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 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 radiation leakage.” George reports the news while his sympathies go out for 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‘s 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 at 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 ships shaking, hope builds. A few minutes later the lights flicker, the bridge consoles go dead, power up, 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 start 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 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.
As the ship’s momentum carries her forward, she is thrown off kilter and starts to very slowly turn and roll at the same time. Oh no not this again. Cindy 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 providing 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.”
“Ok”, is all George can say as he stares at the near 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 he walks to Andrew’s terminal and powers it from his suit.
“We need to divert all reserve capacitor power back into the power grid.”
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 pending disaster sink in. George has been watching Andrew as he works his console, when he suddenly has a eureka moment.
“The Gamin shuttle, it should still have power!” He almost shouts the words in excitement. The console goes dead the second George steps away, much to Andrew’s annoyance.
While George makes his way to the shuttle area Olaf has been doing his damndest to keep the reactors cool. His suit’s power being 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 then his suit will be 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 finds him 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 working 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 in that time.
It takes George another minute to locate the shuttle’s connection, his hand held light providing 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, then reverses the power flow, directing the shuttle’s reserves into the ship’s power grid.
Andrews 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 bright consoles.
George quickly gets back into his suit and makes for 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 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 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.” Tapping her communications symbol she 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, 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, as gas vents 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 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’s time to get some first-hand information. She leaves the bridge and heads to the medical bay, reactor control, then 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, she 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, 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. “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, she 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 stunned at 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?” She says 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 getting 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.”
He turns to Cindy and can see that she doesn’t get it, he is being to cryptic.
“Here,” he waves his right arm indicating outside, “is a long way from Earth. Our best estimate is twenty-two thousand light years away.”
Cindy gapes at the many stars in view, her jaw drops a little.
“Twenty-two thousand!” she says incredulously.
“Yes, but that’s not the worst of it. Joe.” Andrew palms off the next piece of bad news for Joe to report.
“We can’t go home in a straight line. Accurate scans are possible to a radius of twenty light years. So we need to travel from star to star to make sure we don’t run into a rogue planet, or asteroid. Quite frankly it’s a miracle we didn’t run into anything getting here.”
Cindy looks at the damage visible on the forward section of the ship.
“Perhaps we did Joe.”
John fidgets in his chair then cringes before adding his own comments.
“In addition to this, we can’t travel at the ship’s top speed anymore. The option is no longer available on any of the consoles. Our best speed looks to be five or six.”
Cindy sits in her chair as she absorbs everything.
“OK. So what’s the worst case scenario for us?”
Andrew gulps now.
“Well at speed five, we’re looking at a tad under six years. Speed six, well our best estimate is one year, but that does include stops to recharge.”
Cindy bites at her lower lip.
“Well, let’s fix the ship and get moving.”
Joe turns to Cindy again.
“We have an idea on how to do just that. The American shuttles could carry George and Olaf in the cargo bays attached to the swing arms. The shuttles can get the two of them to each damaged section. Once they seal the holes from the outside we can pressurize the compartments, allowing crews to start repairs on the inside.”
Cindy smiles and finishes off his thoughts.
“Then George and Olaf can come back inside and complete the
work while we get moving. I love your plan.”
John gets up to leave, but Cindy stops him.
“We need you here, let the other crews fly the shuttles, that is why they’re here!”
He sits back down, but not before casting her a ‘you sure’ look. Cindy shakes her head, she needs her best at the helm of the Terran.
Olaf’s suit takes little time to charge up once connected directly to the power grid, allowing the unusual plan to commence quite quickly. Two American shuttles slowly force their way through the navigation shields. The noise reverberates throughout the main hangar as their thrusters push them through. The scene is almost absurd. The shuttles appears so punitive and fragile as they maneuver out from under the ship. Edwards pilots the Atlanta toward the forward section where he rolls the shuttle over so as to be inverted over the Terran. He waits for the navigation shields to be deactivated prior to edging closer. The cargo bay opens up, the swing arm slowly extends toward the hull. George feels his makeshift restraints shift, but then they hold him firm again.
George is easily able to see where the plating has separated. The welds that connect the Gamin armor to Earth’s efforts have broken. As George repairs section upon section, he finds the same scenario over and over. As for the loose plate that collided with the bridge tower, it juts out, having impaled the structure like an arrow. Removing the debris takes some time, but eventually it is out, allowing George to conduct his repairs.
Olaf, for his part, finds the experience quite daunting. He glances to the command section where Aaron is piloting. I hope you are a good at your job. He can’t help but wonder as he is brought to within arm’s length of the ship’s hull.
As Olaf and George seal each outer hull plate, Joe pressurizes the sections allowing repair teams access. These teams use every tool at their disposal as they remove internal hull plates allowing access to the ship’s superstructure. Once done they move on, leaving the actual repairs for George and Olaf to perform later with the use of their suits.
Discovery (Terran Chronicles) Page 17
