by Isaac Hooke
A short, sharp blast of a siren was immediately followed by a garish red rotating light mounted above a solid looking metal door. In the center of the door, a sluggish locking wheel turned, but, as the threads freed themselves of accumulated grime, the slackened wheel picked up speed and retracted the six locking pins holding the airtight door securely in place. With a final clunk the locking pins fully retracted. The sound of a labored grunt as the heavy door swung to one side was accompanied by a sharp intake of breath.
“Damn! It’s cold down here,” mumbled the polo shirt- and shorts-wearing figure, framed in the open doorway.
“You would think, after six years and three stints in the Tomb, even your inadequate intelligence would have figured the process of cryogenic freezing might involve something cold. Seriously, Dawson, how in God’s name did you manage to get selected for this mission?”
Not bothering to wait for a reply to her rhetorical question, the diminutive female form of Lieutenant Anastacia Zuchov turned up the collar of her fleece jacket and maneuvered around Dawson to enter the Secure Cryogenic Habitation Facility, otherwise known as the Tomb.
Anastacia halted in front of a terminal, located podium-like in the center of the room. On either side of the room lay a row of three large rectangular boxes, each easily three meters long by one meter broad, and one and a half high. The left-hand side ones were each marked with a gold square and the ones on the right-hand side with a silver square. The Coffins, as they were affectionately known, with the silver squares contained the crew of the Seeker, who neared the end of their three-year rotation spent in the Coffin’s frozen embrace.
Anastacia briefly scanned the readouts on the display before her fingers confidently tapped the controls.
“Time to wake the sleeping beauties,” said Dawson.
Anastacia stood back as whirring emanated from the coffins, quickly followed by monitors flickering to life at the base of each. Ignoring Dawson, Anastasia stepped from the podium to examine each of the monitors before returning to the podium and tapping in a second sequence of commands. With a hiss and a faint whine of hydraulics, the lid of each coffin slipped aside to reveal the unnaturally still faces of the crewmen within.
Dawson vigorously rubbed his arms in a vain attempt to ward off the cold leeching the last trace of warmth from his very bones. “Any chance you can turn the heat up?”
“Would you like my fleece?” asked Anastacia, her tone dripping with unconcealed sarcasm, while her eyes never deviated from the display showing the steadily increasing heart and brain activity of the Silver Crew, displayed on their respective life-signs monitors. Satisfied the resuscitation program was proceeding correctly, Anastacia stepped away from the podium and headed for the Tomb’s entrance. As she passed Dawson, she made to unzip her fleece jacket; however, her fingers lingered tauntingly on the zipper tab, a thin smile creasing her lips. “Oh, I’m sorry. I think the zipper is stuck, but don’t worry, I’m sure your thick skin will keep you warm.”
Dawson’s cheeks flushed red and his mouth opened and closed wordlessly. Technically, the Russian outranked him, and Commander Stone would take a pretty dim view if Dawson were to ‘accidentally’ flush the Gold Crew’s second-in-command out of an airlock.
The still-smiling Anastacia exited the Tomb and entered the brightly lit, warm corridor beyond, leaving the disgruntled American to continue monitoring the progress of their comrades while she returned to the command deck. The Silver Crew should be up and around and ready to assume their duties in a couple of hours. The smile slipped from her lips to be replaced with a frown as a shudder was transmitted from the deck plates through the soles of her feet.
The cool female voice of the Seeker’s master computer sounded throughout the ship. “Displacement drive disengaged.”
We’ve arrived, thought Anastacia as she increased her pace, eager to see the prize the Seeker had traveled so far to reach.
2
Tension on the command deck was palpable. The image on the view screen was computer generated, constructed by the multitude of active and passive sensors which sucked emissions from every part of the known electronic and visible spectrum and passed them to the Seeker’s computers for analysis.
The Seeker’s crew had gambled on the inaccuracies of the damaged Sphere ship’s corrupted data, but there was nothing wrong with the accuracy of its positional data. This ship dwarfed the Seeker. Easily a mile in length, the lozenge-shaped vessel hung precisely where the Sphere ship had encountered her over 100 years ago. The crew collectively hoped the extracted data describing weapons of unimaginable destructive power was not just complete bull.
Commander Rob Stone flicked his tongue along his dry lips before speaking. “Stations. Report.” With both crews simultaneously awake for the first time since the Seeker left the solar system, the small command deck seemed distinctly cramped.
“Science. Ready,” Doctor Heinz Malinsky said in a slightly high-pitched German accent from Rob’s right. The lead scientist, the man held more degrees and doctorates than the rest of the crew combined, as well as a Nobel Prize. Heinz double hatted as the Silver Crew commander and overall mission second in command.
“Propulsion. Ready,” said Lieutenant Anastacia Zuchov, child of the Second Russian Revolution and hero of the state’s rejuvenated space program. Initially, Rob thought the decision to include her in the Seeker’s crew was a political one, made to appease the Russian Confederation by the politicos at the top of the United Earth Foundation; however, her supreme confidence and grasp of the daily-evolving technologies, developed by the scientists and engineers who poured over the data gleaned from the Sphere ship, won over Rob’s respect.
“Helm. Ready,” came the clear, concise English accent of the Hong Kong-born, Carol Chow, an integral member of the Seeker’s engineering team
Gloria Fernandez was next to reply in her distinctive, faintly sing-song Brazilian inflection. “Life Sciences. Ready.” Fernandez was at the cutting edge of her field, space medicine and cryogenics, and was part of the design team behind the specially developed ultra-light weight Extra Vehicular Mission Variable Environmental Suits, commonly called Zoot Suits after some science fiction gadget from one of Asimov’s lesser known works, something about Jupiter’s moons, which Rob had never read.
That left the last of the Seeker’s crew to answer, Dawson, just Dawson. A bull of a man whose place on the mission was assured by one qualification: he was a cold-blooded killer. The crew understood his official position of ‘Special Advisor’, but it didn’t mean they were obliged to like him. The commander himself questioned Dawson’s need to be on the mission in the first place; however, like it or not, he was here. Anastacia made no effort to hide her distaste for him; Dawson was too reminiscent of the secretive, semi-militarized thugs of state security from her youth. The remainder of the crew had, so far, kept a civil tongue in their heads.
“Ready,” intoned Dawson.
Involuntarily, Rob shifted in his seat. “OK, Carol, ion drive at your disposal. Bring us in nice and steady.” The deceleration of the Seeker brought the ship to a full stop a bare 100 meters short of the imposing alien vessel which made the Seeker look like a minnow, despite its being one of the largest, most sophisticated ships humanity had yet to launch into the depths of space. At this distance, every bump was visible, every undulation of the ship’s skin filled the viewing screen. A series of blister-like protrusions ran equidistant along the entire length of the ship, each blister large enough to swallow the Seeker whole.
“That is one big mother.” Dawson’s stage whisper carried across the entire command deck.
“That. It. Is,” agreed Chow from her seat beside him.
“OK people, let’s find ourselves a way in, shall we? Anastacia, start from the bow, Heinz, take aft. Highlight anything resembling an airlock. Once we’re done, Chow, I want to rotate ninety degrees vertically and complete another survey and so on until we’ve scoured every inch of this thing. Dawson, you and Fernande
z break out the EVA suits and prep them. Carol, keep your eyes glued to the sensors, if that thing makes a single beep I want to know.”
Dawson and Fernandez unbuckled themselves to head to the suit room, two decks below. Crew tasks assigned, Rob Stone took a moment to admire the vast ship and stand in awe of its builders. Nevertheless, a nagging apprehension clung to him. This lifeless ship hung, unmoving, in the middle of interstellar space. Any sane person had to ask: Why?
The Sphere ship says this is the most powerful weapon it ever encountered, which is exactly what we’re here to recover. Rob forced his doubts aside and patiently watched as his crew built a comprehensive picture of the ship lying alongside them. After six years of traveling through space, he could wait another couple of hours.
***
“That’s our best guess, Commander.” Anastacia referred to the hexagonal hatchway floating in the center of the view screen.
Not much by way of a guess, mused Rob, from his central seat on the command deck. Four hours of inch-by-inch inspection found no other obvious breaks in the hull, except for what they agreed were some type of reaction drive exhausts at the aft of the alien vessel. And still no sign of a weapons system? Very odd.
“Great work, Anastacia,” Rob said. “Time we went and had a look.”
3
“Comms check.”
“Loud and clear, Commander.” Doctor Malinsky’s accented reply rang through the speakers of Rob’s Zoot Suit.
“OK, Heinz, you know the plan. Gold team will make entry while you and Silver remain on the Seeker and monitor from there.”
“Understood, Commander.”
Heinz had argued, very persuasively, that he should lead the first team to enter the alien craft; after all, Heinz was the most qualified person among Seeker’s crew. Unfortunately, this fact disqualified him almost immediately. If it all went to hell in a handbag when Gold team entered, the unenviable task of figuring out what when wrong and how to proceed belonged to Heinz.
“Cheer up, Heinz, with any luck we’ll be back before you can say sauerkraut and you can explore and fiddle with as many buttons as you can find.”
Despondency tinged Heinz’s guttural laugh. “You know I hate sauerkraut!”
With the German scientist pacified for the moment, Rob switched gears and moved on to his next, more pressing issue. The Zoot Suit’s reinforced boots clanged on the cool metal floor of the suit room as he stepped into the airlock to join the waiting Anastacia and Dawson. Anastacia’s study of what they hoped was the alien ship’s airlock brought up a small logistical problem. The alien airlock was far larger than the standard personnel airlock on the Seeker, so Anastacia suggested they use one of the Seeker’s larger cargo airlocks instead. A quick check of the extendable pressure shroud showed it could comfortably fit the alien airlock and, more importantly, the self-sealing shroud would conform perfectly with the alien ship’s smooth hull and provide an environment where the crew could discard their Zoot Suits to work unhindered. Dependent, of course, on what atmosphere they discovered within the alien ship.
Rob’s wide, transparent face plate gave him a clear view of Anastacia standing by the airlock controls, utility pouches clipped around her waist and two equipment cases, held by their internal magnets to the airlock’s floor, resting at her feet.
Standing to one side, face as unmoving as a stone slab, Dawson stood cradling a percussion rifle in his arms, his Zoot Suit bare of any items he deemed capable of hindering his movements. Strapped low on his right thigh was a nasty looking percussion pistol and spare charge packs, while on his left leg, he stored the larger charge packs for his rifle. Clipped to the back of his suit was an innocuous-looking, reinforced carbon fiber pack about the size of a thick legal pad. Rob’s eyes hovered on the pack for a moment before he forced himself to look away; that pack was the only real reason Dawson was part of this mission.
Man’s capacity to build things was matched only by his ability to destroy those very same things. The innocent looking pack Dawson carried on his back was the current peak of destructive technology, a three-kiloton micro-nuke. No matter how much Rob tried not to think about this destructive power, the universe the Sphere ship described was not a friendly one, hence the need for the ultimate fail-safe. If Dawson could not extricate the team from the alien ship, he would detonate the weapon and eliminate the threat. Overkill, maybe, but the mission planners had decided the measure was necessary. Nothing must be allowed to become a threat to Earth.
Anastacia gave Rob a rare, wry smile as he turned toward her, and he knew she had caught him eyeing up the micro-nuke. Rob’s lips twitched into a smile of his own in reply.
“OK, Anastacia, let’s depressurize and extend the shroud.”
As she tapped the various commands into the airlock’s control panel, Rob heard the pumps evacuating the air, before the noise trailed off as the last of the air was removed and stored. Unconsciously, Rob checked his boot magnets were activated as the wide-cargo airlock’s outer door split along its vertical center and each side soundlessly retracted into the hull. There, so close Rob could almost reach out and touch the impossibly smooth skin, hung the alien ship and its vastness filled his entire vision. The outer hull skin appeared forged from a single sheet of material, while protruding along the entire length of the ship were the strange humps, each easily a football field in length.
Anastacia followed his gaze, and the scientist in her felt obliged to explain their possible purpose. “Heinz postulated they could be part of a sensor system or perhaps part of the ship’s drive, but he could not be positive until he examined the ship himself.”
Rob nodded as the airlock doors receded, the thin, delicate shroud extending concertina-like, snaking outward until it kissed the skin of the alien ship. Molding itself to the hull, the sides, roof and floor of the shroud became rigid, providing a solid surface for the team to cross.
“Shroud secure, Commander.” Anastacia’s tone was business-like. Rob nodded and stepped off, with more confidence than he felt, across the bridge now joining the two ships. Anastacia followed closely behind, equipment cases in each hand while Dawson trailed them, his eyes forever scanning.
Rob reached the far end of the shroud, where the hexagonal outline which they all hoped was an airlock stretched from his feet to well above his head. Reaching out one gloved hand, he intended to touch the smooth, seamless surface when, as if sensing his approach, a dark hairline appeared on the ship’s unblemished skin. Rob’s hand hovered in mid-air, hesitantly, as before his eyes the dark spot became a thin line which quickly spread like an invisible pencil was sketching it. The line stretched perfectly vertically from the bottom of the hatch to the top and, without any further input from Rob, split open to reveal a large room beyond. Bright overhead lights came to life, revealing a second, internal door of similar size to the outer one.
“Looks like an invitation to me,” Rob said as he stepped over the threshold, followed by Anastacia and Dawson. Rob’s foot barely touched the deck of the alien ship when Chow’s voice came over his speakers. “We have a steady and rapid increase in power readings from the alien ship, Commander.”
Rob threw a look toward Anastacia, who scanned her own readouts. “Confirmed, Commander. I guess our presence has tripped some sort of automated system. I’m not reading any dangerous radiation or other hazards.”
Rob’s brow furrowed in thought. Should they attempt to move further into the alien ship? It was what they had come to do, though there was nothing in the planning which predicted the ship’s reaction to their presence. Rob turned towards Dawson, whose expression remained unchanged, though Rob noted his finger involuntarily hovered a little closer to the percussion rifle trigger. Rob cocked his head to one side, a single eyebrow raised. Dawson answered Rob’s unspoken question with a stoic, “Proceed, Commander.”
Aware his every decision would be second-guessed by the myriad of shiny-assed seat jockeys who would no doubt expound their own opinions of his decisions
, with the benefit of perfect hindsight, when they returned home, Rob erred on the side of caution.
“Anastacia, look at the inner door and see if we can get it open without cutting in...”
“Commander, we should disable or jam the outer door first and keep our line of retreat open... Shit!” The outer door began to move and Dawson broke off his words to fling himself toward it in a vain attempt to stop the mechanism locking them in, but he was not quick enough. His suit collided ineffectively against the heavy door and left Dawson in a crumpled heap on the airlock floor. The overhead lights cut out. Rob switched on his helmet lights as he stepped over to check on Dawson, but from the string of expletives Dawson let loose over the radio circuit, he need not have bothered.
Dawson picked himself off the floor and mumbled, unaware, or more likely uncaring, that the live pick-up mike in his suit transmitted his words clearly to his comrades. A smile played on Rob’s lips as he recognized swear words from at least four languages and a couple of others he didn’t. The rant eventually switched back to English.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck… What the hell did you do, Anastacia?”
“I didn’t do anything.”
“Enough!” shouted Rob. “Calm down, the pair of you, and let’s figure a way out of this.”
“Commander,” called Anastacia as a chink of light appeared from the opening inner airlock door. It gradually expanded until the light flooded the entire airlock. Beyond the doorway, more overhead lights flickered and exposed a disappointingly familiar corridor, not all dissimilar from those aboard the Seeker.
The airlock door clunked open to its fullest and Rob took a moment to check it out. Standing in the doorway, halfway between the airlock and the ship’s interior, he raised his arm above his head, his fingers tantalizingly short of reaching the roof. Scanning the corridor beyond, he noticed the roof was of a similar height. Whoever had constructed this ship was undoubtedly taller than the average human, maybe as tall as two and a half meters.
