Home Planet: Apocalypse (Part 2)

by T. J. Sedgwick

  I rolled my eyes and watched him crouch over it, picking up the multi-meter and testing the battery.

  The readout displayed the current and voltage and I asked, “Is it enough?”

  He looked up with his crazed smile.

  “Like I said, she’s a winner!”

  I smiled and, for the first time, had an inkling of hope that this might work. It still left the problem of the launch tubes, but it wasn’t as if we lacked time.

  “Come on peasant, let’s go try this thing out.”

  “Okay, lead the way.”

  I looked at the bearded old crazy guy, shuffling off toward the stairwell next to the elevators. I bent down, picked up the battery, and started following him.

  The shuttle was one thing, but I wanted to see the ship’s log for myself using Reichs’s high-level clearance. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but something about his story didn’t add up. And how much of his seemingly deluded behavior was real and how much was an act? I had to admit, I wasn’t sure. My healthy cop skepticism had served me well in the past and I smelled something I didn’t like, and it wasn’t just the contents of Reichs’s pants.

  5

  I followed Reichs down the gloomy stairwell running beside Shuttle Elevator 1, nearest the port side of the ship. This was his domain and, although I didn’t fully trust him and his time-ravaged mind, he at least knew his way around. The battery I carried under my right arm was bulky, but manageable, although I needed to take care not to drop it. For all I knew, it might have been the last functional one on the entire ship.

  He said, “Should be enough juice for a start-up. Once her main engines are all fired up, that battery will be brimming with electricity.”

  “Sounds good, Reichs.”

  “Mr. Reichs! Didn’t I already ...”

  “Blah, blah, blah,” I muttered and blocked out the audible pollution and started thinking about the asteroid that Reichs said hit Earth.

  Firstly, was it true? I asked myself.

  I was far from being a scientist, but I took a keen layman’s interest. I’d always preferred books to TV—junk TV anyway. From what I’d learned, I knew that large impact events could throw up a lot of debris and particulates into the atmosphere where it could remain for years. This extra cover blocked out a good deal of the surface sunlight, reducing temperatures, meaning bigger icecaps, higher snowfall and more ice. With all that white stuff lying around, even when the clouds did start thinning, the ice would reflect more solar radiation back into space. And that’s how—in my mind at least—you got a snowball Earth. Perhaps Reichs knew more about it, being he was so smart and superior—or thought he was. I couldn’t bring myself to ask him as he continued jabbering away about his family’s wealth and such like.

  “Are you listening to me, peasant?”

  “Yeah, sure...”

  We continued past the landing marked, Landing Deck, and shortly after, Control Bulb. During our descent, and not for the first time, I wondered how it had ended for Mom and Nikki. What year did it strike and how old were they? I wanted to find out the truth but at the same time, I was scared of what that truth may reveal. It was not in my nature to remain in ignorance for the sake of comfort, though. Of course, I hoped it had happened after they’d lived long and full lives. The voyage time to Aura was one-hundred and twenty years—the recall order could’ve been at any point in that journey. However, I had a bad feeling that it was earlier rather than later. Two reasons. Firstly, the Janus Ark had vanished without a trace—not for sure, but as far as I could tell. Her remaining build time was a matter of seven years or so. The second reason was one of prediction. A certain percentage of large asteroids were still thought to be untracked at the time we left in 2070, but it was common knowledge that this was changing fast. Nobody had wanted to fund the tracking and diversion efforts for decades—not fully, anyway. But the UN treaty on Space Object Impact Detection and Prevention passed in 2066 and ratified by all the significant governments by 2069 should have changed that. Ten years down the track and they would’ve had the capability to detect and divert as the title of the treaty said. It wasn’t what I wanted to believe—an impact during the 2070s—but it’s what the evidence told me. I’d find out if I could. Surely, there were some records of what happened. Or maybe not. I owed it to my Mom and Nikki to know their fate. However it happened, their memory would always live on in my mind—the memory of how they were right up until the moment I left them in tears.

  “Here we are, cowboy,” screeched Reichs on reaching the door marked, Launch Deck.

  He held his RFID hand to the panel and the doors slid rapidly aside.

  The huge hangar-like deck looked similar in area to the level with Reichs’s shelter except with no stored gear, only shuttles and support equipment. We passed through the doors onto a small, sunken landing surrounded by a transparent blast wall extending above head height. The short flight of metal steps turned right, onto the port side of the flight deck. Running alongside the port bulkhead of Module 6 ran the runway. It wasn’t parallel to the edge of the module, rather it pointed outward, intersecting the side of the module at the aft end, toward the launch tube. Although it was closed during operations, the tube would extend outward, toward the stern as a continuation of the straight runway. The shuttle could then line up along the runway and maneuver through the tube into space. I turned my head full left and saw the front part of huge bore tube retracted into the module. The rest of it sat behind us, flush to the outside of Module 6. Powerful rams installed inside the rear of the module could push the tube into its operational position. Another launchway ran along the starboard side with the same two-tube arrangement for landings on the deck above. One shuttle stood at the end of the launchway as if waiting for an order that never came. In the center fifty-percent of the deck, more than a dozen shuttles—both personnel and cargo—waited in a neat double chevron pattern. Above them hung a lightbulb-shaped control hub looking down on it all. A narrow suspended walkway connected the control bulb to the fore and aft stairwells.

  “You still have the battery?” he said.

  I tried to answer without being rude.

  “Err yeah ... that’s what I’m holding.”

  “Alright then! Let’s go slot it in and give her a spin, cowboy!”

  The shuttle looked close due to its size but didn’t feel like it lugging the battery while listening to Reichs’s ramblings. It was about a three hundred feet, in reality.

  “So this is the one that worked before, the partial startup sequence before the battery failed?”

  “This is the one.”

  The nosecone lay on the deck in front of the shuttle and Reichs already had a stepladder folded on the ground nearby.

  “Guess you’d better take the old one out first, peasant.”

  I half chuckled, half-sighed at his audacity as I placed down the battery.

  “Sure, let me get this one since you asked so nicely.”

  “You might need to get inside. It just unclips—no need for tools.”

  I climbed the ladder, reached into the dark recess and felt around. After using the flashlight, I managed it no problem, retrieving the battery and taking the new one from Reichs to slot it in. Given he thought me a peasant, I was surprised he didn’t leave me to get it myself. He tested my patience more than anyone I’ve ever met and I had to constantly fight the urge to do unpleasant things to him. But for all his faults, he had something of a plan and knew his way around.

  “So how do we start this thing up and see if it works?” I said.

  “There are two ways,” he said, half-whispering as if it was some kind of secret. “From inside the shuttle or ...” he pointed up to the control bulb, “... from the terminal that’s still working up there. You probably noticed, this shuttle has no cockpit—it’s unpiloted and can be controlled from the Juno Ark. That’s the ship we’re on, you know …”

  “Okay, well how about we save our legs and just do it from inside the shuttle?”


  “I will surely consent to that, my dear peasant. Lead the way.”

  So we climbed the shuttle’s built-in steps and took a left into the tiny control alcove in the nose. Not really a cockpit, but the closest thing to one on an unpiloted shuttle. There was barely enough room for us both in the dingy space. Giving the flashlight to Reichs, he opened a panel door concealing an array of hardware switches and buttons as well as a dead display.

  “Right, now you see this switch marked, Main System Power?” he said, scratching his dirty gray beard. It reminded me of how bad he smelled in the confined space.

  “Sure do.”

  “Flick it and watch our dreams come true, cowboy.”

  I flicked the switch, but nothing happened.

  “Huh?” he said, with bewilderment, before flicking it on and off half a dozen times, as if it’d make some difference.

  The classic definition of madness, I thought to myself.

  He poked around, pressing buttons and flicking other switches but to no avail. He looked inside the battery compartment in the nose and reinstalled the battery three times. Still no luck.

  We stood looking at the shuttle nose scratching our heads.

  “It should have worked.”

  “Yeah, but it didn’t,” I said, turning to look up at the control bulb. “How about we try the control room up there? You said the terminal could start up the shuttle. Who knows? It could be the switch has gone or something simple like that. It’s worth a try.”

  He came close and looked me in the eyes as if trying to divine something about the workings of my mind.

  “How exactly did you know that I was going to say that next? Can you read minds, peasant?”

  Failing to keep the smile off my face, I shook my head and said, “It was a pretty obvious next step, Reichs.”

  “Mr. Reichs. Don’t you ever learn?”

  I closed my ears and made for the nearest stairwell and he came scurrying after me. Once at the entrance marked Control Bulb, I inspected the condition of the walkway for corrosion and signs of weakness, placing a tentative step onto it before releasing my full weight.

  “Don’t worry, cowboy. It’s still safe as can be.”

  I wasn’t taking his word for it, but it looked intact enough and he’d been on it before. Or so he said. Only thing was, he was probably seventy pounds lighter than me.

  “Oh well,” I said and stepped out onto the suspended walkway, above the shuttles far below.

  As I walked toward the control room, the gantry swayed and creaked but held fast. I imagined what it would’ve been like fully lit, crews busily preparing shuttles and getting passengers on board the craft that’d take them to their new life on the surface of Aura. Now, it was a near-silent hall of gloomy decline, afflicted by the same accumulated dirt and mold as most of the rest of the great starship.

  Inside the control room, the once-transparent-now-translucent polycarbonate structure would’ve given a bird’s eye view of the flight deck. A flat slab of the same material made up the floor. Three terminals were positioned either side on tubes running from the ceiling, in order to maintain the unbroken views below. Reichs went over to the middle terminal on the port side facing our shuttle. He woke the terminal and logged on, placing his palm in the red authorization box.

  “Hello Tiro, how are you on this fine day, dear boy?” asked Reichs in a faux-British accent, I guessed trying to imitate the C3PO sound-alike.

  “Welcome back Mr. Reichs. I am fine, and you?” said Tiro.

  “Never better now that I’ve got a servant by the name of Luker.”

  Servant! I bit my tongue, once again.

  “What can I do for you, Mr. Reichs?” Tiro said, ignoring me.

  “Shuttle number five, down there on the port launchway—we need to initiate a start-up. Can you do that for us, Tiro?”

  “I can certainly try. Standby …”

  Nothing happened for a minute or two then Tiro came back with the news.

  “Start-up unsuccessful.”

  “What’s the problem?” I asked.

  “I am unable to interrogate the system. Without electrical power, the shuttle has no network connection so cannot be interrogated.”

  “That didn’t go to plan, cowboy … Back to the drawing board for old Mr. Reichs …”

  “Is there anything else we can try?” I said, looking at the scraggily old man scratching his wild hair.

  He pushed his greasy glasses up the bridge of his nose and shook his head.

  “Don’t think you’ll be getting a shuttle out of here any time soon, peasant.”

  “So what about the lifepods below?”

  Reichs just shrugged his shoulders and said nothing.

  “Tiro,” I said. “Can you tell me if the lifepods are operational on this module?”

  “Yes, all remaining lifepods are operational. They are designed to require minimal resources from the ship and they are largely self-sufficient,” said the congenial Tiro, a refreshing change from Reichs’s imperious, mocking voice.

  “So could I get in one and expect to safely reach the surface?”

  “The ship’s orbital trajectory is too high to guarantee a safe planetary entry. The radius of uncertainty of your landing coordinates will be many hundreds of miles from this altitude. The lifepods have a limited supply of fuel for their chemical thruster rockets. They were designed primarily to gain distance from a catastrophically failing mothership. But they are capable of planetary-entry. I hope this answers your question, Dan.”

  “Yes, it answers my question, Tiro,” I said, smiling. “Suggested solutions?”

  I had one in mind, but sometimes it’s better to give the experts carte blanche.

  “You have three options. One, stay on the ship—”

  “I’m not staying here...” I looked at Reichs, “... in this purgatory.”

  “Your other options are to take a lifepod and risk a sub-optimal entry and/or a landing far from your intended location. Or, you can lower the ship’s orbit to below three hundred miles.”

  “How do we do that? The engines must be offline. Reichs?”

  “Yeah, that’d be right. This tin can’s flat out of fusion reactor fuel. Seen it with my own eyes.”

  “My sensors in Modules 8 and 9 are unreachable,” said Tiro. “An alternative to the main engine may be the auxiliary thrusters, depending on chemical fuel reserves.”

  “Know anything about the auxiliary thrusters, Mr. Reichs?”

  He paused, grinning. I supposed because I remembered the prefix for expediency’s sake.

  “No, don’t know a damn thing about no auxiliary thrusters, my crime-fighting friend.”

  Crime-fighting friend—that’s a new one! I thought.

  “Okay, so the lifepods may be an option if we can’t get the shuttle and launch tube working,” I said.

  “Yes, it may be an option—that is why I raised it,” said Tiro.

  “Okay, now the shuttle would still be the primary option in case we need to come back to the ship. Tiro, can you access the blueprints for the launch tubes?”

  “Standby ...”

  A list of 3D blueprint files appeared on the terminal. Along with Reichs, I opened the one showing the opening and closing mechanism and associated hydraulic power systems. Consisting of a pair of giant hydraulic rams—one above and one below the launch tube—the way it worked was, in principle, quite simple. After an hour of digging, though, it seemed there was no way to open the launch tube on back-up solar power. Then we discovered an additional challenge—the sliplock system would also function only on full power. The sliplock was the system of airlock doors inside the launch and landing tubes. As the shuttle taxied into the launch tube, they would open and close in a coordinated way allowing the shuttle to pass at low speed while minimizing the pressure-loss to the vacuum of space. The shuttle could then ramp up its main engine to full throttle and accelerate out of the tube, safe in the knowledge that the outer sliplock door was blast-resistant
. Although I was no engineer, Reichs was, and if there was one thing I’d learned as a cop, it was how to ask the right questions. So, I asked Reichs and Tiro questions. Lots of questions. Then came what turned out to be the seminal one.

  I said, “So how did they test the launch tube opening and closing in the shipyard before they’d hooked up the main engines?”

  Tiro said, “A test port exists on both upper and lower hydraulic cylinders. A high-pressure pump was attached during commissioning. The model used was an Eclipse-HP3500. Four units are currently in stores, location Row 2, Shelf 11E. Compatible high-pressure hoses can be found on Shelf 11F.”

  “I know the stores like the back of my hand,” said Reichs enthusiastically.

  “I’ll come help you carry it,” I said.”

  He put up his hand.

  “That won’t be necessary, peasant. My Laetitia will help me—she’s not aged a day since I met her ... Let’s wait here for her. I’ll give her a call; see where she’s got to.”

  He opened the chest pocket of his grimy coveralls and pulled out an intercom badge. I didn’t stop him from indulging his fantasy. Whoever this Laetitia was—his wife he’d said—she was important to him. He tapped the badge and said, “Intercom, connect me with node tagged as Laetitia Reichs.”

  This should be interesting, I thought, partly amused, partly feeling sorry for the guy, despite his bad attitude.

  My jaw dropped when I heard the genial female voice reply.

  “Hi honey, I was just out fetching some food from the stores. I’ve located you there in the control bulb. Be there in a few minutes ...”

  What the hell is going on? His wife is real, as in alive?

  “Laetitia... your wife... she’s here? She survived too?”

  “Sure did, cowboy! You wait until you see her. She-is-a-beautiful woman.”

  He smiled salaciously, licking his thin cracked lips.

  Poor woman, stuck here with him all these years.

  Right on time, ten minutes later what I can only describe as a strikingly attractive woman emerged from the stairwell doors. As the tall, blonde with faintly Latin looks approached along the suspended walkway, she reminded me of a catwalk model strutting her stuff, complete with hip sway and the composed neutral look. She wore a dark fitted catsuit, belt and holster containing a semi-auto handgun. Her hair was tied neatly back and her skin looked clean aside from a grease mark on her left cheek. I wondered how long she’d been out of stasis, concluding it cannot have been thirty plus years like Reichs. Whereas he looked like a dirty old bum, she looked like a late-twenty-something model. I guessed she wasn’t exactly flush with choice, but still...