by David Lund
© David Lund 2017
Terms and Conditions: The purchaser of this book is subject to the condition that he/she shall in no way resell it, nor any part of it, nor make copies of it to distribute freely.
All Persons Fictitious Disclaimer: This book is a work of fiction. Any similarity between the characters and situations within its pages and places or persons, living or dead, is unintentional and co-incidental.
1
Michael Edwards awoke suddenly and wondered what had caused him to be pulled from his dream. He had been swimming with dolphins on the island of Madagascar, something he had never done but had always wanted to do. The dream had been pleasant, and extremely vivid. He had felt the spray of the beautiful ocean on his face, and the pressure of the water around him as he dived under; he heard the sound of the dolphins’ cries echoing through the air. The open space had felt good, like freedom. Perhaps being confined was getting to him.
A shudder ran through the ship, shaking him. When a book fell from the shelf beside his bed, he noticed that another one lay next to it, sprawled open like a badly erected tent. He wondered whether it was a jolt that had awoken him in the first place. He sat up, pulling off his bed covers, and reached for the intercom button beside his bed.
“Edwards to Joyce,” he muttered, glancing at the clock: 03.04 AM. “What’s going on Caitlin?”
“We’re not sure, Captain,” the first officer responded in her smooth voice. “We’re analysing the jolt now.” Michael was worried. They were moving through space, so there shouldn’t be anything to cause the ship to shake.
“I’m coming up,” he said. He got out of bed and pulled on his uniform. It was dark blue with red stripes down the side with the TEC (The Exploration Centre) logo on the sleeve. The small gold pin fastened to the collar marked him out as Captain. He took a quick glance at his reflection in the mirror beside his bed. His dark hair was short enough that it wasn’t messed up too badly, although several strands stuck up at the back, and his green eyes were slightly bloodshot; the stress of leading the ship was getting to him and he was having trouble sleeping. He needed a shave, the shadow of a beard was visible on his cheeks. He sighed and pulled a glass of water from the small sink under the mirror, and drank it in one go.
He walked onto the bridge a few minutes later. It was a large, circular room, with grey, sparse walls that gave a cold feeling to it despite the thermostat controlled heating; several work stations were placed around the space, each designed for a different member of personnel. The bridge was located on the top level of the ship, and being the smaller room of the craft, it sat on top of the missile shaped vessel, like the cherry on top of a long cake. Three faces turned to look at him as he entered, and the ship shook again.
“Report,” he shot at his first officer. Caitlin Joyce looked over at him from her station. Caitlin was thirty four years old, and made of sturdy stuff. She had red hair and green eyes, with a pale face.
She was on the heavy side but it was all muscle. Years of serving in the military had made her tough – she could match any man for strength – but a hard life had taught her to protect her emotions, and Michael often privately compared her to a robot. His trust in her, however was absolute.
“Something seems to be hitting the ship, sir,” she replied calmly. “But there isn’t anything out there according to sensors.”
Michael looked out through the front view-screen, which covered a large portion of the front hull, and was basically a very large computer monitor. There was nothing but stars and the faint red glow of Mars, stretched out in front of them, still very far away.
“We’re right in between Mars and Earth, there isn’t anything out here.” he said softly, voicing his thoughts.
“It could be space dust, sir,” Lieutenant Marshall Hayes said from Michael’s right.
“Space dust wouldn’t make the ship vibrate like that,” added Lindsey Highcliff, the pilot. She frowned at her on-board screen. “There’s something wrong with the engines, Captain. We’re slowing down.”
“What?” Michael said. “Why?” He strode over to Lindsey’s station and looked at the information on her screen. A lock of her blond hair touched his hand as he rested it on the back of her chair. He sometimes felt slightly nervous around Lindsey; she was such a beautiful woman, and was highly intelligent to go with it. The combination of the long blond hair, the heart shaped face, the deep blue eyes and full red lips, made every man on the ship dream of good times. Lindsey knew the effect she had on men, and didn’t like it. At twenty six, she was one of the youngest members of the twenty man crew.
“I don’t know, Captain. The engines are straining. Seventy per cent of maximum yield, sir.” Michael pressed an intercom on the panel on Lindsey’s console.
“Edwards to Engine room. What’s happening to the engines?”
“Gréau ‘ere Captain,” came Jean Gréau’s accented voice through the intercom. “The Engines are over’eating sir, but they are running perfectly fine.”
“Then why are we slowing down?”
“I don’t know sir, but the engines are not the cause.” Michael frowned again at the screen, then turned to Caitlin.
“Can you think of anything that would put a strain on the engines?”
“It’s – I don’t know. If the engines are working properly then why are we losing speed?” she answered. “Maybe -”
“What the -?” Lindsey suddenly exclaimed. “Captain, you have got to take a look at this.” Michael looked back down at the pilot’s screen. He did a double take. On the screen, was a huge object, not that far from them. This was extremely surprising, as there shouldn’t be anything in this part of space and it wasn’t there a few minutes ago.
“Put it up on the main screen.” Lindsey did so, and a bigger version of the radar appeared in front of them, obscuring the space beyond. “What is it?” he asked. It was just a blip on a radar screen, but
the whole bridge crew was staring at it in awe. The thing is, there was nothing out this far, just them and empty space, nothing else was supposed to be this close to them, and yet, unless their sensors were faulty, there certainly was something close to their position, and it was very big.
“I don’t know sir. The sensors can’t make it out.”
“So it’s not an asteroid then?” he asked, trying not to sound anxious.
“I don’t think so sir, it’s at least 5 km in diameter. If it had been an asteroid, it would have shown up on sensors a long time ago, not only that, we would have known about it long before we launched.”
“What else can you tell me about it?” Michael insisted.
“Not much,” Lindsey replied, “As I said, it’s about five kilometres in diameter, that’s about it.”
“How close is it? Can we see it?”
“I don’t think so, it’s too far away. We’re eighty thousand kilometres away from it.”
“Try the camera.” Lindsey pressed a couple of keys on her panel and fourteen different camera views came up on the screen. All showing different points of view of the ship. These were designed to be able to see 360 degrees around the vessel. There were seventeen more cameras placed around the craft, showing parts of the ship, so that in case of any damage, they had a way of seeing the problem. The views on the screen showed nothing unusual: Earth, the Sun and Mars gleamed faintly from three of the cameras, and everything else was distant stars and empty space. The object was to their right.
“Zoom on camera seven, Lindsey,” Michael said. She did so, bringing up the view that should show the object. “Maximum magnification,” he added. There was nothing to see. The high definition camera had excellent magnification, but either the object was invisible or simply too far away to see.
The ship shook a
gain. This time, the internal lighting dimmed slightly.
“Damage report!” Michael barked.
“No damage, Captain,” replied Marshall.
“Engine room to bridge. Captain, I’m going to ‘ave to turn off the engines. They are too ‘ot.”
“How easy will it be to get them started again after they’ve cooled down?”
“It will take a little time, everything will have to be checked. We would lose a few days.” Jean replied.
“What would that do to our orbits?” He shot at Lindsey.
“Shouldn’t be too much of a problem,” she said, making rapid calculations.
“Okay Jean, shut down the engines, we don’t want any problems.”
“Yes, sir.” The intercom buzzed off.
Jean was the most skilled engineer Michael knew. The Frenchman had come from a long line of mechanics and had been tweaking engines since he was a kid. He had studied the powerful engine
of this ship for years and knew it inside out. Michael had no doubt of the engineer’s competence.
The ship shook again. Violently this time. Michael felt like he was living through a very repetitive earthquake. Luckily, everything on the bridge was fixed in place, but he hated to think of all the things in his quarters that would be falling down and breaking. The lights on the bridge turned off completely for a few seconds and everything became feather light. The ship had a spinning body that created an artificial gravity so the crew could walk around freely without everything floating all the time. TEC had insisted on this been perfected before sending their men out into space, as it was difficult to maintain physical form over long periods of space travel. The ship had stopped spinning. The sudden loss of gravity made Michael slightly nauseous. Everything on the bridge that wasn’t fastened down started drifting, including Michael. The rest of the bridge crew had loosely fastened their seat belts as was regulation when sitting at a work station.
“What the -?” The ship started spinning again, and Michael, fell lightly back to the floor.
“WHAT THE HELL IS HAPPENING?” He yelled as a shrill alarm rang out and red emergency lights blinked across the dark room.
Caitlin was tapping furiously on her panel.
“The ships systems are going haywire,” she yelled back. The last word resounded loudly as the alarm stopped abruptly. The engines whined as the ship suddenly accelerated sharply. Michael found his seat with difficulty – the sudden burst of acceleration had upped the gravity – and he found it difficult to move.
“Why are we accelerating, I thought the engines were supposed to be shut down?” He managed to say as he was flattened against his seat. No one answered, obviously too busy trying to come to terms with what was happening. He reached for his comm button. “Jean?” he shouted over the raucous of the engines.
“I ‘ave lost control of the engines Captain!” Jean yelled. “They are too ‘ot, if this keeps up they are going to -” Jean stopped mid-sentence, and an eerie silence fell over the ship. “The engines have stopped, sir. They are shut down.” Michael looked around the room.
“Can anyone tell me what the hell is going on?” He regretted the note of hysteria in his voice. He swallowed and when nobody answered, asked in a calmer manner, “Are we still moving?”
“We’re drifting sir,” Lindsey replied. Michael turned to Caitlin.
“Wake everyone up, I want everybody in the meeting room in half an hour. I’ve got to make a call to Earth.”
*
A lot was riding on this mission to Mars. The Interstellar was a promising ship and the only one built since the disastrous attempts to reach Mars in 2036 and 2042. The first manned mission,
launched by NASA, was Mars Man One. Six astronauts were locked in a small ship with only one rotating area, which created very little gravity. Just enough for them to stay grounded. The rest of the ship had 0g. They had set off for an 186 day trip to the red planet. Sadly though, Evan Fields, one of the astronauts went crazy from the confined space, and, from what NASA could gather, opened the airlock, killing them all. Since then, NASA reinforced their psychological tests and another manned ship was launched in 2042, tentatively called Mars Man Two. This ship made it to Mars’ orbit in 153 days. The ship was much larger than it’s predecessor and had better gravity and individual rooms. There were no problems with the crew, who got on great throughout the journey.
There was, however, a problem with the Mars lander. The small shuttle that was supposed to take them from orbit to the ground had rockets and a parachute to slow its descent through the thin Martian atmosphere. However, due to an unlucky set of circumstances, both parachute and rockets failed upon landing. The crew hit the ground hard and were crushed to death.
Obviously, after these two catastrophes, the government put a stop to NASA’s plan to go to Mars.
In 2059, a new space project, involving the strongest nations in the world, was created. The Exploration Centre or TEC. An organization that had the sole purpose of building spaceships for human exploration of the solar system. Their first goal was of course, Mars. New engines were developed and tested, one of the main problems with space travel being the time it took to get anywhere.
After several years, the new and powerful Newton Drive was created. This allowed ships to travel much, much faster than any other. The estimated time of an Earth to Mars trip shrank from 150 days to 50. This was much more acceptable. The new engine also allowed the new ship to carry a lot of extra weight, so that it could be comfortable as well. The new, gravity creating, spinning body was constructed, allowing humans to walk around the ship freely, at a relatively normal gravity.
Thus, The Interstellar was built.
She was a beautiful craft, shaped like a very large missile. She had four floors, the top floor being the bridge, the meeting room and the captain’s office. Other floors held the crew’s quarters, recreation room, medical bay and engine room. Gone were the days when the crew were all crunched together in one small room, floating about, and trying not get in each other’s way.
The Interstellar had seemed like something out of science fiction when it was built. It still seemed that way sometimes to Michael, who couldn’t believe his luck at being able to Captain such a ship. The crew consisted of twenty people.
They had been cleared to leave Space Orbiter 2 – one of the space stations that served as ship construction sites in Earth’s orbit – in November 2072.
Michael now sat in his office, thinking about the message he had just received from The
Exploration Centre’s Commander, James Henderson. TEC had also picked up the anomaly on their sensors, and just like the crew of The Interstellar, they had no idea what it was, or why it would be shaking the ship. The only advice they could give – something Michael had already figured out by himself – was that they stay the hell away from it. The only problem with that was that their engines were, at the moment, shut down. Although, they seemed to be at a safe distance, for now. The ship had stopped shaking anyway.
Five minutes later, Michael entered the meeting room where the whole crew was gathered. The room had not been done by an interior designer: it had grey walls, two windows that looked out to the stars, and a big table and chairs in the middle. The Captain looked at his first officer.
“What’s our status?” he asked, his voice soft as he noticed a certain strain in Caitlin’s usually very calm face. She was ordinarily quite hard to scare and rarely showed any emotion.
“We have a problem,” she said. “We’re being pulled towards the phenomenon.”
“How quickly?” Michael barked, his voice tough again as his nerves frayed.
“Quickly,” replied Lindsey, her blond hair had been let down since her shift on the bridge half an hour earlier. She too looked strained. Her young, beautiful face lacked it’s usual glow. “At this rate, we’ll intercept it in less than two hours.” A silence fell over the room. Michael was thinking furiously, and he was sure that his crew was doing the same. He looked o
ver at Jean, the engineer, who answered the unasked question.
“I can’t get the engines running again in less than two ‘ours, Captain,” he said matter-of-factually.
“They require tests and warm up sequences after a complete shut down. And, they had a fit just before being shut down so I’d imagine that there are several problems with them as well.”
“Any idea what caused us to suddenly accelerate?”
“No, until I ‘ave made a full diagnosis, I cannot tell you.”
“If you had to guess?”
“If I ‘ad to guess, I would ‘ave said a power surge, causing the engines to work at two ‘undred per cent for thirty seconds.” Jean was extremely calm, which Michael found oddly reassuring.
“So,” he said. “If this thing is pulling us towards it, would that have caused us to slow down and overheat the engines?”
“That’s probably the cause, Captain, we were moving away from it, so if this thing has such a strong gravitational pull that’s its pulling us towards it, that would make sense,” Lindsey answered.
“Right, Jean, I need you to get to work straight away. Give us something, pull a trick out of your sleeve, but get us moving away from that thing. The Centre doesn’t know any better than us what it is, but they don’t want us going anywhere near it.”
“Yes Captain,” Jean got up, accompanied by three other people who worked in engineering, and left the room.
“Before we work out what this thing is, I would like to know about the sudden loss of gravity.”
Lieutenant Marshall Hayes, operations officer, looked at Michael.
“The ship stopped spinning, sir. I can only imagine that the power surge caused that too.” Michael sighed, got up from his chair and looked out the window.
“Okay. We have some probes in the cargo bay, don’t we?” he asked the room. It was Caitlin who answered.
“Two,” she said.
“Can we send one to the phenomenon and get some readings?”
“Yes,” Caitlin replied without hesitation.
