I’m one of only a few dozen people who will ever see this in their lives.
He felt a hand touch his bandaged right hand as it grasped the railing of the bridge. He looked over and saw the gray-haired Dr. Taylor smiling at him. “Amazing, isn’t it?”
Cal returned the smile and nodded. He still wore the flight suit he had scavenged earlier in the day. He was flanked on either side by Dr. Taylor and Lieutenant Hunter Ceretti, a young man with dirty blonde hair and a matching dirty flight suit. Cal glanced to either side of him, then down at his own clothing, and gave a soft chuckle.
One might think I belonged here.
Cal quickly scanned the bridge. There were three clusters of three terminals in a horseshoe shape around a raised section that contained a single chair. Each cluster of workstations only had one occupant at this time. The occupant of the raised chair was a slightly chubby brown haired fellow with tufts of gray around his temples and a short, neatly trimmed beard that likewise had a matching pair of gray streaks. His brown eyes scrutinized Calvin from head to toe.
“I understand your name is McLaughlin, is that correct?” asked the chubby commander, his voice dripping with a thick northeastern accent.
“Yes, sir,” Cal replied politely.
“How old are you, son?”
“Eighteen, sir.”
“Eighteen,” the colonel repeated. “Are you in the armed forces, son?”
“No sir.”
“I see. Then why do you call me ‘sir’?”
“My father and grandfather, sir, were both in the military. They taught me respect for officers.”
The ship’s commander nodded slightly. He looked at the lieutenant next to Cal and asked, “Ceretti, can you explain why he’s wearing Forrest’s flight suit?”
“I believe so, Colonel. When you gave the order to arrest Major Forrest, he was in the propulsion section. Since the order was to place the major in immediate stasis, we took him to the nearest empty sleeper berth, which was in pod twelve. We allowed him to change suits before placing him in stasis. His dirty flight suit was stowed within the pod. I believe that Mr. McLaughlin here found the flight suit after he came out of hibernation,”
“Very well, Ceretti. Is Captain Hartley looking into why Mr. McLaughlin’s berth revived him early?”
“Yes, sir. He said he’s almost done.”
The colonel turned his attention back to Cal, “Why were you placed on this ship, Mr. McLaughlin?”
Cal grimaced, and memories of his ordeal started to come back. “Because I had no choice.”
He received a puzzled look in return from the colonel. Questioning resumed. “Can you please tell me what you mean by that? Was there a different choice you would rather have made, given the options?”
“At the time, sir?” he retorted. “Yes. I wanted to go and party with my friends back in Dallas. We were going to celebrate getting out of high school, but a few minutes before my friend Rob was going to pick me up, two guys from the Air Force came into my house and dragged me to a waiting Humvee. They took me to the airport, where I was shoved on a plane with a bunch of other scared people, and flown to Laramie. We were all put on a bus and driven out to some complex with a bunch of barbed wire and guys with guns.”
The chubby colonel scratched at his beard while he considered the information. “What did your father tell you about Project Columbus?”
Cal stopped, confused. “My father, sir? Don’t you mean my grandfather?”
“No, I mean your father. General Andrew McLaughlin. What did he tell you about the project?”
“That my grandfather used to train astronauts for it,” he replied sharply.
“That’s it?”
“No disrespect, Colonel, but my dad didn’t have anything to do with Project Columbus. I mean, he was a combat pilot before he was a General, right? Why would he know anything about something he wasn’t assigned to?” Cal started to feel frustration rise.
Again the colonel considered the response for a moment. He pushed a button on the arm of his chair and spoke, “Dayton to Hartley.”
“Hartley here. Yes, Colonel?” came a voice from the com system.
“Have you finished your analysis of the failed sleeper unit?”
“Yes, sir. I wouldn’t exactly call it failed, however.”
“Explain, please.”
“All of the hardware is working properly. There appears to be a glitch somewhere in the system that activated the unit when we placed Major Forrest into biostasis. I’m not sure if it’s software or firmware, but I wouldn’t use this unit until we sort it out, sir.”
“Could it be sabotage?” asked Colonel Dayton.
“Negative, sir. While the trigger is specific, so is the unit number that the system defaulted to. This isn’t sabotage unless whoever created the glitch also specifically intended for Mr. McLaughlin to be revived. The only way that is even possible is if someone knew which unit he was assigned to, and had modified the program after we were under way, and I’m just not seeing any evidence of that.”
“Thank you, Captain. Dayton out,” and he clicked the com system off.
“Colonel,” interjected Dr. Taylor.
“Yes, Doctor?”
“I would be remiss if I didn’t bring up that Calvin asked the status of another passenger when he came out of biostasis.”
Cal gave Dr. Taylor a shocked look. Colonel Dayton’s eyebrow raised, “Which passenger?”
“I don’t know who it is, but they are in pod twelve, section delta, berth fourteen. The passenger matrix should bring up data on them,” replied Dr. Taylor.
Colonel Dayton unlocked his chair and swiveled to face a workstation to his left. He spoke to a young black haired fellow sitting at the console, “Mr. Drisko, call up the passenger matrix and give me all data on that passenger.”
“Yes, sir.” He typed a sequence of commands into his workstation.
Cal stuttered, “S-sir, she’s j-just a girl I met at the compound.”
Colonel Dayton turned his seat to face Cal once more and locked its position. “As far as I can tell, Mr. McLaughlin, you have been telling the truth. If you still speak the truth, you have nothing to worry about.” The colonel’s tone gave a hint of warmth that Cal had not heard before.
There was an audible chirp, and Drisko spoke, “Passenger data for twelve delta fourteen ready, sir.”
“Go ahead, Sergeant.”
“Alexis Decker, a line cook from Portland, Oregon. Age nineteen at time of launch. She was selected by the algorithm from a refugee camp in Denver, with priority markers based on age, occupational skills, and known hobbies. No known criminal history. The matrix indicates she has military background in her family, but she herself has never served,” Drisko read from the terminal screen in front of him.
Alexis. Cal closed his eyes and conjured a memory of her surprising kiss in the sleeper pod. A genuine smile came across his face, and he opened his eyes to look at a pensive Colonel Dayton.
“Curious,” responded Dayton. “She doesn’t sound like the kind of person who would have the skills to reprogram the sleepers. I think we’ve just got a glitch and a wild goose chase here, gentlemen. He doesn’t seem to have any more connection to this conspiracy other than a blood relationship. If what Doctor Kimura said is true, I think we will find that to be the case with other similar relatives of the conspirators.”
“Conspiracy?” Cal blurted. “What conspiracy? What do you think my dad was involved in? Who is Doctor Kimura?”
“I’m sorry, Mr. McLaughlin, I can’t discuss anything about the investigation with you,” said Dayton sincerely. “All I can share with you is that one of my crew is under arrest and has been placed in biostasis until we reach our destination.”
“And that’s this Forrest guy you’re talking about?”
“Correct.”
“So who takes his place on the crew?”
“Captain Hartley has already taken over his responsibilities. Now if you will excu
se me, I have duties to attend to. You may go.”
Calvin nodded. He turned toward the railing, grasping it with both hands. He hung his head and closed his eyes.
Not a man, he heard Brittany’s taunting voice echo from the past. He gripped the railing tighter, until his knuckles turned white and the bandage rubbed on the raw back of his hand. He could hear the bridge crew talking, receiving orders from Dayton and giving responses back, but Cal ignored all of it.
They’re dragging you with them, his father’s voice came to his mind. You’ll never be a real man if you keep up this loser shit.
I wasn’t the only one who was angry, was I, Dad? he asked himself. Cal tried to bring an image of his father to his mind. He needed to see him once more. Perhaps he could reconcile at least his own guilt. Cal envisioned a tall man in dress blues with a short, blonde buzz cut. Something seemed out of place to Calvin. Dad didn’t have a crew cut. His hair was short, but never that short.
The vision looked like his father, sure enough, but yet the hair cut was wrong. There was something else, too. It took Cal a while to put his finger on it, but the man in his mind was much older than his father. Cal soaked in every detail he could. He then realized that the uniform was the wrong cut for the 2000’s, and it did not bear the rank insignia of Brigadier General. Instead, it was that of a colonel.
Grandpa?
The figure just stood in his mind like a photograph, unmoving, given life only by the image it was taken from. Calvin held the image in his mind, processing it over and over. His grandfather was a tall, proud, stoic man in this picture. It occurred to Cal that he had seen this photograph dozens of times as a child, mostly at his grandmother’s house.
Cal nodded away the vision and opened his eyes. The bridge crew was still occasionally giving clips of data or responding to orders. Calvin straightened himself up, straightened his borrowed flight suit, and cleared his throat.
“Colonel Dayton, sir,” he said confidently. The bridge fell suddenly silent. The command chair unlocked and Dayton turned to face Cal.
“I said you could go, Mr. McLaughlin. Is there something else you need?”
“Yes, sir. Do you have any jobs for me to do?”
Dayton looked at Cal, stumped at first. He paused for several seconds before responding. “Come again, Mr. McLaughlin?”
“I would like to lend a hand, Colonel. What can I do?”
“You should probably prepare yourself for hibernation again.”
“I can’t, sir. Didn’t Hartley say my berth is unusable? What am I supposed to do? Where am I to go?”
Colonel Dayton tapped his fingers on his armrest for a moment. “I appreciate your offer, Mr. McLaughlin, but I don’t believe you’re trained on any of Michael’s systems. We would have to train you from scratch. As it is, we have nearly thirty spare crew members in stasis. You may use the crew gym, and there is a cargo pod that contains a small library. It may be a little cold if you go down there to retrieve something, and I can’t vouch for the excitement of the books, but it’s better than nothing.”
Cal frowned in disappointment, but nodded, “I understand, thank you.”
“While we make arrangements for you, I want you to be our guest. Lieutenant Ceretti will create an access code in our system for you to use. You will be able to go anywhere on the ship you would like, except the propulsion section. This includes access to the bridge, but I would ask that you not disturb any of the crew while they are working,” added Dayton.
Well, that’s a start.
“I appreciate it, sir. Thank you.” Cal floated his way off the bridge and into the gallery. He made his way past the lonely entrances of pods one and two. The air was very cool inside the massive hallway, and long strips of lighting cast a dim glow on the walls and floor. Where there was a break in the lighting, shadows crept in, giving parts of the gallery an eerie feel.
“Can I have a moment, Calvin?” Dr. Taylor’s voice almost made him jump.
“Yeah, Doctor. What’s up?” He turned to face her as she swiftly made her way down to him, her gray braid of hair straight as an arrow behind her.
“I just want to make sure you don’t get bored while you’re waiting around. Do you want to work, or do you want to find something else to occupy your time?”
“The colonel said he doesn’t want to train me.”
“Colonel Dayton is responsible for the operation of the ship, but the passengers are my responsibility.”
Calvin tried to think of what she meant. “What are you saying?”
Dr. Taylor smiled wide, her teeth perfect and white. “Want a crash course in biostasis?”
1st Lt Haruka Kimura
22 September 2019, 16:11
Raphael
The turbine of generator one began to spin faster. Its vibrations echoed in a great cacophony that eventually subsided to a harmonic hum as it matched speed with the second generator.
“One down, one to go,” Nova remarked as she tapped on the long, domed steel casing with her ratchet. “Do you think you two can do the other one while I check the reactor?”
Mancini gave her a cheeky smile. “Bring it on. I’ll show Lieutenant Kimura how it’s done.”
Nova gave a quick smile back as handed the wrench to Mancini. She swiftly turned and floated her way to the aft of the room.
Haruka gave a disapproving tsk at Mancini. “Don’t even think about it.”
“What? I didn’t say anything.”
“I know you, Marco. I know that look.”
“I don’t know what you mean.” His voice was thick with sarcasm.
Haruka rolled her eyes. “Uh huh. Yeah, the look you give when you’re looking for trouble. Usually with a woman.”
“What? I can’t help it, she’s kind of cute.”
“And heartbroken because of what happened to her boyfriend, I might add,” she scolded. “Leave her alone, for the sake of both of you.”
Assuming he’s her boyfriend. What does it matter? Boyfriend or lover. I never asked specifically. I really don’t want to know, their relationship is inappropriate to begin with.
“Ah, you never let me have any fun,” he sighed.
Haruka let out a laugh that was almost a snort. “I let you do what you want. I just drag your ass out of the fire when your so-called fun is about to get you punched in the face.”
A mocking scowl twisted Mancini’s face. “That only happened once.”
“Twice. And you can thank me for that small miracle. I swear, right after we passed the transport sims, you were trying to make it happen every single week.” She counted off the last three words on her fingers to drive the point home.
He grinned, “See? We’ve got each other’s backs, to the end.” He collected the toolbox, pushed off of the casing and shot like an arrow towards the second generator.
Haruka scoffed as her counterpart moved off. Incorrigible. She turned her attention to the terminal in front of her and initiated the shutdown sequence for generator two before making her own way to the unit.
The deceleration of the turbine once more threw the mechanical symphony into discord. Haruka and Mancini both pressed their hands over their ears in a vain effort to drown out the nearly painful noise. Neither of them attempted to speak, as it would have been futile. Minutes passed as the generator slowly wound down and the noise abated.
Mancini loosened the bolts on the access cover one by one and softly floated them over to Haruka after each one was freed from the assembly. He then slid the access cover open and crawled inside.
Haruka stretched and looked around. She was alone outside the generator, but could hear Mancini working within the housing. Her mind wandered for a moment. The light in the control room above reminded her vaguely of the bridge, and of the duties that had been stripped from her.
“You okay in there for a bit by yourself, Marco?”
“Yeah,” his voice echoed from the opening.
“I’ll be back in a little bit, try not to hurt yourself t
oo badly.”
She heard a giggle from inside the generator. Haruka propelled herself to the ladder and made the climb to the control room. Once inside she strapped into the seat closest to the window and called up a security routine on the computer. A diagram of the ship came up with several small dots. She pushed one that was located near the rear of the bridge and was prompted for an access code. Haruka typed in her security code and a window popped up with a view looking forward on the bridge toward the nav consoles and space beyond.
Haruka looked for the star field off of the bow, but the resolution of the camera was too low to pick up the tiny dots over the bridge’s lights. She let out a defeated sigh, leaned her head back, and closed her eyes.
I should be up there gazing at the stars, not down here cleaning gunk out of the engines. All of the words and accusations came back to her in a rush. She felt a lump rise in her throat and her eyes start to water. Mom, Dad, Saika… I’ve never missed you this much in my life. Her breath stuttered for a moment, but she bit her lip hard and the pain kept her tears at bay.
Another memory flashed through Haruka’s mind. She couldn’t tell what it was at first, but something about it felt comforting. She relaxed and tried to hold on to it. There was blue all over, she recalled.
The sky. Three small, fluffy clouds. Definitely the sky.
She took a deep breath and let the memory and feelings flow back to her. More blue, this time around her. She smelled a tang of salt and recalled a faint breeze.
The sea. This must have been one of our trips, but where? It feels beautiful…
The image in her mind sharpened, and she could see a massive white steel structure behind her, a short linked fence bordering a platform she was standing on, and a green mass of land on the horizon in front of her, one massive rolling chain of hills. She could see her mother and sister conversing next to the fence, occasionally glancing off at the land beyond. Haruka felt a hand on her shoulder.
“I’m glad you could make it. I was beginning to worry that your training would never end. This trip just wouldn’t be the same without you. I am certain that your mother would have been in tears over it,” her father said with a smile.
Project Columbus: Omnibus Page 10
