The Interstellar

by David Lund

  “I think you can make it four, John Browning is dead.” A lump rose in his throat as he said it.

  “Caitlin and Lindsey are badly injured too.”

  “Can they be moved? I’ve got my hands full here.” The medical bay was indeed full of people. At least seven of the crew were lying in various states of injury. The three dead crewman were lying in a corner, covered with sheets. There would be time later to see who they were. There were more important things to do now.

  “There is only the bridge crew left then,” Michael said. “I’ll find Jal and get her to help me bring

  them down.”

  “I will come with you Captain.” Michael looked over to Jean getting up from a chair in the corner.

  “I am fine.”

  “No,” Hensen said firmly. “You have a concussion, you’re not going anywhere.” Before the engineer could argue Michael intervened.

  “The Doc is right Jean, get some rest.” Jean sat back down gently, he looked quite the worse for wear, Michael wasn’t sure he would be able to walk very far, let alone carry someone. Michael put his hand on Adrian Hensen’s shoulder.

  “Look after them Doc, we can’t lose anybody else.”

  6

  Later, Michael sat in his office drinking a glass of thirty year old scotch he had bought along.

  The smooth amber liquid felt like the best thing in the world as it slid down his throat. He felt empty, dejected. In the last month, seven people had died, and he couldn’t help but feel that it was at least partly his fault. It was because of him that they were on their way to an unknown planet which might end up getting them all killed. They should have just stayed put. The wormhole might have opened up again, maybe TEC had managed to send a message through it. Instead, they went off exploring and had almost destroyed the ship on two occasions. He felt as if he had failed as a Captain, almost half the crew was dead, and there was a good chance that the rest of the crew would follow. So much for their great exploration.

  The damage this time was extensive. It would take weeks to repair all the systems, and the front of the ship was something else entirely. It now resembled a flattened tin can and Michael simply had no idea how to fix it. There was no breach, so it wasn’t an immediate concern, but it had damaged the navigation and communications of the ship, and they were essential for it to function.

  They still had no idea what had happened. Most of the crew was still in the medical bay, receiving treatment. Only Marshall, Adrian, Jal and himself had been unhurt in the ‘accident’. The others all had some form of injury: Lindsey had indeed broken her leg, but apart from that she was all right; Caitlin was still unconscious: she had knocked her head against the very desk at which Michael now sat. He could see faint traces of her blood on the corner. Adrian had told him that she had a concussion and should recover but didn’t want to wake her yet. Jean had been one of the first to recover and was now back in the engine room starting on repairs. The rest of the crew were still in the healing process, but Adrian had assured him that there was no lasting damage to anyone.

  To anyone but the dead.

  The four dead crew members were John Browning, Horace Kolanski, Tania Hesten and Kate Raddle, the girl who had run out of the rec room on that first week. Michael didn’t know what to do.

  He didn’t think he could just sit around and watch as his crew died slowly in front of him.

  He was halfway down the bottle of whisky, and feeling quite drunk, when the door to his office buzzed.

  “Come in,” he said slurring slightly. The door opened and Jean Gréau came in. His lined face looked tired and sad. His mop of grey hair sat untidily on his head, partly obscuring the bruise that covered the left side of his face, and he had stubble on his chin. He looked worn out. Michael knew that most of the crew felt this way. Jean scratched his hair and glanced down at Michael and the bottle of whisky on the desk.

  “Are you okay, Captain?”

  “Pull up a chair, Jean.” Jean sat down. Michael pulled out a glass, one of the ones that hadn’t been broken during the accident, and poured Jean some whisky, who accepted it gratefully.

  “To our departed friends,” Michael said raising his own glass. They toasted and both drank deeply.

  “Captain, we will get through this,” said Jean, his heavy French accent making it hard for Michael’s drunken mind to understand him. “We will.”

  “You’re a good man, Jean.”

  “Thank you, Captain. May I talk to you about repairs?” Michael nodded. “The engines are fine.

  Luckily they are at the back of the ship and did not suffer much damage.”

  “That’s good. How are we with communications?” Michael asked, his eyes drooping. He yawned wildly. He wasn’t used to drinking this much, he would feel terrible tomorrow.

  “Communications in the ship are fixed but the transmitter was smashed to pieces, it will ‘ave to be completely rebuilt. It will take me a couple of days, faster if I ‘ave ‘elp. Without the transmitter, we won’t be able to talk to anyone outside of the ship.” Jean said pointlessly and sipped his scotch.

  “Would you like me to do that now?”

  “No, we need to fix navigation first.”

  “Ah,” Jean said. “This is the most difficult thing to fix. It will take a long time. We will ‘ave to go outside the ship to fix.”

  “It’s needs to be done, Jean. Without navigation, we are sitting ducks. You can start in the morning.

  Hopefully by then, you’ll have someone to help. I need to sleep now, I’ll see you tomorrow.” Jean drained his glass, got up and left without a word. Michael lay back in his chair and closed his eyes.

  Everything will be better tomorrow, he told himself. Tomorrow.

  *

  The next day, Michael awoke in his office with a stiff neck and a splitting headache. He glanced at the broken clock on his desk, 10.04 AM. He got up gingerly, put the bottle of scotch away, and walked over to the small sink in the corner. He glanced at his reflection in the mirror. His eyes were bloodshot and the lines around his eyes more pronounced than ever, he had never looked older. He ran a hand through his dark hair. A few touches of grey had appeared at the sides. It’s stress, he thought. At thirty seven, he didn’t think he should be going grey just yet. He washed both glasses and put them away too. As he left his office, he noticed a broken frame on the floor. It was the picture of his wife and daughter. The glass was broken too, and the smiling faces were distorted through the shards. He picked it up and stared at his family. He felt his eyes burn as he thought about kissing his wife goodbye just before he left for this mission. Anger rushed through him, and he threw the picture across the room, where it hit the wall and smashed completely. He wiped his

  eyes on his sleeve and sat back down in his chair, instantly regretting his crazy act.

  He had met Alice, his wife, at university. She was studying psychology while he was doing astrophysics. They had met at some party thrown by a mutual friend. He remembered he had been sitting at a table doing shots with his buddies when she had walked in. He really believed he fell in love with her right there and then. She had walked in alone, her long blond hair swaying as she swung her seductive hips. Her face was pale, but her features were soft and delicate, with a small button nose and full red lips. But the thing that caught his eye the most was her large green eyes, he had felt that he could fall deep into them and never resurface. She had seen him looking at her and had smiled sweetly, then she had sat down not six feet from him. He immediately went to her and they started talking, and realized how much they had in common. She was fascinated by space and the stars and listened intently as he explained that he wanted to be an astronaut. They hit it off instantly and never left each other since.

  The memory faded and Michael was left staring at the wall against which the photograph had shattered. He shook his head to clear it and focused on their present situation. Remembering that Jean had fixed ship communications he pressed the comm button for engineering.<
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  “Edwards to Engine room,” he said. There was no answer. He walked out onto the bridge and found Jean working at Hayes’ console, with the latter looking over his shoulder. As he approached, both men straightened.

  “Captain,” Jean said. “‘Ow are you feeling?”

  “Like a man who drank too much. What’s our status?” Michael answered bluntly.

  “We are working on repairing navigation, Captain,” Marshall answered. “It’s not as bad as we thought, but we are still going to have to do a space walk to repair the damage. Hopefully though, we should have it working by the end of the day.”

  “Well that’s good news. Do we have any ideas as to what happened?”

  “No, Captain.”

  “Okay. I’ve got to go to the medical bay, keep up the good work.”

  Michael left the men to it and went to find Lindsey in the medical bay. The Doctor had set her leg and given her crutches. She was just testing them out as Michael entered.

  “Good to see you on your feet, Lindsey,” he smiled. “How’s the leg?”

  “It’s okay, at least it doesn’t hurt any more.” On top of her broken left leg, she had several cuts and bruises on her face.

  “I’ve given her a bone strengthener, it should sort itself out in a couple of weeks,” Adrian said.

  “Good. Listen Lindsey, do you have any idea what happened?”

  “I’ve been thinking about it, sir, and the only thing I can think of is that we hit something very big and very solid.”

  “Yes, that’s what it seemed like to me too. But what? There’s nothing there. Nothing showed up on sensors before we hit – whatever we hit?”

  “Nothing visible,” Lindsey said, she seemed excited. “But you know how we can’t scan the planets properly? And that we picked up a faint energy trail just before we hit – whatever we hit? Well, what if there’s some kind of energy barrier in front of us? Something that’s blocking the ship and our scanners?” Michael thought about this. He knew Lindsey was one of the most enthusiastic about finding alien life, and this theory helped that belief along, but it seemed far fetched. Although, he shouldn’t really rule anything out at this point.

  “Maybe,” Michael said carefully. “I suppose it could coincide with the energy reading we picked up earlier.” He thought for a moment as Lindsey hobbled around the medical bay on her crutches, while Adrian followed and gave her advice. He glanced around and saw a few other crewman still being treated for minor injuries. Luckily, it seemed no one else was in a life threatening situation.

  We are all in a life threatening situation, Michael thought with his foggy mind.

  “I suppose the only way to find out,” he said eventually, “Is to see for our selves.”

  He walked over to the nearest comm.

  “Edwards to bridge.”

  “Hayes here, Captain.”

  “Which one of you is going for a space walk?” There was a couple of seconds silence. Michael imagined that the two men were looking at each other.

  “Jean,” came the reply.

  “Okay, well Jean, you’re going to be doing a bit of exploring.”

  *

  Five hours later, after the engineer had fixed the indoor part of the navigation system, he had put on a space suit and was preparing to exit. Michael was on the bridge, Lindsey with her crutches, and Marshall, were by his side. Jean was going out of the starboard side of the vessel and was to walk around to the front. The whole endeavour would take him twenty minutes. To be able to repair the navigation system, he had to reach a satellite dish attached to the front of the ship, right where it had been squashed. As there was a good chance that it had been smashed to pieces, Jean had built a replacement dish. They already had all the necessary equipment to do just that, in case anything happened to the original one. Jean had the new dish and a tool kit with him. The suit was very bulky and it was not easy to manoeuvre, especially holding a new dish and tool kit. The dish was very big and heavy, once outside though, it would weigh nothing, and Jean would be able to carry it easily enough.

  “Ready, Captain,” came the engineer’s voice.

  “Go ahead.” Michael and the others could see Jean’s progress on a screen on one of the repaired consoles, (the view screen had been destroyed). Jean’s helmet had a camera attached to it so they could basically see what he could see. They watched as he walked out the airlock, then floated along the hull for a few meters and activated the magnetic boots on his suit. He then walked forwards painfully slowly; hauling the new dish while wearing a space suit and carrying a tool box in the other hand was not an easy task.

  It took him almost fifteen minutes to reach the front of the ship. Michael leaned forwards as the engineer reached the squashed part of the vessel. It was not a pretty sight. The hull was extremely bent, and completely squashed flat, as if a great invisible wall was stretched out in front of them. It seemed only by some miracle that there hadn’t been a breach. Michael couldn’t help but admire the people who built the vessel, they did one hell of a job. It was thanks to them that they were still alive. Had there been a breach, the air inside the ship would have been sucked out into the vacuum of space, and the crew along with it.

  “Incroyable,” came Jean’s voice through the speakers. “Captain, are you seeing this?”

  “Yes. Proceed with caution, Jean.”

  “I can see the dish. It is not salvageable. I will ‘ave to replace it.” Michael could see it too, the white dish was mostly destroyed, only a small fragment of the main antenna was somehow intact.

  “Very well.” Michael watched as Jean walked forwards towards the damaged area, but when the man reached the point of impact, there was an electrical noise and the camera went dead.

  “Jean!” Michael said loudly. “Jean, are you okay? Respond.” There was no answer, the camera screen had filled with static. “Jean, answer me dammit.” Still no sound. “Try to get him back,” he shot at Lindsey before running from the bridge, Marshall at his heels. They ran down two flights of stairs, and reached the airlock. Michael opened a cabinet and pulled out another EVA suit.

  “I need you to hold the tether, I’m going after him.”

  “Are you sure -”

  “Yes I’m sure, now do as I say!” Michael yelled ferociously.

  “Yes, Captain.” Marshall answered, slightly shocked by the Captain’s outburst, but taking it in his stride nevertheless. He pulled the tether out of the wall unit and connected it to the front of the EVA suit, this way, he would be able to pull the Captain back to the ship if he got into any trouble.

  It took two minutes to get the EVA suit on. Michael went out. Immediately, the silence of space pressed upon him. The only thing he could hear was his heartbeat and the sound of his breathing through the microphone. He launched himself as fast as he could towards the front of the ship, fighting away the wave of nausea that came from sudden weightlessness. He didn’t use the magnetic boots but pushed himself along the hull, using various parts of the ship as hand holds, as Marshall

  let the tether out so that he could bring him back safely. It took him only a couple of minutes to reach the front of the vessel.

  Michael scanned the area, and immediately saw the engineer floating twenty meters off the hull of the ship, and slowly drifting further out. He seemed to be unconscious. Michael turned around and gave a powerful two footed kick off the side and flew out towards him. He overdid it a bit and collided with Jean quite hard, and wrapped his hands around the body.

  “Got him!” he said into his microphone and straight away, he felt the tug which meant that Marshall was pulling them back in.

  As they drifted gently back towards the airlock, Michael looked at Jean’s face, he seemed to be breathing. Feeling faintly relieved, he told Marshall to warn the doctor that he had a new patient.

  *

  “He was electrocuted,” Adrian said. “By a very strong charge. He’s lucky to be alive, the EVA suit took most of the blast. He’ll be okay, the suit howev
er, is fried.” The Captain was relieved that Jean would recover, he could not lose anyone else. The loss of a suit was a blow, but not serious.

  They had boarded the ship each with their own EVA suit, as they were made to measure; so they had plenty to spare, and if anybody else dies, they will have even more…

  “So Lindsey was right; there is some kind of barrier out there.” Michael couldn’t believe it. There was a barrier, but of natural or extra terrestrial origin? His head was spinning, this was getting out of hand, he was starting to miss his old barren solar system. A glimpse of Jupiter would have made him the happiest man on Earth, well, in space at any rate.

  First they had been blown through the galaxy; then they had almost been destroyed in the gravity of a heavy planet; and now, half the ship was destroyed because of some invisible energy barrier.

  Things were getting crazier and crazier. They needed to get sensors working; they needed to know exactly what this barrier was.

  “How long until Jean can get back to work?” he asked the Doctor.

  “He needs rest, I’m sorry Captain, but not for at least a week.” Michael didn’t like the answer, but didn’t want to make the engineer’s condition any worse.

  “Okay, Doc. How is Caitlin?”

  “No change, she needs to rest for a few more days before I wake her.”

  Michael went back to the bridge and found Lindsey working away furiously at a console.

  “I’m trying to get the sensors back online,” she said as he came in. “I have to keep moving from this console to that one though, it’s taking me ages,” she added, holding up her crutches.

  Michael helped her with the repairs, and they sat there for a few hours, laughing together and

  talking about random things. It felt good to take their minds off their precarious situation. It was gone three o’clock in the morning by the time Lindsay declared that they were done.

  She fired up the main computer sensors and tried them.

  “They appear to be working. The energy barrier is only coming up as a faint energy trail, the same thing we picked up just before hitting it.”