The Farquest had at least one notable difference: what used to be the observation dome now had complete surround transparency. If it wasn’t for the artificial gravity Scott would be nauseous rather than just this strange insecure feeling that no more half a metre separated him from the cold suffocation and desiccation of space. But there was something more fundamentally different he knew for sure, but he couldn’t quite place the differences in his mind.
Stars were seemingly static as they were still within the sun’s gravity; the warp drive he could feel powering up beneath the deck – a barely audibly low humming. Above: Orion, Leo, Ursa major surrounded by myriad suns too numerous to count, but at least a hundred of those visible containing planets with viable atmospheres for life. Strange how thinking of that made him feel sad, almost to the point he wanted to cry.
Scott left as the emotion become overwhelming. What’s so different now?
In any case the ship was due to engage hyperspace within ten minutes. Josh was already in the secure seat, a mere precaution since there would be very little inertial difference – if the technical crew were to be believed.
‘You don’t trust them either?’ Scott said to his colleague.
‘What do you think?’ came the reply.
‘I keep thinking something’s different, even though this is the same ship.’
‘Modifications I guess. One of the techs told me the drive had been tweaked for more efficiency: we could be there in forty hours.’
‘That is fast!’
‘No, apparently the warp effect powers up more quickly, and likewise down, reducing the deceleration time.’
‘Where’s the doctor?’ Scott asked.
‘He’s been checking on the pilot. Apparently the man’s been on the point of a nervous breakdown.’
‘Then why did they sign him up again?’
‘There can only be one reason and that’s the payout at mission completion. Just like the rest of us.’
‘It’s odd, though. There must be a thousand pilots qualified who would volunteer for this mission.’
‘I tried to do a bit of digging – as you would – but this developer is giving nothing away, beyond the formal details of his building projects, and a general, rather benign vision for a new world.’
‘Yeah a little too benign for my liking.’
‘Still, there is the money.’
‘Oh, yeah, the money.’ They both chuckled.
‘Two minutes,’ the ship’s computer informed them.
Doctor Lichman ambled through the sliding bulkhead door. He seemed to have lost weight since the last trip, his white overcoat hung ragged, giving him a dishevelled appearance.
‘Wondered if you’d show for the spectacle,’ commented Josh. ‘That is if it’s going to happen.’
‘Is there a problem with the pilot?’ asked Scott before Lichman could respond to Josh.
‘He’ll be all right. Just pre-warp nerves perhaps.’
Josh huffed. ‘I’m guessing there must be at least a thousand pilots who would jump at the chance of taking the pride of the fleet to our new Eden.’
‘Thirty seconds,’ ship’s computer announced.
All three connected the cross belts; these restraints were a curiously antiquated safety feature, perhaps more reassuring to be totally controlled by a manual clunking.
There was a brief shudder as the drive engaged. A non-located screen before them showed the stars move from static points to a mass of a curiously disappointing dull white lines. This was the newer, quicker-engaging version of the drive contrived to be known as GREW (Generated Rosen Envelopment Warping). Another compounding of obsolescence, like a kick in the teeth for those early pioneers, mused Scott.
Nobody spoke, and as Scott stared at the star mass he saw something curious: fluctuations of translucent violet streaks. And then these jaggedy streaks filled with purple and became wider.
‘Tell me I’m not imagining something extremely odd.’ said Scott. ‘And going insane.’
‘Well, if you’re going insane then so am I.’
Lichman pressed the comm-button on his seat. ‘Randale, can you tell me what is happening?’
The pilot didn’t answer.
‘Randale?’ No answer still.
‘Clearly something’s wrong,’ said Scott, realising he had stated the obvious, but it prompted the doctor to nod.
‘I’ll check his biosign telemetry,’ Lichman said, detaching the seat restraint fastener.
The whole surround was now just a purple mass, like the aftermath of some psychedelic trip. But as Scott studied it he could just make out the lines of what he imagined to be stars. And they became clearer as the purple mass faded. The stars then returned to a static state.
Josh released his seatbelt. ‘Now, one of you two tell me what is still very wrong with what I’m seeing here,’ he said with an ironic calmness.
‘We’re no longer in warp, this is just normal space … just drifting,’ said Scott. ‘What’s more, there was no announcement from the computer.’
‘That’s the least of my worries,’ commented Josh.
‘OK then. Computer – what’s our status?’ There was no reply. ‘Then that’s it, we’re drifting in space. Fuck knows where.’
Lichman had returned with a worried expression. ‘The pilot,’ he said. ‘There’s no bio-readings. The system must be off-line.’ Then he tried the comm, but there was no response. He tried to activate camera feed – something the pilot had objected to – but without success. He said then, ‘I’ll go to him.’
‘Hang on,’ said Scott. ‘We don’t know what might have happened in there; could be radiation, anything.’
‘All right, well, I’ll don an EVA suit.’
‘I’m going with you.’
‘Think this old man’s not up to the risk? Well fine.’ But he didn’t really sound irked, just had to give the appearance of the concerned doctor needing to check on a patient.
Josh also offered to accompany them, but so half-heartedly it was hardly worth a response.
They passed through into a corridor. The suit should have made them a few kilos heavier, yet Scott felt strangely light, his strides had a bounce to them. He said, ‘Doc, is it just me or is there something wrong with the gravity generators?’
‘I think we are losing gravity. Maybe it’s a power drain.’
‘I hope you have something for flight sickness.’
‘The lack of gravity could be the least of our problems.’
They reached the door to the flight deck, which was only visible as a thin rectangular line. The security panel wouldn’t respond to Lichman’s iris ident, even when he’d removed the suit’s helmet as well as a glove for DNA scan. It appeared to be deactivated.
Lichman turned to Scott. ‘It’s possible Randale has locked us out. He doesn’t like interruptions.’
Scott removed his helmet, already feeling claustrophobic in it. ‘But you’re the doctor. Surely you can override any objections; what if there’s some health emergency?’
‘You’re right, of course, Scott; I should have access in any event.’ And shook his head whilst saying: ‘Somehow the security system has been tampered with.’
Beside the door and next to the access panel was raised anodized oblong with screws at each corner. Scott didn’t even bother suggesting what he was intending but instead reached for a screwdriver attached to the suit’s utility belt, then twisted the handle end so that it cycled through the various driver heads until reaching what appeared to be the correct size.
‘You know anything about electronic systems?’ asked the doctor with a hint of a sigh.
‘Not much, to be honest. I’ve only had the same briefing as you. But if you’ve got a better suggestion.’
‘Well … COMPUTER: OVERRIDE LOCK. It was worth a try, just in case.’
Scott pushed the power-driver into each screw, popping out with a whine. The silver panel clattered to the ground, exposing a circuit board of optronic nodes and fibre optic channels. No activity appeared. But his suit held another device, a handheld console with a screen. It displayed a menu. ‘Give me optronic interface.’
Lichman looked at him quizzically, but the device complied, asking him to connect its hooks to the primary nodes. Scott imagined that would be the largest two, so he extended the hooks on their thin cables and attached them. The screen displayed a meter in the form of a line-graph running through the levels of power induction. The power level was negligible and even fractionally falling as the graph-line progressed along.
‘Give me diagnosis,’ Scott asked it. POWER IS DRAINING FROM ALL SECONDARY SYSTEMS, DIVERTED TO LIFE-SUPPORT AND BASIC FUNCTIONS (LISTED).
‘So it’s confirmed,’ said Lichman. ‘We are losing power and soon we’ll lose … everything!’
Scott didn’t even respond, but instead leaned towards the console still attached to the nodes. ‘Can this secondary system be re-activated?’ he asked it.
IT WILL REQIURE A POWER PACK ADDENDUM TO THIS UNIT’S PORT. Power pack? He looked at the one illustrated, then eventually found it in a side pocket.
The console did as it was asked, sending a surge to secondary systems as Lichman was poised over the ident interface. Only for a fraction of a second but it was enough to activate the door, which pushed in and slid aside.
They both had their helmets back on. Scott got a warning that environmental systems were off-line, air in the flight deck would have been virtually unbreathable before outside air rushed in. All lights were off, only their helmet lights illuminated what remained.
Scott could feel his heart hammering, relayed to him in a red pulse-rate helmet display; it seemed to feed back in to his nervousness. And then he saw what he feared the most: the pilot. Or what was left of him. His hands were placed over a blank console, as if he was trying to control something; they were charred right to the bone. His face: blackened with a fixed look of horror. Scott’s heart rate reached 160bpm.
When Lichman caught sight of the man he gasped, just as Scott had probably done, and said after a while: ‘He must have suffered a massive electrical shock.’
‘But how can that be? This is a state of the art ship; surely it has some kind of safeguard---’
‘Please, don’t ask me to explain, but I know there’s been some massive overload of those controls that’s basically fried him on the spot.’
Scott had to stop himself from making the obvious doom and gloom statement and instead looked about for any system that didn’t look blackened. There was one separate flat console, which he slid out from its base. It even activated after he’d told it to. It displayed a menu that gave status reports for various aspects of the ship. He first selected power use levels. Last recorded reading showed a surge of a hundred times standard operating power. Navigation made no sense at all. ‘According to this,’ he said. ‘We’re over four thousand light years from Earth. At least before the nav systems overloaded.’
‘That can’t be right,’ the doctor assured him. ‘I mean, you know this vessel was never built to go that far.’
‘Unless something boosted the power---’
‘But we didn’t even stay in warp for very long. It’s just not possible.’
‘Well then look at the stars. Recognise any of them?’ He showed the recorder’s star map. And then he went to the visual relay, though now it was flickering as another non-essential system going off-line.
‘Okay, Scott, I’ll say it for us: we are truly fucked. Adrift in the middle of nowhere.’
‘I’m sure Josh could not have put it better.’
‘I don’t imagine his will be such a calm response.’
Scott nodded. ‘When the reality of this sinks in I don’t think I will be so calm.’
‘I have something in my medical kit that might help.’
*
Chief astronomer Zorandi Entola got the report just as he was about to leave his office. A spacial anomaly first appearing in the very outer edge of the Orion arm.
He watched the replay over and over again, increasing the size of the screen and magnification. Even with their most powerful telescope and digital enhancement he was barely able to determine for sure that the object was a ship. Just an elongated blob, which all but vanished, the only clue: the spacial distortion itself, massive graviton flux. It reappeared approximately four thousand light years farther out. What kind of vessel could survive such a massive force?
If it was a ship it would soon be affected by the TE wave, a mere five hundred light years away from this mysterious object. The wave itself was consuming stars and planets at a superluminal rate, like a ripple of the most acidic water over plankton, leaving worlds not entirely dead but in reality wiping tens of millions of years off their development. From such a distance the differences were not obvious: just a switch to a more primitive form of plant-life. But that object would vanish out of existence in an instant of contact with the wave. Only a year ago of local time Zorandi himself had experienced the merest fraction of a second of this phenomenon; it sent him back to his childhood. And yet he remembered nothing of encountering the wave. As far as his current life was concerned, it never even happened; he’d just lived a fairly normal life as if it had never taken place. At the moment of the encounter his time was wiped out, reset. The only evidence had been his ship’s tachyon transmission of its brief encounter.
He wanted to test a hypothesis; he knew someone who would be willing to subject himself to such a test.
For now there was the more pressing concern. He checked the departure inventory for all craft from Earth, and got an answer which only surprised him moderately. He then contacted the Central Council subcommittee for space missions, requesting to speak to Admiral Zolla II: the most senior – the oldest council member by over a century, son of the great elder Zolla, the legendary commander and time-traveller. Zolla II was bequeathed knowledge, much of which (some claimed) could never be revealed, for it could potentially undermine the very fabric of B’tari culture ... or more pertinently: The Temporal Directive. Simply, there was no greater and wiser authority to consult. At least concerning matters of space and time travel, and temporal eradication.
After five minutes of having to give preliminary explanations for the nature of the request he was put through to the admiral.
Zolla II appeared in holo-projection wearing the standard white and gold braided uniform of high office. ‘Mr Entola. A matter of urgent concern I hear.’ His voice seemed jovial, which surprised Zorandi somewhat. ‘I already know the basics, so give me some detail.’
‘Yes, Admiral. I can confirm a craft of Earth origin – stellar class – had left the atmosphere approximately twenty hours ago and can no longer be located within its designated course---’
‘Therefore you surmise the discovered object must be that craft, which is precariously near the TE wave zone.’
‘I understand, Admiral, that it sounds incredible, but I am certain of my finding.’
‘No need to convince me, chief astronomer. I will give the sanction for a reconnaissance team, forthwith.’
‘Thank you, admiral.’
Zolla II nodded and closed the link.
Zorandi wanted to be part of that recon team but he knew such a request would be pushing things a bit. At the very least he had done his duty, and would gain credit for his report.
But to merely be an observer wasn’t enough.
Somehow he would find a way to get to that lost ship.
***