Quest for the Conestoga (Colony Ship Conestoga Book 1)

by John Thornton

  Back in the deck level under the command bridge, Jerome, Cammarry and Khin first felt, and then heard, a deep and low vibration. It built and built until the shaking and rattling wobbled everything. The floor quivered so badly it was difficult to stand up.

  “Is this the end?” Khin called out as he fell to his knees. “Have I failed in my service to you wizards? Are you destroying the world?”

  “Sandie? What is happening?” Cammarry yelled.

  “I think that system kicked it,” Jerome yelled over the roar that was vibrating through everything.

  “There are rockets firing,” The AI Sandie answered. “Using the scout ship’s observation equipment, I am configuring what the course corrections will do. In the nonphysicality at this location, I see nothing to indicate what has occurred. I conjecture you did activate some kind of system which is altering the course of the Conestoga. I am not sure if it will land the ship on the planet, head it to deep space, or keep it in orbit. Should it attempt landing, I conjecture a high potential for failure, as the needle ship was not designed for use in an atmosphere.”

  Cabta 3F evaluated its actions. The stable orbit was not established. So the old and limited AI started the process over. Assessment, planning, implementation, and evaluation were repeated.

  Measurements were taken, rockets were re-aimed, and rockets were fired.

  The massive shaking of the Conestoga continued.

  Cabta 3F evaluated its actions again. The stable orbit was not established. It repeated the process. The fail-safe, backup AI did assessment, planning, implementation, and evaluation. The cycle was repeated.

  Cammarry, Jerome, and Khin was sitting on the deck trying to brace themselves and hold onto the work station. The mummified body of Captain Lance Lechner crumbed into chunks which jittered and skittered across the floor away from the uniform which once held them in.

  Nine times, Cabta 3F went through the same process. On the tenth time, the evaluation showed, ‘Stable orbit achieved’.

  The shuddering stopped.

  The monitor in the work station flashed ‘Stable orbit achieved’ in bright blue colors.

  Cabta 3F went back to sleep. It had no programming to continue any other functions. It did not even feel a sense of accomplishment. It just went back to sleep.

  “Wizards? You have shaken the world!” Khin said. “Is it finished now?”

  Cammarry was first to her feet. She studied the monitor and smiled. “Sandie? What is the status?”

  “Stable orbit has been achieved,” the modern AI replied.

  “Hurrah! Coming together was the start of our quest. Keeping together we made progress. Working together we found success,” Jerome said. “The people on the Conestoga are saved.”

  “But how many and who are they?” Cammarry asked.

  12 unstable orbit resolved, but what next?

  Jerome threw down the spanner. It skidded across the smooth permalloy and banged into a broken cabinet. “Nothing in here is going to work either.”

  “Your assessment is probably correct,” Sandie replied. “This laboratory was severely damaged, probably by the habbie insurgents who devastated the nearby command bridge. Have you considered that golf is a game of endless frustration?”

  “Golf? Was that some kind of gymnastics, or a martial arts form?” Jerome asked as he picked up the spanner and examined it. It was not broken.

  “It was a game played before the Great Event. The object was to place a small ball into a hole by hitting it with a club,” Sandie relied. “I thought you may have read about it.”

  “Ricochet ball sounds much more fun, and apparently less frustrating. Forgive me for losing my temper. Sandie, it is just that since we got the work station downstairs working, I thought we would find other areas where we could recover something. We are very limited in what we know about the Conestoga.”

  “Jerome, we do know it is in a stable orbit now. We did uncover that this laboratory was where the four types of animals currently on the needle ship were originally cloned and released,” Sandie replied. “My analysis of the genetic materials found here, compared to the fecal matter found elsewhere by Khin shows that they were engineered to survive and reproduce in the conditions we have seen.”

  “Why they did that is a mystery. This ship was supposed to have numerous biological habitats, yet they did a rush job of genetic manipulation to release animals on the Conestoga needle ship. Why?” Jerome pushed the section of wall closed.

  “I conjecture, from the report by Captain Lance Lechner, that the biological habitats had been separated, or were in the process of separation,” Sandie stated. “The best conjecture is that those habitats descended to the planet’s surface.”

  “Yes, I agree with your working hypothesis, but I do not understand why? From what we think, those habitats were designed to work for several more generations. Why land them when they did?” Jerome did some stretching exercises. He then said, “I will go and talk to Cammarry, maybe she is having better luck figuring out those spacecraft in the hanger bay.”

  “You can converse through the com-link,” Sandie suggested.

  “I need to see her.”

  “Understood.”

  Jerome walked back through the command bridge and down the stairs. He took a few steps past the work station with its two operational, but very limited monitors.

  He inserted the cable from the com-link into the access port on the wall. “Sandie, make a quick scan of the nonphysicality here again. Maybe something has opened up or been reconnected.” The access port was on the edge of a manual control panel which also included a bright green wheel about twenty-five centimeters in diameter. Next to it was a bright red lever and four gauges were behind the wheel and lever.

  “Investigation completed. This section of the nonphysicality remains unchanged. I am sorry to report that,” Sandie said.

  “Sandie, you found nothing in the nonphysicality here that would help us?”

  “That is correct. This section of the nonphysicality is isolated and has no other features we can utilize. I again thoroughly examined the nonphysicality here. It links only into the hanger bay. The sole system is what we are calling the gizmo. Not even all of that is connected to the nonphysicality, just the sections which were cobbled together to inject the growth medium and spores into the ventilation system. Until the fractures in the nonphysicality are mended, we, I in particular, will be forced to probe the sections and remnants individually to find out what is functional.”

  “And this part is separate from the work station, just a few meters away?” Jerome asked.

  “Yes. As you know, the physical distance between access ports does not matter in the nonphysicality. The two access ports near here open to separate and unique areas. The remnant of nonphysicality available in the science laboratory is a third and separate area. I am convinced that at one time, the entire nonphysicality of the Conestoga was interconnected, or linked, or coupled together. It is not in that condition now.”

  “Thank you for checking again.” Jerome closed the door to the manual control access panel. He walked through the open pressure door and onto the observation deck of the hanger bay. There he looked through the clear permalloy wall and out over the ruined hanger bay. The yellow stripes which crossed the large exterior doors on its far side were faded and grime coated. The seals on the hanger doors were intact, otherwise there would be no pressure or oxygen. But from the dismal condition of the two stalls, and the wrecks which were in them, Jerome often wondered how the hanger bay had survived the abuse it had endured so long ago. For several days, he and Cammarry had examined the hanger bay and found it relatively safe, but he still wondered about how long it would remain that way.

  The twin stalls were a shambles, with two wrecked spacecraft surrounded by broken parts, and a strange apparatus. They were calling the spacecraft gigs because of what Captain Lance Lechner had said in his old recording, ‘I will hold them off while the gig’s gizmo does its work.’
The apparatus was the gizmo. Sandie had helped them identify what that gizmo had done.

  “Cammarry? Any luck?” Jerome called as he stepped off the observation deck and onto the floor of the hanger bay.

  Cammarry walked out of the hatch at the back of the gig. The spacecraft was tilted at about a thirty-degree angle and one of its wings was resting on the deck. It was long with two levels which were tubular. View ports were along its sides, and there was a gunwale which ran along its center between its upper deck and the lower decks. The lower was only about a third as long as the upper, but the way the wreck was sitting in the hanger bay, it was difficult to see. Jerome expected some kind of landing gear, wheels, or runners, or something, but the gig lay on its belly. There were large flexible ducts coming out of the hatch as well. The craft was much larger than the FTL scout ship.

  Both of the gigs in the hanger bay were very banged up with scorch marks, and partial rips in their permalloy exterior. Despite all the damage, the hanger bay itself did not seem to have been vandalized, yet it was a mess from the obviously rapid construction of the apparatus, the gizmo. The ducts connected from the payload section of each of the gigs, and then led to the engines behind the first gig where the gizmo had been built. The other gig, which was also lopsidedly parked, in the other stall, had apparently been used as a cargo hauler, or containment vessel. They called the one with the gizmo apparatus on its engines, the first gig, and the other was just called, the other one.

  “Hello Jerome! The blue cubie seems to be the key to this thing and what it did. There was a lot of growth medium in the payload sections of both gigs, although from what I can tell, there had once been passenger sections with about twenty seats. Those were crudely cut out and an interior floor was removed to make more space. These engines,” she pointed, “were used as a large fan to distribute the growth medium through the ducts and into the Conestoga’s life support ventilation systems. To do that they torched their way through the decks here to reach a major vent. The gizmo sits over that and is welded and sealed down. Whoever made this thing was working fast and furious to complete it. Welds are sloppy, cutting was more like chopping, and the mechanism for activating it all was that blue cubie’s display. The whole gizmo, from the cubie to the engines, burned out in the effort to force the growth medium through the life support system. Every part of the gizmo I have dissected is fried, melted, or burned out. The antique circuitry is shattered. These parts were pressed way beyond their design parameters. The inside of that blue cubie has permalloy sections, and machinery which are fused and combined together from heat and stress. That blue cubie will never tell us what it did.”

  “Cubie blue, knows what to do!” Khin said from where he was sitting at the side of the hanger bay.

  “Yes, you have said that about a hundred times,” Cammarry snapped at him. “But can you tell me how to activate the cubie? Or how to get a history from it? Or who built this gizmo and why? Or how to work any of the controls on the spacecraft gig?”

  “No, that is wizard’s work. I went and found dung for Jerome. Dung from rats, and goats, because he asked me. Now you ask me this? About machines? You should know what it does. A wizard built it, that dead one you had me move away. You ask this and you are a wizard!” Khin laughed and laughed. “Oh wait? Is this another test?”

  “No Khin, this is not another test,” Jerome answered.

  “Good, then I will depart. Well, see, you have been working here on this wizard thing for many days, and I have helped. I guided you here, I helped you with getting dung, I moved that dead body, but I will soon be out of food. My pack grows light, and my stomach rumbles. So I am leaving now. Thank you for letting me be part of your wizard’s quest, but I must go and hunt for food.”

  “It has only been three days since the orbit was secured,” Jerome said. “You can have a food ration from me, if that will help.”

  Khin laughed and laughed. “I have seen what you call food. I will never eat wizard’s food. I want real food. I will need to find a goat and prepare a fine meal. I need fresh milk, and roasted meat, and stewed mushrooms. My dried foods are almost gone, and the cheeses have been eaten.”

  “Jerome? While we have plenty of water in that lavatory, we only have about a two-day supply of our own food,” Cammarry stated. “I hate to say it, but we will need to learn from Khin what we can eat here on the Conestoga.”

  “That was inevitable,” Jerome sighed out. “So Khin, can we go with you to meet your people and learn from you about what you call real food?”

  Khin laughed and laughed and laughed. Finally, he said, “Just make more wizard food.”

  “We cannot make more food rations,” Cammarry said.

  This made Khin laugh even harder than before. He fell to the deck and held his stomach while he laughed. “You can shake the whole world, but not make food?” His laughter echoed all across the hanger bay.

  “Jerome? Cammarry? I can assist in identifying some of the plants, and in guiding you about butchering and preparing animal protein,” Sandie said. “I conjecture a high degree of success, but since the flora and fauna here are genetic hybrids and biologically enhanced, I cannot be absolutely sure of all my conjectures.”

  “Cammarry? I think we need a different quest. Sandie can keep trying to locate the Dome 17 signal, but trying that she has not found any trace of it yet. We do know that somehow, from somewhere on this old ship, a message did get through. We should try to find out how that was done, while figuring out how to survive here on local supplies.” Jerome cracked his knuckles, and then pushed his palms together several times. “Food will be a primary concern while we seek out the answers. We will need to set up remote monitors so we can watch this place, and the place where the scout ship and the teleportation receiving pad are. I want to be able to see everything that happens as we move along on this adventure. I will not be denied knowing where the adventurers go this time.”

  Cammarry looked at Jerome long and hard. “We still might save Dome 17, if we can find a way to connect to that lost signal.” She turned to the young man who was native to the Conestoga. “So Khin, can you help us again?”

  Khin laughed and laughed. He looked at both of them, then he broke down laughing again. He sputtered something about wizards, and children, and animals, but it was too broken up by his laughing to be understandable.

  “Seriously, Khin, we will need to learn much as we adapt to surviving on this needle ship,” Jerome said. “It would be very helpful if we can learn from you.”

  Khin laughed and laughed and laughed. He finally took some large deep breathes, and then, between chuckles, he said, “Wizards learning things that toddlers know. It is all so funny!”

  “Will you help us?” Cammarry asked.

  “Of course I will help,” Khin replied with a big attempt to be serious. He then burst out laughing again. “But do not ask me to eat wizard food!”

  “Sandie? You will continue to try to make contact back to Dome 17 so we can open the teleportation orifice?” Cammarry asked.

  “I am constantly monitoring for the signal, and I have been initiating the receiving pad to make an attempt once every twenty-four hours. The scout ship and rooms around it are secure. I can also remotely assist you as needed,” the AI replied. “We are in this adventure together.”

  “So it seems our next quest is learning to survive on the Conestoga,” Cammarry said as she wrapped her arms around Jerome.

  “To not only survive, but to thrive, and to learn all we can about our new home, the Colony Ship Conestoga,” Jerome replied.

  Khin laughed and laughed and laughed.

  The End

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  John Thornton lives with his wife of many years, two dogs, and a cat whose major life quest is to walk from the bed to the cat food bowl and back. His grown daughters and sons-in-laws are a joy to him. John likes to take quests in the literary world by reading various kinds of stories. His family makes its home in the upper plains of the U
SA.