Initiation Series: Series One Compilation (Terran Chronicles)

by James Jackson

  Demetri’s eyes warily rove the room as he replies. “Yes, something has gone wrong. We need to know what happened. We will talk more, later!” He adds, staring at her intently.

  “Of course. Would you like to take a tour of my facility?” Barbara continues, catching that he wishes to continue this discussion in a more private setting.

  Demetri smiles at her offer. “It would be a privilege.”

  The two scientists nod respectfully to each other, and then part ways.

  Location:

  Kangbashi District

  China

  Commander Jie could not be any happier. Not only is almost every department reporting success in their endeavors, he now sits upon a discovery that may elevate his status even farther. He smiles as he thinks of the almost two million civilians and three hundred thousand soldiers that all follow his orders. The city has grown these last few months under his leadership.

  The facility’s supercomputer has also been steadily receiving upgrades, even when his advisors told him they were not necessary. Jie just reinforced his desire that ‘KANG’ be more powerful, and faster, cost was not a consideration. When he demanded the city build its own radio telescope facility, he again met resistance. Four months later, China’s fabled ‘people power’ shows its effectiveness, as the city now boasts a most impressive array.

  The array almost cost Jie his post, as his superiors failed to see its benefits. But now he knows it has solidified him as a forward-thinking person, a true leader. Jie has no doubt that he will soon be honored and respected even more.

  The transmission from the starship Terran was difficult to decipher, as it was badly distorted. Having the array aimed at the lunar base, was yet another fortuitous decision. Commander Jie rereads the dossier, and takes special note of the creatures encountered on the two habitable worlds mentioned.

  Also on his desk is a rather disturbing report. Another failure by the French medical team in their efforts to enhance a soldier with the tools given to them by the aliens. No matter, there are plenty more volunteers, besides, there is no need to report the occasional accident. He continues his musings.

  Walking to the massive windows, he gazes off into the distance, there rests a duplicate of the facility in the Australian Outback. Huge cranes surround this construction dock, idly waiting for the day they will be put to work. Yes, Commander Jie has abused his authority, and spent vast sums of money, but today he holds vindication.

  Location:

  Starship Terran

  Somewhere Out There

  Radclyf stares at his friend Jim, laying on the floor of the makeshift morgue. Though he is supposed to be detached from his team, he finds himself spending some time recounting all of their missions together.

  Finally Henry comes over and places a supportive hand on his shoulder. “He died performing his duty. We will all miss him.”

  Radclyf silently nods in agreement. He then looks at Henry with an expression that would make normal men cringe. Death walks with Radclyf this day.

  For hours, the crew battles the ship’s system’s refusal to accept commands. Every laptop that was connected to GUS is now useless. The supercomputer itself, a ruined mess which looks to be beyond all hope of repair. The twenty nuclear reactors are operating far above critical levels, and all attempts at regaining control are failing. The Terran is running at speed eight on the Gamin console and in doing so is shaking badly. Non-Gamin deck plates are breaking from their welds throughout the ship, adding to the hazards. External plating continues to peel away as the ship travels at an unimaginable speed.

  Cindy holds on tightly to her vibrating chair as it threatens to shake her teeth out. “Why are we still running so hard? Why haven’t we run out of power?”

  Joe holds onto his Gamin console as the shuddering suddenly increases in intensity then drops back down again, almost in pulsing cycles. “The last order given by GUS set everything to maximum, reactors, propulsion, everything. As for why we haven’t stopped, I don’t know.”

  George has set his suit to hold him firm, thus the shaking and shuddering is effecting him just like the rest. George reviews more disquieting readouts. “The reactor safeties have been deactivated. They are running out of control. The heat buildup alone is knocking people out. Olaf is down there attempting to deal with the radiation leakage.” George reports the news while his sympathies go out to all the workers in the reactor area.

  Andrew stares ahead, then leans forward as he notices something unusual. A sheet of armor has peeled away from the ship and is freewheeling in space toward them. As it touches either the dampening shields or navigation shields, it is deflected back down toward the ship where it collides with the hull, only to bounce back up again. Caught in this narrow band, the piece of debris has nowhere to go, except closer toward them. This macabre dance continues on, driving this large fragment closer to the bridge area. Andrew points ahead as the loose sheet looks as though it is coming straight at them. All they can do is watch in dismay as it tumbles closer and closer. Everyone freezes on the bridge as the floating sheet disappears out of sight, somewhere below them.

  THUNK!

  Much to their surprise, they actually feel the impact. Cindy turns to George hoping for some answers. He shakes his head from side to side. There is no way to determine what damage, if any, the debris caused.

  John puts his hands on his head in frustration. “Do any of these consoles work?”

  The bridge speakers suddenly crackle to life. “Reactor control here, we must evacuate. Radiation levels have spiked, there is nothing we can do. We must abandon the ship before the reactors explode.”

  Cindy touches her armchair’s built-in console, and responds. “There is no way to escape, we either survive or not, our fate is in your hands.”

  Andrew finally finds his own voice, but merely states that which they are all wondering. “How can the ship be sustaining this speed? How can the reactors be operating for so long way above critical levels without shutting down or scramming? What is holding this thing together?”

  George has spent these last few hours trying to fathom these very issues. Disconnecting from his console, he walks carefully to the doorway. “I must help Olaf.”

  With that he is gone. Cindy feels completely powerless as the Terran streaks blindly onward.

  George and Olaf work for three hours successfully reducing the output of each reactor to one hundred percent. The pair are elated with their work; however, their success has come at a high price. Forty-six of the sixty reactor crew members are now in Henry and Akira’s care, due to radiation exposure.

  George heads back to the bridge where he starts off his report in a manner that simply vexes Cindy. “Well, I have some good news and some bad news. What do you want first?”

  Cindy taps her chair disapprovingly as she glares at him.

  George waits for a moment, then realizing she is not going to say anything, he continues on. “Well the good news is that all of the reactors are now operating within normal tolerances. The bad news is that we had to dump the converted radiation into the ship’s power grid.”

  Cindy’s jaw drops as she looks forward again. “So instead of blowing up, we’re flying dead straight at this enormous speed. You do know that if we run into anything, anything at all, we will be destroyed.”

  George stares back at her in despair as he shrugs his shoulders. “Well it was either a certain death or, well, maybe we’ll get lucky.” He too, looks forward as he wonders how many stars or planets are in their path.

  A little over twelve hours after the saboteur killed Jim and blew GUS apart, something happens ship-wide. Everyone feels the reduction in the ship’s shaking, hope builds. A few minutes later the lights flicker, the bridge consoles go dead, power up, and then go dead again.

  George connects to his terminal, and is overjoyed at what he discovers. “The Gamin systems are resetting.” He says excitedly.

  Andrew watches as his console lights up and symbols st
art cycling between being lit, or blank.

  “Reactor control here, we have a new problem. Reactors seven and eleven just scrammed, and we don’t know why. Olaf is here, but he is not sure what’s going on either.”

  Cindy turns to George who is already leaving the bridge. Before he makes it to the doorway, every light and every console goes out. Internal gravity fails, along with life support. The stunned bridge crew sits in total darkness, and silence, even the chair’s restraints fail to engage. The Terran is dead in space, adrift.

  As the ship’s momentum carries them forward, it is thrown off kilter and starts to slowly turn, and roll, at the same time.

  Oh no not this again. Cindy thinks as she stares ahead at the pin pricks of light in the distance. Crew members throughout the ship struggle to find hand holds as they begin to float off the deck plates. George carefully makes his way to reactor control, one step at a time.

  A man claws his way to the bridge as best he can, fear and adrenaline giving him strength. The soft glow of his flashlight provides little comfort in the haunting environment. Colliding with George almost gives the man a heart attack. Recognizing him, he blurts out, “We have no power to run the reactor’s cooling systems. There is no time, we need power now.”

  “Okay”, is all George can say as he stares at the nearly deranged man. He is stumped, their only power source is the reactors. He considers the ship’s various capacitors, then as the bridge is close, he heads back as fast as he can.

  Arriving at the bridge, George makes his way to Andrew’s terminal and powers it from his suit. “We need to divert all reserve capacitor power back into the power grid.” He states.

  Andrew taps at the now functional console then stops in total shock. “The ship drew power from every capacitor, even from the thrusters, we have nothing.”

  Cindy frowns a little. “Why can’t we just restart the reactors?” She asks.

  The reactor technician had struggled to keep up with George in the zero-g environment, but he did, and responds with disheartening words. “It takes power to withdraw the rods and restart the reaction. We do not even have battery backup power, it too is depleted. But it may already be too late for that, if we don’t get the cooling systems running right now, the reactors will start to melt.”

  Tension levels increase as the implications of the impending disaster sink in.

  Andrew is working his console, when he suddenly has a eureka moment. “The Gamin shuttle, it should still have power!” He shouts excitedly.

  “Yes!” George agrees enthusiastically.

  Without waiting for instructions from Cindy, George steps away. The console goes dead, much to Andrew’s annoyance. While George makes his way to the shuttle area Olaf has been doing his best to keep the reactors cool. His suit’s power is just enough to circulate a trickling of water through the systems. With dread, Olaf can see that he has only ten minutes of power left, and then his suit will be fully drained, sealing their fate. He desperately wishes he could convert the surplus radiation into energy, but that would entail leaving the cooling system.

  It takes George five minutes to get to the upper deck of the main hull. Knowing he is out of time, he makes a daring move. Two minutes later he is standing at a railing on the edge of the hangar area, on the twentieth level. Disengaging his suit’s stability controls, he vaults over the edge and propels himself downward toward the shuttle. The zero-g environment works to his advantage. It takes less than a minute for him to traverse the distance. Swinging his feet around and re-engaging the suit’s stability controls puts George on the floor of the hangar deck in good time. He hopes that the shuttle was not connected to the power grid, for if it was, it too may have been drained.

  Back at reactor control, Olaf shuts down his suit’s environmental systems. He diverts every little bit of power he has into keeping the reactor’s main cooling pumps running. He debates going to a reactor to convert the escaping radiation into energy, but that would take too much time. The cores would surely start to meltdown by then.

  It takes George another minute to locate the shuttle’s connection, his hand-held light provides poor coverage. To his dismay, it is attached to the ship’s power grid. He gulps, and with trepidation heads inside the dark shuttle.

  Olaf is once again wondering why they left the pair of massive generators on Earth. Stupid, stupid, he repeats to himself as his suit becomes useless, its power fully expended.

  George reaches the cockpit, exits his suit and sits down. Here goes nothing, he says to himself as he touches the blank console. He jumps in surprise as the lights temporarily blind him. The shuttle has power! He engages its umbilical controls, and then reverses the power flow, directing the shuttle’s reserves into the ship’s power grid.

  Andrew’s console comes back to life, as do the rest of the bridge terminals. He almost activates the life support and gravity systems, but hesitates. What if George needs this power to restart the reactors? He lifts his hesitant fingers away from the controls and waits. The main lights have yet to come back on, giving them all a ghoulish glow as they sit at the bright consoles.

  George quickly gets back into his suit and hurries to the reactor control area as fast as he can. He arrives there some fifteen minutes later to be met with wide smiles and people high fiving each other. Olaf managed to buy them the valuable time needed. George gives the sweat covered Olaf a silent nod in thanks, and then heads back to the bridge.

  Cindy smiles as the bridge lights come back on.

  “Reactor control here. Main power has been restored, but take it easy for a bit, will ya? We still need to check each reactor for damage.” Cindy chews on her lower lip as she listens to the report.

  Cindy looks forward at the rotating star map, then, with alarm, spots what appears to be something venting from the ship. “We will be staying right here until we have a complete ship-wide status report.” She orders as she turns her attention away from the moving stars.

  Tapping her communications symbol, Cindy gives the crew some much needed relief. “All crews prepare for artificial gravity.” She turns to Andrew and nods.

  Andrew activates the ship’s life support systems, artificial gravity, and then milks a small amount of power to steady the ship via its thrusters. Cindy smiles at his thoughtfulness.

  The most worrying thing right now is the obvious damage to the ship, gas can be seen venting from a number of places. Joe diligently makes note of the damaged areas then seals off the affected sections. He hopes that he is not sealing people in, but he has little choice.

  Once powered, the Gamin systems calculate the Terran’s location in seconds, updating the Gamin consoles almost instantly. However, with GUS being rendered useless, it takes Joe and Andrew considerably longer to figure out just where they are.

  With the pressing needs of power, gravity, and life support being resolved, Cindy closes her eyes for a moment in relief. After a few minutes of not receiving any meaningful reports, she decides it is time to get some first-hand information. She leaves the bridge and heads to the medical bay, reactor control, and then to the main hangar area. Along the way, she chats with any crew members she finds, reassuring them as she goes. Her last stop is the mess hall where she is met by quite a few nervous people.

  Understanding their fears, Cindy gathers her thoughts before saying anything. “We’re safe for now. There was a saboteur on board who managed to cause considerable damage to GUS. Radclyf and Hayato will need your cooperation as they investigate the incident. We need an accurate status of the ship’s condition. For safety reasons I do not want anyone travelling alone. I need you all to form teams of two or three, and check everything.”

  Patrick stands, looks at the others in the room, then says loudly. “Who is with me? Sounds like we gotta patch this beast up.”

  Jeremiah also stands, then walks to Patrick and says. “Count me in buddy.”

  They both stare accusingly at others in the room until people start getting organized. Cindy can feel
the atmosphere changing from one of defeat to a more positive note. Her thoughts return to the reactor room’s report, she is rather worried, and hopes that George and Olaf can fix everything.

  Leaving the mess area, Cindy stops in on the computer technicians who are trying to piece together what they can of their supercomputer.

  A technician spots her, and with great excitement blurts out, “We can fix GUS and restore its core software. It won’t be as powerful, but at least we will have our interface back.”

  Cindy is astounded by the good news. She looks at the charred pieces of unidentifiable computer bits still laying all over the floor and wonders how. “That is fantastic news, well done.” She ventures.

  Cindy hurriedly leaves for the bridge before the exuberant technician has a chance to speak again. A mere thirty minutes earlier she had GUS ‘written off’, now they really do have a chance. Arriving at the bridge, she is stopped by everyone’s stunned expressions. She glances from John to Andrew to Joe in quick succession. The others have left the bridge for one reason or another.

  “Well, what is it?” Cindy asks bluntly.

  The three men remain silent for few seconds until Cindy folds her arms and tilts her head in annoyance. “Spit it out will you!” She is quite exasperated and wishes someone would just tell her what’s going on.

  Andrew glances at John and Joe then gulps as he stands up. Walking to the view screen, he keeps his back to Cindy as he starts quietly talking. “The view is just beautiful, there are so many stars here.”

  Andrew turns to Cindy and can see that she does not get it, he is being too cryptic. “Here,” Andrew says as he waves his right arm indicating outside, “is a long way from Earth. Our best estimate is twenty-two thousand light years away.”