacon life expectancy is one hundred hours.”