by David Lund
“Yeah, in sixty years,” Randy mumbled, moodily. Michael leaned forward.
“It’s still a great step for humanity, whether we are there or not to get the rewards, crewman.”
Michael had not raised his voice or even spoken harshly, but being referred to by rank, shut Randy up.
“I wonder what they are like,” Lindsey said dreamily. Kate Raddle, a pretty red haired girl, two years older than Lindsey, and who worked as a security officer, snorted.
“You really believe that there are aliens do you?” she said, somewhat unkindly.
“Of course,” Lindsey said, unperturbed.
“There won’t be anything there, Lindsey. It’ll be another barren planet, just like bloody Mars is. A waste of time. We should never have come out here.” She folded her arms grumpily.
“How can you say that?” Lindsey replied shocked. “Think of everything we can learn out here, and our journey home.”
“Journey home?” Kate was almost shrieking now. “We’re not going home, we’re not even leaving this system, we’re just flying towards another dead planet. We’re never going to see anybody we care about again, we may as well just kill ourselves now and be done with it.” She got up and ran out of the room, tears flooding down her cheeks.
A shocked silence followed her departure. Michael got up and followed her out.
“Kate,” he yelled at her. She stopped and waited for him to catch up. “I know this is difficult,” he said once he’s reached her. “It’s hard on all of us, but we need to stay strong. Nobody really wants to be here, we all have loved ones back home who we miss, and I promise you that we will do everything we can to see them again.”
She sobbed quietly.
“We are never getting back home, Captain, it’s just too far. Twenty seven light years! How can we possibly travel that far?” Michael thought the crew probably mostly felt this way, however, Kate was the first to make an outburst like this.
“Everything isn’t clear just yet, Kate, but we will find a way. And it’s not Lindsey’s fault, she’s just trying to see the bright side of things.” Kate bowed her head, biting back what she really wanted to say.
“Yes, sir. I’ll apologize to her. I just can’t -” The ship shook violently, cutting Kate off mid-sentence.
Michael ran back into the rec room, Kate following close behind.
“Everybody to their stations!” he yelled as the ship shook again. He then took off at a run and reached the bridge within less than a minute, with the bridge crew at his heels. He stumbled as the ship threw them sideways, and then strapped himself into his chair.
“Report,” he yelled.
“The gravity of the planet is stronger than we thought, Captain,” Caitlin said. “It’s putting pressure on the hull.”
“Lindsey, pull us away.” Michael ordered. Pressing the comm, he added, “Jean, we need everything you can give us.”
“Engines to maximum, Captain,” Jean said quickly.
“The hull is buckling, Captain,” Marshall yelled in a terrified voice, as the ship groaned around them.
“Lindsey!”
“We’re pulling away slowly, Captain,” she was sweating. “I’m doing everything I can.” Michael did not say anything else. He could see that she was concentrating hard. After a few tense moments, Marshall let out a relieved sigh.
“Pressure is dropping,” he said. “No sign of a hull breach.”
“Get us well away from the planet.”
“Yes sir,” came the reply. Only when the shaking had completely stopped did Michael relax a bit.
“That was close,” he mumbled and let out a nervous laugh. “Right, set a course for the inner planets, no more gas giants for now.”
*
The next few weeks were fairly uneventful. After their scare with the gas giant, they took a direct course towards the sixth planet which they would use as a slingshot to propel them towards the fifth planet, on which they hoped they would find something interesting.
The crew, who already knew each other quite well, grew even closer as they spent more and more time together, and none of the crew had any more outbursts, it seemed as if they had calmed down and accepted the situation in which they found themselves. It had been a month since their arrival in the solar system. Movie nights had been set up in the rec room every Friday, even though the crew had access to hundreds of movies in their quarters, they preferred to watch them together.
John had become regular chef and everyone had a communal meal every Wednesday, (the rest of the week was spent on rations). It was the little moments like these that they began to look forward to. Aside from the daily check-ups, there was little else to do when you were floating through space.
“We should have been on Mars by now,” Caitlin said one Thursday evening as she and Michael
shared a glass of wine in his office, (they had brought several bottles along). Michael had not forgotten this detail.
“Yes, but come on, you’ve got to admit, this is better than Mars.” She smiled in the robotic fashion Michael was used to.
“Probably, I suppose we’ll see.” They sipped their wine in silence.
“So, are you going to tell me?” Michael asked after a while.
“What?”
“Are you, or are you not, a robot?” Caitlin laughed out loud.
“What on earth are you talking about?”
“Come on,” Michael said, laughing too. “You never show any emotion, you’re like a robot.” She stopped laughing suddenly.
“I’m just private that’s all,” she said quietly. Michael, rather surprised, suspected that he had hurt her feelings.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t want to be mean.”
“No it’s okay. It’s just that I’ve learned that to show your emotions is a weakness.”
“I’m sorry you think that.”
“Are you my friend Michael?” She shot suddenly, looking up at him. The question surprised him.
“Of course, we’ve known each other a long time.” She smiled, an uncharacteristically warm smile.
“I’m glad.” He reached out and took her hand.
“You’re not alone out here, Caitlin.”
“I know.” She squeezed his hand, and smiled. “I’m glad you’re the Captain though. I wouldn’t want to handle this lot.” Michael laughed with her.
*
A month and half after arriving in the system, they passed by the first rocky planet. There was nothing special about it, it was half the size of Mars and had no atmosphere. It resembled the Earth’s moon more than anything else. Michael had already decided they weren’t stopping. They snapped a few pictures for the data banks and used it’s small gravity to send them onwards towards the next planet. The planet they were hoping would somehow solve all of their problems. The planet on which they hoped to find an alien race. Michael was worried that they were putting all of their eggs in one basket. Life on this planet was their only real hope for survival, and the captain feared that if they found nothing, the crew, himself included, might fall into a deep depression.
Scans had revealed very little about the planet so far, which was peculiar, because from this distance, they should have been able to pick up readings on the atmosphere and composition of the surface. Michael didn’t want to think that this was because there was nothing there to see. He grew
more and more anxious that he was leading his crew to a dead end. It was strange that their sensors were not picking anything up. The cameras weren’t even doing their job properly and they couldn’t see the planet. They should have been able to scan both planets by now, but they were not showing up, and the sensors were just telling them that basically, two planet shaped rocks were hanging in space.
They still had a month to go before reaching the fifth planet. They passed the time in much the same way as before. Growing more and more eager to reach it, Michael withdrew into his office as often as he could, searching for signs of life on the planet. He suspected this om
inous behaviour wasn’t good for the crew, but he had such hopes in finding something out about this planet that he was becoming obsessed. He needed to find something, he figured he might go crazy if he didn’t. He knew it was a big risk going further into the solar system: after all, he had no idea what effect the two suns would have on their ship. He vowed that he would not let them get too close to the gravitational pull of the two stars, and at the first sign of trouble they would back track. He just hoped that they were not going on a wild goose chase. His frustration at not finding anything out about the first planet led him to scan the other planet. They were close but didn’t orbit each other.
He wondered what it was like, standing on the surface and looking up at another planet, so close that with a powerful telescope, you could probably see the different cities.
His scans revealed again, nothing of interest. He couldn’t detect an atmosphere or any other signs that there might be life on this planet either. He couldn’t understand it, they hadn’t had any trouble scanning any of the other planets in the solar system. Even the first three planets had told them things about their composition. They were all similar to Mercury in size and matter. There would be nothing interesting on them. Michael was pleased that they didn’t have to get any closer to the suns.
The fact that scanning the two planets they were interested gave no results was intriguing.
Michael couldn’t pinpoint why exactly, but there was something about it that was strange, almost unnatural.
As he was sitting in his office, perusing the scans again, his comm buzzed, waking him from his stupor.
“Yes?” he barked, annoyed at being interrupted.
“Could you come to the bridge, Captain,” Caitlin’s voice said. “We’ve found something interesting.”
Michael got up eagerly and walked out onto the bridge.
“What is it?” he demanded.
“We just picked up a faint energy trail.” Caitlin said, her eyes on her console.
“An energy trail?” Michael repeated. “What sort of energy?”
“Unknown. Sensors picked up something. It was very brief. We’re not sure what it was.”
“Could it be emanating from one of the planets?” he asked hopefully.
“I don’t think so, it came from closer.” Michael walked over to Lindsey’s station.
“How far are we from the nearest planet?”
“Still about thirty million kilometres, sir,” she answered.
“Is there anything out here?”
“Nothing as far I can tell,” Lindsey replied.
“Captain,” Marshall said. “Maybe we could try sending a message to the planet.” Michael thought about this. It had occurred to him, but he didn’t see how they could possibly understand anything they sent them, or indeed if they were capable of receiving anything. Of course, there might be no one there to receive anything. The energy signature was promising though.
On Earth, they had mathematical equations destined to be sent to an alien species if the event occurred; they had even sent out a probe filled with information about Earth years and years ago; however they had nothing of the sort here on the ship. Mars wasn’t crawling with alien life.
“It’s worth a try,” he said finally. “Open a frequency.” There was a beep and Caitlin nodded to him.
“Hello, my name is Michael Edwards, I come from Earth, a planet twenty seven light years from here. I don’t know if you can understand me. If you are receiving this, please respond.” The message went out.
“It will take two minutes to reach them, sir,” Caitlin said. However, a response came back almost immediately. A distorted sound was heard.
“I’m narrowing the wavelength,” Marshall said. “Hang on.” The message came back clearer this time.
“Hello, my name is Michael Edwards -”
“It’s the same message we sent,” Lindsey said.
“That’s weird,” Marshall said, as Michael paced the bridge.
“The message rebounded and came back to us,” he said, frowning. “What would cause that?”
“A number of things could be responsible. There might be a problem with the transmitter. I’ll have a look,” Lindsey said.
“Let me know when you’ve figured it out.” He walked towards his office.
“Where are you going, Captain?” Caitlin asked, getting up. He turned, surprised at the hard look on her face.
“I need to think, and rest.” She walked towards him.
“Can I speak with you, privately?” He raised his eyebrows and allowed her to enter his office. He followed her in and invited her to sit.
“What is it Caitlin?”
“Michael, you’re spending a lot of time isolated.” He said nothing but waited for her to continue.
“It’s not good for the crew. We only ever see you for a few minutes at a time on the bridge, and
that’s not even every day. What’s going on?” Michael stared at her for a few seconds before responding.
“It’s the planets, they’re driving me crazy. I know I’ve been spending at lot of time by myself, it’s just that I’ve been trying to find things out about the two planets.”
“We’ve all been doing that, Michael,” said Caitlin, showing a rare flash of anger. “It’s all we’ve been doing for the last three weeks. The crew needs you to be present Michael, we need you to be there to show us that all hope isn’t lost. Everyone on this ship is counting on you.”
“I realize that Caitlin!” Michael was surprised to find himself standing, he didn’t remember getting to his feet. “I realize every day that I’ve got to make decisions for the safety and well being of this crew. It’s my job. I’m also well aware that not everybody agrees with my choices, and I know that there is a good chance I’m leading everybody to their deaths. We should have just stayed where we were and hoped that the wormhole came back.” He had voiced his main concern. He couldn’t help thinking that the wormhole would have reappeared, and that it would have been safer to just sit still until that happened. Caitlin was looking at him with concern now. A real range of emotions she was proving to have.
“Michael,” she said quietly. “Don’t worry about the wormhole. We’ve got sensor checks looking for it every second of the day. If it comes back, we’ll know. In the meantime, we might as well explore.” She got up and put an arm on his shoulder. “You made the right choice.”
“But if it comes back, we are two months away from it, it only lasted for a couple of hours the first time.”
“How do you know? Maybe it’s still there on the other side. It might be a one way system. But listen, there is nothing we can do about it. Maybe it will come back, and if it does, we’ll go straight to it, but there isn’t anything we can do about it now.”
“You’re right Caitlin,” he said, sitting down again and grasping her hand. “Thanks. I needed this.”
“It’s my job, you look after the crew, I look after you.” He smiled at her and she smiled back.
Just as they were about to go back onto the bridge, there was a loud bang and they were both thrown towards the front of the ship, hard. Michael put out his hands just in time stop himself from bashing his skull against the wall. A shock went through his body as his arms took the full force of the blow. He fell to the floor and groaned in agony. Then followed a series of explosions and hissing sounds. The emergency lights came on and a shrill alarm blared out through the speakers.
Michael got clumsily to his feet, his arms felt like dead weights, and he hurt all over but nothing seemed to be broken. He felt slightly dizzy and everything seemed to be moving in slow motion. He saw that Caitlin was lying on the floor near him, and she wasn’t moving. He went to her and felt her pulse, it was erratic but she was breathing. A thin line of blood was running out from the back of her head. He tried calling her but she was unconscious. He went to his desk and tried the comm, it
wasn’t working. He ran out onto the bridge and gasped.
The front of
the ship was squashed, the usual round form had been flattened, as if they had struck by something hard and flat. Consoles were hissing smoke and several had caught fire. Michael grabbed a fire extinguisher from the wall and started putting them out. Marshall was sitting dazed in his seat, he didn’t seem to be injured.
“Hayes, help me,” Michael yelled at him. Marshall shook his head vigorously, got up, and walked unsteadily over to where Lindsey lay. She had been near the front of the ship when whatever happened had happened, and she was held down by her console which had been torn off it’s support.
As Marshall bent over her, Michael finished with the fires and went to John, who was also lying on the floor, unconscious. He felt for a pulse: nothing. Panic was rising inside of him and he fought not to lose control. He then moved over to Hayes, and helped lift the console off Lindsey. She had her eyes closed and her face was awfully pale.
“How is she?” he barked at Marshall.
“Broken leg, I think,” he replied, his voice shaking.
“I’m going to look for the Doctor. Stay here, make sure she’s okay.”
“Yes, Captain.”
Michael left the bridge and headed for the medical bay. The ship had a lift but Michael suspected it wouldn’t be working and headed for the staircase. The ship was damaged almost everywhere Michael went. Exploded consoles, minor fires… It would takes months to repair everything, if they had the right supplies, that is. They were never supposed to be this far from a base. What had happened? They weren’t moving any more, they appeared to be at a dead stop. What could have caused the ship to buckle like that. Sensors hadn’t shown anything. They were lucky the hull didn’t breach. Michael paused briefly to glance out of a window. He couldn’t see anything unusual.
He entered the medical bay to find, to his immense relief, the Doctor alive and well, busy treating patients.
“Captain,” he said, business like. “What happened?”
“I don’t know yet. Casualties?”
“Three dead so far, crewman Jal is going round the ship looking for injuries.”
