Initiation Series: Series One Compilation (Terran Chronicles)

by James Jackson

  Cindy smiles disparagingly as she tries to keep her breakfast down. Oh yeah, we’re all good now!

  Location:

  Wenchang satellite launch center

  China

  Commander Jie is most impressed as he observes the later stages of the launch. Watching the satellite grid that destroyed China’s rocket a few months back firing on the spaceship brings back unpleasant memories. His eyes are glued to the powerful telescope when the lasers abruptly cease firing. A dull glow now emanates from the rotating ship. He can discern what appear to be gouge marks in the hull. As the spacecraft gains altitude, it rolls over and narrowly misses an orbiting satellite. Once it avoids this obstacle, it stops its roll, and just floats there, hanging in space.

  Taking his eyes away from the telescope, Jie tries to understand what he has just witnessed. Why did the satellites stop firing? Perplexed, he returns to look again. The spacecraft has moved from his view, but he finds it easily enough. Observing the ship brings a thought to mind. He pulls his eyes away in shock as the idea develops. “Get me the video feed, I want to watch it, now!” He orders decisively.

  It does not take the technicians very long to comply. Seated in a meeting room with about two dozen others, Commander Jie scrutinizes the recording carefully. “There!” He jumps up from his chair as he points. “Ah ha!” Looking around the room authoritatively, he gleefully beams. “Find out what signal went out when that glow started.”

  Finding the signal should be pretty easy, he thinks. The launch was recorded by every radio and optical telescope his country could aim at the Terran. Replicating the signal, now that may prove quite a difficult task, he continues to muse. But he is not concerned with ‘how to do it’, he is just pleased with his discovery.

  His preliminary report that afternoon begins a chain of events that he could never, in his wildest dreams, begin to imagine.

  Earth Orbit

  Location:

  Starship Terran

  Planetary Orbit

  Earth

  The starship Terran slowly maneuvers away from Earth as her crew adjusts to the intricacies of space flight. John makes slight corrections to their orbit with the many thrusters at his command. In doing so, he begins to get a real ‘feel’ for the ship’s responsiveness, or lack thereof.

  George reluctantly steps from his suit and lets Henry check on him, as reports of damage and casualties begin to arrive at the bridge. Cindy listens to each account with more and more apprehension, every new problem adds to an ever-growing list. Andrew and Joe get to work putting theory into practice as they study their console’s star charts. Joe looks at a display that comes up on his console, then outside through the panoramic view afforded by the windows. He frowns at the disparity, but before he can begin to think about what he sees, Cindy interrupts everyone’s thoughts.

  “We have fatalities.” Cindy’s voice fades, as the troubling news sinks in. People have died this day, she cannot get the thought from her mind. She has dealt with death before, but this is different, somehow. She solemnly asks, “John, do you have any way to put us on some sort of auto pilot? I want a meeting in the hangar deck with everyone.”

  John looks back to his console, “Ah,” he ventures while scanning the myriad of symbols.

  George speaks up. “Yes, I can show you when Henry is done here.” He gives Henry a disparaging look.

  Henry stares back and sighs. “George if only you understood how lucky you are.”

  “What do you mean?” George says, genuinely surprised.

  “You were poisoned!” Henry states while he stands up and heads over to the bodysuit. Wearing protective gloves, he wipes the inside surface where George’s hands were. “A contact poison was applied to the inside of your suit. I really don’t know how you survived.”

  Cindy’s swings her head around at Henry’s words. “What?” I need to find out what’s happening on my ship. Sabotage, deaths, and poisoning, she reflects. Getting out of her chair, she walks over to Peter and very quietly whispers into his ear. He looks directly into her eyes as he considers her words, and then silently nods in agreement.

  Returning to her chair, Cindy chews her lower lip, while mulling over everything. “Okay. George, you said earlier that we have been sabotaged, and now Henry says you were poisoned.” She pauses for a moment. “I don’t want this information to leave the room. We must let the perpetrator, or perpetrators, reveal themselves.” Her eyes narrow as anger builds inside her.

  Henry packs up his medical kit, takes the swipe sample from the suit, and a blood sample from George. “I will conduct more thorough tests in the medical bay, after I help Akira with the casualties.”

  Peter stands, glances at Cindy, and then surprises everyone with yet another revelation. “I shall assist the two of you, I have some medical training.”

  Cindy’s brow tightens as she wonders if he is telling the truth. He really is a mystery, but I am glad he is on our side. Chills run up her spine as a new realization comes to mind. I hope he is on our side. She watches him leave the bridge as she tries to push this new thought from her mind. He does have full access to the ship. Her eyes narrow again, wondering, as they follow his departure.

  One by one, alarms silence themselves as crews repair or bypass damaged systems. Reactor control has the worst of it. Leaking cooling systems have spewed radioactive liquid, and released gasses, into their immediate areas. With radiation alarms blaring from at least two reactors, crews are as scared as they are busy. Fortunately, by luck or design, each reactor was built into its own isolated section, and then connected to the power grid via a specialized ‘control room’. George and Joe worked long and hard with engineers to build the various interface terminals and consoles. Many had argued that the Gamin systems should have complete control over the twenty reactors. Fortunately for the crew, the final decision was that GUS would automatically control the reactors output up to one hundred percent, but no more. Thus ‘Reactor Control’ was constructed to governor any overtaxing of the reactors.

  It takes the crew quite a while before everyone, bar the wounded and medics, are assembled in the hangar area. Cindy has spent the time carefully considering her words. She steps onto a box, and quieting the crowd with a raised hand, begins. “We lost four people during the launch, including the Atlanta flight crew.” Pausing, she mentally rehashes her upcoming words one last time. Hushed whispers emanate from the crowd.

  Continuing on, she raises her voice over the murmuring. “We find ourselves in a dilemma. We can’t land this ship, nor can the shuttles hold everyone. We do have supplies on board, and it would seem that life support is working, even if the air is hard to breathe.”

  The voices from the crowd pick up in volume as various innuendoes about the pungent air sound out. She raises her hand again and waits for the noise level to diminish, and then states. “We will continue with the mission, people!”

  Expecting an uproar, she pauses, but, is instead surprised at the silence that descends upon those gathered. Dazed expressions greet her wondering eyes. Taking advantage of the unexpected quiet, she continues on. “Starting tomorrow, everyone is to report to Peter. He will draft a list of those on board, and assign duties. To the people who were not meant to be here, I am truly sorry.” She pauses again, but this time only for a second. “There is a lot of cleaning up to do. We also need to inventory everything on board. Now let’s get to work people.”

  As she turns to leave, a solitary voice calls from the crowd. “What made us take off then? How can it have been an accident? Huh?” Others in the crowd add their own sentiments while Cindy considers her answer carefully.

  Cindy does not pause long as the crowd gets rowdier with each passing moment. “We had a system malfunction, which meant that we either launched, or exploded. It was something to do with the alien computers and totally unforeseeable. We are still trying to figure it out, but believe it was a normal process for this spaceship.” She wants any potential saboteurs to feel safe, so t
hey can be drawn out. Glancing once more around the throng, she steps down and hurries back to the bridge.

  The four deaths cause Cindy to reconsider the sections of the ship which have a mix of Gamin and human technologies. Signs to warn the fearless crewman of the various dangers, are apparently, not enough. She had planned to remind the crew to pay attention to the posted notices, especially the, 'Warning: No Artificial Gravity Plates', or 'Warning: Section may Decompress without Notice’, signs.

  Cindy returns to the bridge and finds that in her distracted state, almost everyone else has beat her. She sits down in her centrally located command chair, clears her mind, and starts to formulate a plan. She told the crew that the mission would continue, well, the mission brief was supposed to be tomorrow. Just have to wing it, she manages a smile at the thought.

  Cindy leans forward and says, “Captain John, if you would be so kind as to take us out of orbit. Let’s put some distance between us and Earth, just in case we’re left powerless for a time.”

  “Yes Ma’am,” John responds heartily.

  Cindy continues issuing her instructions, “Andrew, Joe, see if you can get in contact with ground control.”

  Both men look at each other, bewildered.

  Cindy sees their dumfounded expressions, and says, “Just try, will you? I am going down to reactor control, then the medical bay, to see first-hand what’s going on.” Cindy, quite happily leaves the bridge, with its moving star field.

  John pilots this massive ship on what can only be described as her shakedown cruise. Engaging a number of thrusters, he allocates power. The Terran responds, slowly at first, but gradually picks up speed. As the ship breaks orbit, he banks her around, for no reason other than habit, the internal dampeners seamlessly negating the effects of inertia. He thinks back to a time, not too long ago, when he piloted the shuttle, Endeavour, on a daring rescue mission. Never for a second did he ever think that he would be piloting a spacecraft again, let alone a vessel of this size and complexity.

  John also notices that when the gravity lift system shut down, many of his terminal’s symbols vanished, while others appeared. Makes sense, he muses. I guess we shouldn’t engage the main drive when we are on a planet. He looks at the sub-light and main engine symbols with curiosity. Everything still seems accessible, just not directly from the main control. Interesting, maybe both can be activated at once.

  The bridge speakers crackle to life. “Terran come in, this is ground control.” Joe’s face beams with excitement as the words resound. He makes an exaggerated gesture to John for him to reply.

  John hesitates as he drags his thoughts from the terminal’s new symbols. “Ground control, Captain John Thompson of the Terran here.”

  “Captain, what is your status?” Questions the voice.

  With a heavy sigh, John reports. “There was a systems failure, or malfunction. We had to launch, or we would have hit the ground. We have four deaths at this time, along with numerous injuries. It was a rough take off to say the least, and it will take a while for us to sort out what happened. Also, reactor control has some serious issues which George is working on.”

  “Understood. Of the deaths, who did we lose?” Comes the reply from ground control.

  John thinks of his friends who died this day. “Ground control, we lost the flight crew of the Atlanta, and one more man, who has yet to be identified.”

  The reply from ground control is a long time in coming. “Sorry John, I know you were close to them. We want to discuss what to do from here on in. When things settle down we need to have a brief chat with Cindy.”

  “Copy that. We will contact you shortly, Terran out.” John replies.

  John gazes around the bridge for a moment, and then focuses on the task at hand. He gets back to piloting, which takes his mind off everything else. The Terran’s maneuvers take her past the moon. As her speed builds, so does John’s confidence with the ship’s maneuverability, or lack thereof. While experimenting with the controls, he keeps anxiously eyeing the Gamin sub-light and main drive systems, they are yet to be tested.

  Andrew looks back, hoping to see George, but he is not there. Must still be busy fixin’ things, he muses.

  “Well, mate,” Andrew says to Joe, quite defeated. “I can’t figure out how any of this really works.”

  Joe looks at his computer screen, and then keys in some fresh instructions on his laptop. He stares at the unexpected results for a moment, and then with a combination for concern and surprise, mumbles to himself. What is that? Typing feverishly for a few seconds, he gets rewarded with more information.

  “Oh WOW!” Joe exclaims. Hitting the communicator on his desk hard. “Cindy, you had better come back to the bridge and take a look at this, and I mean now.” Joe just stares dumfounded at his laptop, and then the Gamin console.

  Andrew and John gawk at Joe in surprise, both are stunned by his boldness.

  Elsewhere in the ship, Cindy hears the message as it comes across every speaker. Oh great, everyone heard that. She turns and heads back to the bridge, ready to give Joe an earful. He has to address me by my title, and not issue me ORDERS.

  Only a few people actually stop what they are doing, the rest are far too busy to concern themselves with messages.

  George has been occupied repairing reactor cooling lines, his bodysuit shielding him from the radiation, for now. Watching the power levels plummet alarmingly fast, adds to his pressure. With the last leaking pipe repaired, he looks at the radioactive mess, and is suddenly inspired. Creating a very familiar tool, he pauses. This will either work, or, well, it won’t. He gulps, and then activates the absorption function. Just as he did on the first day of training, he absorbs the material before him. Symbols scroll up and down the view on his faceplate in a familiar fashion. Power levels instantly jump up. Radioactive waste is an energy source. Oh my, no wonder they loved our planet. All those nukes we launched, oh my. He gets back to absorbing the radioactive waste in earnest, collecting more energy, which is stored by the suit.

  Lunar

  Location:

  Starship Terran

  Earth’s Moon

  Cindy makes it back to the bridge and stops at the sight. There, above them and dominating the view, is the moon. John has flipped the Terran upside down and angled the craft so as to afford them all a bird’s-eye view of the moon. Clearly, his skills at maneuvering this mammoth vessel are improving. Cindy is so dumfounded by the sight; all thoughts of chastising Joe vanish. The lunar base occupies an entire crater, one easily large enough to swallow the ship.

  Andrew points at one distinct feature, a flat area. “A landing zone perhaps?”

  Cindy sits down in her command chair, flabbergasted. “What is our current power reserve?”

  Joe, expecting the usually low value, looks down at his console. His eyes widen while his jaw drops. He is momentarily speechless.

  Cindy taps her arm rests impatiently.

  Joe turns to look straight at her. “Um, we have FIVE percent power, but the reactors are only giving us two percent, the other three is coming straight into the power grid from somewhere else.”

  Down in reactor control, George has connected a massive power cable to a socket in the suit’s left arm, allowing his right arm to collect waste and convert it. The cable snakes behind him as he moves from reactor to reactor.

  Cindy considers her options carefully. “I want you to take us down, slowly. Use the gravity drive only, if you can. I want to make sure we can take off again.”

  John understands immediately. If they can land with minimal thruster usage, then taking off with them should be a cinch. “Will do,” he replies.

  John rotates the massive craft as though it were a tiny space capsule. The internal dampeners are so effective no one can feel any motion at all. However, the moving moon and star field make Cindy queasy again. To distract herself, she thinks about what they will do when they land. She smiles as it dawns on her.

  Cindy taps console with confide
nce “George, report to the bridge as soon as you can.”

  Lining the mighty craft up to land is easy enough, making sure they can launch again is another difficult task John taps a symbol to extend the landing struts. As he does so, a number of symbols vanish from his console. He is too busy to consider what they were, but he plans to figure these Gamin flight systems out as fast as he can. Descending slowly, the struts make contact with the moon, they flex and give, as they are designed to do, cushioning the landing. The Terran lands so smoothly that few of the crew even notice.

  Joe smiles as he monitors his console. “We used just under half of one percent of our reserves for that landing.”

  Cindy does some quick math. “Oh wow! Then our take off from Earth was a close call then, a really close call.”

  George can be heard before he is seen as his suit clangs its way with each step toward the bridge. His suit has been decontaminated, but still looks quite filthy. “What are we doing on the moon?” He asks, quite perplexed. The lunar base currently obscured from view by the ship.

  Cindy grins at George. “Going to make you famous! Feel like a moon walk?”

  “Okay, pretend as though I have not been here for a while. Why am I going for a moon walk?”

  “Oh, you will see. But first, how do we open the ramp to get outside?” Cindy asks.

  George looks back, even more befuddled. “You just open it.”

  “Um George, you do know the moon has no atmosphere, right?” Cindy responds.

  “Yeah, yeah, it’s okay. With the navigational shields up, we will be fine.” George explains.

  George heads down to the hangar bay, which Cindy has evacuated as a precaution. Just as he stops in front of the ramp, a series of ominous sounds emanate from it. Clangs, whistles, and whirs, all resonate out. A crack appears at the far end. This widens as the ramp lowers to the moon’s surface. It hits the dusty landscape, kicking up small clouds.