I looked up from the command terminal and gazed at the unchanging view beyond the four inches of Stellar-Shield glass. That curved windshield gave me a hundred and eighty degree view of a backdrop that never appeared to change. It didn’t matter that we were cruising along at more than a million miles per hour toward a Galilean moon that was still more than three hundred million miles out.
My eyes returned to the command terminal and the hand that was still hovering above the keyboard. Did I enjoy my job? Was my job rewarding? Was I accomplishing anything? I worried about how I would answer such questions which was why I felt no desire to keep my commission. Suddenly, I heard the door open behind me. I quickly closed out of the document, realizing just then that I hadn’t saved it.
“Captain? I brought you some coffee,” Doctor Nguyen said as he circled to the left of my chair and held out a tall plastic mug, “Chief said you liked it black.”
“Thank you, Doctor,” I said, accepting the aromatic offering.
He stood there beside me, sturdy and broad shouldered, as he gazed out at the stars before us. I looked at the man, wondering what was going on in his head as he smiled so peacefully. It would have had to appear to him that we weren’t even moving. A million miles per hour was nothing in the black void between the planets. The stellar backdrop remained painfully stationary.
Welcome to my hell, Doctor Nguyen.
“Will this be your first time to Europa?” I asked, even though I already knew the answer.
I’d already read the manifest. I always knew who I was transporting, what I was transporting, and why. The genius doctor of microbiology standing next to me had never been to space before, and yet in spite of his inexperience here, he was about to take on some high-ranking civilian post in the Galilean Submarine Science Division. He was to be my only human cargo for this two-week journey to Europa. Besides transporting him, I had four tons of consumables, one ton of equipment, and for the first time ever, an eight-man research submarine weighing in at six hundred tons. That piece of equipment intrigued me as it would lead to a whole new level in oceanic research on that moon.
“Yes, I’ve never even been to space before I was offered this blessed opportunity. Most of my time was spent examining samples that had been encased and sent back to Earth,” he replied, “It will be nice to do my research right there in the facility.”
“It’s an amazing facility,” I said, having spent a night or two in the guest quarters there, “You’d never know you were on a moon. It has the feel that you’re just in an ordinary modern building back on Earth. The only scary part is that freaky pool room where they tunneled down through the ice.”
“Oh yes, I’d seen images. A pool room without any water,” he smiled.
“Well, no liquid water anyway,” I inserted, “The floor around the enormous elevator is the true icy surface of the moon. I walked on it just so I could say ‘I walked on the surface of Europa’ and not just a concrete surface placed overtop it.”
“I may do the same,” he said, “I will eventually get to say that I rode on the highest elevator in the universe though. I hear it takes over six hours to go from the pool room to the ocean.”
“And then you’ve got the six-hour trip back, not to mention how long you spend exploring in that submarine of yours,” I said.
“Oh, it’s not mine,” he immediately stated, “That was bought and paid for by the Europa Science Foundation. And I wouldn’t even know how to pilot something like that. I’ll just be a passenger.”
“A passenger and an explorer. That’s the kind of stuff I wish I could be a part of,” I said with a long drawn out sigh, “Imagine being part of the first crew to personally explore beneath the icy crust of a Galilean moon? Sure, we sent down plenty of remote subs, but to personally go down there? I envy you, Doctor.”
“Well, you’re a ship’s captain, Mr. Knight. You spend your whole life exploring,” he said.
“You would think. That’s what I thought when I joined the Space Division eleven years ago. I’d been crossing my fingers for eleven years that I’d get a chance to pilot a ship to another star or even another galaxy,” I said, rising from my seat and walking toward the window, “We’ve always got ‘something in the works’, and ‘plans on the horizon’, but nothing seems to ever come to fruition. So here I am going back and forth between Europa and Earth.”
“Well, Captain, you’re one step closer than most of us. When the time comes to go to Alpha Centauri, you’ll be a qualified pilot and I’ll just be a submarine microbiologist of very limited use to a potential interstellar crew.”
I turned to him and smiled. He was right in that regard. Just then, the command terminal started chirping. We both turned and looked at the chair. I quickly seated myself in the chair and brought up the main view-panel.
“Shuttle Distress Alarm – Position: 314, 20, 112, 6, 200, 34 – Identification: Shuttle Two from the CP-4”
“CP-4? Impossible.” I muttered.
I brought up the navigational screen and typed in the coordinates I’d been given. That presented me with a map of an area quite close to our original course.
“What’s CP-4?” the doctor asked, looking over my shoulder.
“The Colonization Project that was sent to Tau Ceti just before I was born,” I said, “It was finally classified as lost with no survivors just a few years ago.”
Chapter Two
I immediately brought the forward reverse-thrusters online to slow us down, and then changed our heading to intercept the small vehicle. All the while, I was secretly cursing myself for adding another day or two to my mindless trip. After I picked up the nomadic shuttle, I would then need to bring the ship back up to speed without the assistance of a gravitational slingshot off a nearby planet. That alone would take ten to twelve hours, all the while trying to plot a new course to Europa.
I called the ship’s doctor and the XO to the bridge as the ship piloted itself toward the distress beacon. Doctor Nguyen remained on the bridge out of sheer curiosity.
“Any idea how many people are on the shuttle?” the doctor, Lieutenant Jennifer Lord asked, “And in what state of health?”
“I tried to communicate, but there are no responses,” I said, “Just the automated beacon.”
“So they might not even be conscious,” my executive officer Ensign Michael Moran observed.
“Yes, I think it would be best if we prepared for the retrieval of a drifting spacecraft with no assistance from the other end,” I said.
“We can open up the cargo bay and use two of the tow cables and winches to gradually stop the craft’s spin or momentum,” the XO stated, “We’d need two people for the EVA, both attached to tow lines.”
I muttered a curse, looking out the window as though I’d even be able to get a visual by now.
“We are exceedingly ill-prepared for something like this,” I said, “Ill-prepared and understaffed.”
“We’ll need to draw the existing cargo further back so we’ll have space for a shuttle craft,” the ensign added, “And we don’t know for certain that they can’t pilot their own shuttle into our hold. We can still hope for that slim possibility.”
“True,” I said, “But why don’t you get two of the engineers suited up just in case? We’re closing in and should be there within five to ten minutes.”
“Will do,” he said, immediately leaving the bridge.
“And Doc, you might want to get the medical bay ready to receive,” I said, “There could be upwards of thirty-some people in the shuttle if it’s carrying the full crew of the CP-4.”
“I’m going to echo your own words, though,” she said as she turned to the door, “Ill-prepared and understaffed.”
“I hear you,” I agreed.
It was just me and Dr. Nguyen on the bridge again. I returned to the chair and slowed the ship further as we closed in on the beacon. I brought all the scanners online and immediately discovered something disheartening. I was picking up nothing out the
re that was even close to the size of a shuttlecraft.
“What’s this?” I muttered, double-checking my scan commands.
“Where’s the shuttle?” Doctor Nguyen was now looking out the windshield, “Aren’t we close?”
“Yeah, it should be out there right in front of us,” I said.
I overlapped the radar screen report to the ongoing pulse of the distress beacon. There was definitely something very small out there on the radar screen and it matched the spot of the beacon. I picked up the ship-wide communicator and switched it on.
“Prepare for the EVA retrieval as planned, Ensign Moran, but we aren’t picking up a shuttle out there. It’s something significantly smaller. I’m bringing the ship about and will park her immediately in front of the object. I’ll give the order when we’re in place.”
I pulled the manual yoke over in front of me and then brought up the rear view on my command panel. Using minimal thrusters, I guided the ship slowly around. I then ordered the computer to have two of the exterior lights hone in on the object. A moment later, I could see the slowly rotating box to the right of the main cargo door. From this view, it simply looked like an old-fashioned Navy storage trunk.
I edged the ship into position and then grabbed the communicator and switched it on, “I’ve got it lit up and it’s probably less than ten yards out the back door. You are clear to go when ready.”
I continued to watch my screen with Doctor Nguyen perched over my shoulder. I could hear him breathing, he was so close to my ear. Suddenly, I got the little warning light in the corner of my screen informing me that the cargo bay atmosphere was being vented into the storage tanks. Then another warning light appeared to tell me that the cargo bay door was opening.
“What do you supposed that is?” the doctor asked, “Could the shuttle have exploded?”
“I really don’t know, but I’m going to have to apologize apparently for wasting your time. Navy protocol requires that all ships within the vicinity must answer any distress beacon, so I really had no choice. Unfortunately, this one may have turned out to be a useless ruse of some sort.”
We watched as one of the engineers in full EVA gear drifted toward the object. He managed to wrap his arms around the item and then started taking it with him as he drifted away from the ship. The cable that was attached to his belt and trailing behind him suddenly grew taut, stopping the man and what now appeared to definitely be a storage trunk. I was really irritated now, discovering that I’d fallen for a childish prank.
“No need to apologize, Captain. It’s good to know that people look out for each other up here,” he replied, “But if it’s alright with you, I’d like to have a look at that item especially if it came from the CP-4.”
“You and I both, Doc,” I replied, “I think it’s time to take a trip to the cargo bay.”
Chapter Three
By the time I reached the cargo bay, the outer door was already closed and the atmosphere had been vented back into the bay. I followed Ensign Moran, Doctor Lord, and my chief engineer Ensign Ross Podbielski into the cargo bay where the man who retrieved the object was already removing his EVA helmet.
We took the catwalk out past the submarine and the pallets of supplies that were all tied down. Then we hurried down the metal stairs and onto the main deck of the cargo bay. Engineer Second Class Stone was kneeling next to the object with his helmet in his hand.
“It’s one of those old Navy storage trunks,” Stone hollered as we approached, “What’s that all about?”
“We’re about to find out,” I said, joining the half-circle that now crowded around the object, “Go ahead and open it, Petty Officer Stone.”
He removed the bulky EVA gloves and then flipped the rusty latches that concealed whatever treasure lie within. He then opened the lid, causing several of us crowd closer. Mr. Stone reached in before we could see what it was and then lifted it for us all to see. Someone had intentionally removed the distress beacon from a shuttle, strapped an old computer tablet to it using engineering tape, and then attached the modified unit to a Universal Ion Battery.
“Why would someone do this?” Doctor Nguyen asked.
“Better yet, how would someone do this?” Ensign Podbielski asked, “Because that beacon is clearly from the CP-4 shuttlecraft. Even the storage trunk is labeled from the CP-4. This is genuine stuff.”
I noticed the same things. Whoever did this had access to a ship that had disappeared more than thirty years ago.
“Look at the tablet screen,” Doctor Lord stated, pointing to some text that I couldn’t read from this distance.
“It reads ‘CP-4 colony on Kepler Moon Alpha in need of immediate assistance and you can provide this assistance to us immediately if you follow the instructions enclosed’,” the petty officer stated.
“But this is impossible,” Ensign Moran stated.
“Kepler Moon Alpha is almost twelve light years away,” I stated.
“A distress call coming from inside a drifting storage trunk… not even speeding here aboard a shuttle or a ship…” Doctor Nguyen thought aloud, “There is no way that a cry for help from that far away could have made it to us inside such a frail container.”
“What instructions are they providing?” I asked.
“Does anyone here know how to use one of these old tablets?” Stone asked, “I doubt my grandma even had one of these.”
“That’s just a Holder-Tech 350, Stone,” Doctor Lord said, “Those were still around even when you were a kid. But I guess your rich parents spoiled you with an HT600 when you were in preschool.”
She took the whole contraption from him and tapped the screen. She moved like a pro through the old programs and eventually pulled up a page that showed a slew of documents. She opened the one labeled introduction and then began to read it aloud.
“To the USN-SD from the KMA colony. If everything works as planned, and if the math is correct, you will have received this distress beacon in the Earth year 2146, perhaps in late June. If so, you can be of assistance to a colony that has now been on Kepler Moon Alpha for a total of fourteen Earth months and we do not have the means to survive. You are already aware of the poor conditions here which were actually caused by a semi-successful Hawke Jump test you performed thirty-four years ago. That ship slammed into the moon, sending an otherwise perfect world into an ice age. We arrived here and had no means to return to Earth, so we had no choice but to make do. Then we lost half the original crew before we even made it to the surface. We lost half the supplies at the time as well. Many things, not the least of which includes two intense storms, have worked against us, destroying one of our greenhouses and one of the land rovers,”
“We lost the potential to supply power to the colony in an effort to save this world from the remains of the experimental Hawke Jump drive that you sent here prior to our arrival. As such, we have lost the ability to provide artificial heat to our homes and other structures. We cannot operate the electronic water filtration anymore, so we may risk disease. Both shuttles have lost all power and are being kept warm by wood-burning furnaces we manufactured using metal from the shuttles’ outer hulls and engineering spaces. Lighting is being provided by rewiring some fixtures to run off the many batteries we still have, but it’s only a matter of time before those run out as well,”
“Starvation is a possibility due to us only having one truly healthy greenhouse and even that can only provide so much. The chicken farming and processing is working well, again only because we manufactured wood-burning furnaces to keep the livestock from freezing to death. As such, our diets are meat-rich and lacking in fruits, vegetables, and grains. If it weren’t for the vitamin supplements, which are getting low now, we would probably have some cases of scurvy amongst the colony as well as other diseases caused by poor diet. We already have seen cases of anemia, diarrhea, and unusual hair loss which we are attributing to poor diet,”
“We have no medical staff and no medical supplies. None survived the atm
ospheric entry. This brings up the reason we finally had to do this experimental call for help. Beyond anything already mentioned, we need emergency medical assistance in the most urgent way and again, you can provide this immediately as long as you have an EVA suit and functioning shipboard scanners. We have our own EVA suits, so you will not need to bring any with you. We do need a doctor however and even so, the doctor will probably wish to bring the patient back to a place with proper medical facilities and equipment. If you are willing and able, please begin by reading document #2 and help us as quickly as possible.”
“They’re saying that the Hawke Jump was successful and that it’s the reason Kepler Moon Alpha is uninhabitable?” I asked.
“I remember that from physics class in school. It was supposed to fold space and instead it just vaporized,” Doctor Lord said.
“We need to help them,” Doctor Nguyen said.
“Help them?” the XO asked, “They’re twelve light years away and who knows how long ago they sent this message to us?”
“They obviously must be within reach somehow because they pretty much told us today’s date although they missed it by a couple weeks. They guessed it to be late June and it’s actually June second,” I said, “Let’s keep in mind that they somehow discovered evidence of the Hawke Jump there on that moon and that they managed to lose their power supply, which I’ll assume was a mini-nuclear reactor, to what they called the remains of the Hawke Jump. I don’t even want to imagine what that means or how they accomplished all that they’ve done so far, but I do know that it shows the extent of their resolve and their intelligence. If Doctor Tuan Nguyen is alright with showing up late to Europa, I say we need to investigate the other documents they sent and see if we have the means to assist them.”
“And as the only medical doctor and surgeon within ten million miles, I volunteer my assistance and I think I would have to insist upon it,” the lieutenant stated.
“I’m behind you one hundred percent,” Doctor Nguyen stated, “And I’ll help however I can.”
Colonization Page 15
