Fatal Boarding

  Chapter 11

 

 

  Frank and I took turns at a sink in a small washroom adjoining the treatment area in sickbay. I had the most blood so I got to go first. I washed my face and stared at him in the mirror as he waited his turn.

  "You know both of them pretty well, I take it."

  "They're both AmpLight propulsion experts. I've known them a long time. That is, right up until a few minutes ago. That wasn't them you saw. Completely out of character. Doesn't make sense at all."

  "Maybe the stress of being temporarily marooned is getting to them."

  "No way. Those guys get a kick out seeing how close they can get to shock diamonds. Ever been in a test chamber when they're running a miniature main engine at full thrust, Adrian?"

  "Can't say I've ever had a desire to."

  "You wear a 90-pound fire suit with a hood that has a ten-inch thick visor. When the thrust reaches one hundred percent or higher, little shock diamond stars form within the jet. Sometimes they'll escape the stream and go bouncing around the chamber like a loaded bomb. Those two guys you just saw live for that kind of shit. They know they can get our engines to ignite, eventually. They're less concerned than anyone about being stranded."

  "I don't get it. They were friends?"

  "Absolutely."

  "Makes you wonder, doesn't it?"

  "What'd you mean?"

  "I mean, who else do we know of that has done something completely out of character around here?"

  He looked at me with a widening stare. I could see the thought process switching into high gear inside his head. There was a moment of realization, then of relief, then of gratitude and wonder. "What the hell is going on?"

  "Well, whatever it is it doesn't affect computers exclusively, does it? Or, on the other hand, you could say the brain is a very sophisticated kind of computer, couldn't you?"

  Before he could respond, we were called back into the examination area. Doctor Pacell looked tired and distressed. He did not wait for questions. "Well, I suppose it could be worse. I'll need to see the video from the Main Engineering monitor cameras so I can track how all the injuries occurred and maybe catch potential problems I've missed. Dern is the least serious. He has a broken left upper arm and elbow. The nose bleed isn't serious. No other physical problems. He's sitting in the recovery room in a daze. He looks like someone who's just awakened in a strange place. He's not sure what happened.”

  "Bates, on the other hand, has a serious concussion. From what I can tell he must have taken the pipe away from Dern to get hit that badly. He's got some hemorrhaging in the left eye, but I don't think it will result in any loss of vision. I don't understand why he isn't unconscious. He'll have to be kept in intensive care for a while, but he should recover. He's mumbling something about his mother leaving him at a work farm for orphans one weekend when he was growing up. There haven’t been work farms for orphans anytime in this century. Both these patients will be kept under close observation. I have no idea what brought this on. Where either of you injured?"

  We shook our heads.

  "Was there an argument of some kind?"

  "We'll assign an officer to investigate this thing, Doc. Is there anything else we can do for you, right now?"

  "One thing, Mr. Tarn. Commander Tolson has asked me to speak to you privately on an unrelated matter. Do you have a minute?"

  Frank waited. Doctor Pacell led me to his private office. More children's pictures on the wall. A few real books on a single bookshelf. Awards and certificates framed and hung conspicuously. He sat behind a wood grained desktop with a gray-white computer terminal on one corner. He tilted his chair back and rubbed his face with both hands. "This tour was supposed to be dull and quiet."

  "That's what they told me, too."

  "There are other things going on here in sickbay you haven't heard about yet."

  "Oh boy."

  "Yes, they are disturbing things. Beginning with second shift yesterday, I started getting complaints from people about nightmares. At first I thought it was just coincidence. There were three reports from the second shift people. Then this morning I had six more. Three in the middle of the night, then three more from people who had just gotten up to begin duty. They all seemed to suffer similarly vague dreams about being assaulted or trapped. It's much too much to be coincidence."

  "So, do you have any ideas?"

  "Not yet, but I'll be working on it. I'll start doing auto-analytical ECGs on the people who come in to make reports. I will not publicize this. The power of suggestion can cause these kinds of things to escalate. But I'll keep you informed on everything that happens."

  "By all means."

  "And there's one other thing. You'll find this particularly interesting. I had one of the janitorial services people come to me complaining about a brief case of amnesia. He was on his way to pick up trash from the officer's area compactors and the next thing he knew, he was riding up and down in an elevator. Somebody shook him out of it. He was there on their way up, and still there on their way down so they realized something was wrong."

  "He was just standing there, completely out of it?"

  "As far as I can tell. Tolson has the full report. It's probably in your private security email file by now, that is if they trust the net enough to use it. I keep expecting Pell to show up here with terminal frustration. His group has been chasing internet ghosts for the past two days. Fortunately there's been no problem with any of the sickbay systems."

  "I've got a 23:00 staff meeting, Doc. I may need to come back and talk to you more about this."

  "Anytime. By the way, I'll see you at that meeting. My presence has been requested, also."

  "Lucky us."

  "Maybe we are ...so far."

  After a quick trip to my stateroom for a change of flight suit, I managed to make the meeting with five minutes to spare. To my surprise, a large crowd had gathered outside the open doors. I gently forced my way through and found every chair taken. In a room with a maximum capacity of 30, there were at least fifty people hoping to attend. Captain Grey and his upper tier group were already seated. Conspicuously absent was the head of the analytical group, Ms. Maureen Brandon. Grey seemed not only fully prepared to allow the insurgency, but completely at ease about it. Tolson was watching him closely for cues. I squeezed between chairs to lean against the back wall, sandwiched in between two people I did not know. There was a strange lack of conversation taking place. The atmosphere felt tense.

  Grey waved one hand and the lights dimmed. A flow chart of the main engine control system illuminated on the wall screen. So many people pushed their way in to allow the doors to close, not everyone could see. Grey slouched in his seat and ignored the crowd. "Okay Paul, have you at least isolated a specific area of failure?"

  Paul Kusama, the chief propulsion engineer, stood. His graying black hair somehow went well with the bags under his eyes. His flight suit was wrinkled and the sleeves partly rolled up. He looked tired. "Exactly the opposite, Captain. We have proven the failures have occurred independently in seven different areas. This is not a problem that can be made to repeat. The good news is all of the failures have been in computer subsystems only. We have installed the Systems Interface Test Unit all the way back at the point of origin in the tail section where the engines interface, and we do not fail at that point. So, we have no reason to believe there are any related problems with the AmpLight drives themselves. We believe we could do a hardcore manual start of the engines if we had to, bypassing all of the onboard computer systems to do so."

  "But we would have no way to resonate the AmpLights with the Tachyon Drives, so there would be no way to go to light speeds, is that correct?"

  Before Kusama could answer, a symmetry control engineer took the question, though I could not see exactly who was speaking.

  "We have not had a problem with Symmetry Control, Captain. It's possible we could remain on standby and enab
le the system during manual acceleration. The worst that would happen would be everything goes auto abort and the entire engine cluster shut down."

  "Okay, then, what's the status on the Tach-Drives?"

  "There have been no problems with any Tachyon-Drive systems or subsystem, Captain. We are online as far as we can tell. It is odd the AmpLight systems fail so regularly while our equipment experiences no problems at all."

  Grey stared into infinity, and squeezed his chin with one hand.”Okay, does anyone have anything else on the main drives?"

  Silence.

  "Mr. Davis, let's have your rundown on thruster control, then."

  The projection at the front of the room switched to a block diagram of the maneuvering thruster control systems. Davis rose and wiped a hand over the small crop of red-brown hair on his balding head. He reached for a long, yellow pointer and tapped the end of it at a section of diagram labeled ‘command initiation’.

  "We have an isolated area of failure, Captain. We can program new thruster sequences into the data processor and they compile into thrust control code, but the actual interlocks controller will not accept the commands. We have proven, however, that we can manually initiate thruster firings. We actually did that on an aft and a starboard thruster for 2 milliseconds each and it worked. The system still thinks it’s supposed to be holding us at station keeping, so afterward it automatically puts us back into our original position, but we have proven it can be done."

  Grey sat for a moment and looked around the room as though he expected someone else to speak. No one did. He exhaled as though the entire affair was tedious. "Does anyone else have any input for the general group?"

  Silence.

  "What we're going to do is set up for another attempt tomorrow at 07:00. If necessary, we'll force the thrusters to back us away and then set up for a hard start of the AmpLight Drives. We'll put some distance between us and this sector of space and then stop and take another look at our situation. Everyone make the necessary arrangements for that. If anyone has any problems I want to know immediately. If there's nothing else, that's it for the main group. Let's break down for the departmental meeting."

  For a moment, it seemed as though no one was willing to leave. Finally, the doors slid open and a slow, silent exodus began. Gradually the line of staff dwindled down to nothing. Grey turned and surprised me by pointing for the doors to be closed. As I did, Tolson looked back and motioned me to one of the two empty chairs at the center table. I took a seat next to Erin.

  Grey leaned forward. "Exactly what are the problems you will face with a manual thrust back away, Mr. Davis?"

  Davis replaced the pointer to its holder and took his seat at the far end of the table. "There are several, Captain. We need to disconnect the fiber lines from the auto controller but make them still think they have control of the thrusters. Then we can force the ship to move without fighting the auto controller's desire to maintain station keeping. Our back away will at best be erratic, although Ray has indicated Range Safety will have no problem with that. There's nothing out here to bump into except that ship. For a brief period we will be drifting free with minimal separation between ourselves and the other ship. Of course, there will be a tendency for the two to attract each other. Not only will we face a collision hazard, but we also have measured a significant static potential between hulls. We could possibly have arcing between ships if we got close enough. No matter how we look at this, it's a gamble and it may not work."

  "But I trust you will be ready to make an attempt by 07:00, Mr. Davis?"

  "Yes, Sir, that is the one thing we are certain of."

  "What about the ALs, Paul? Do you have any other reservations you would like to add?"

  "Actually, we don't, Captain. Our status is exactly as reported at the general meeting. We are optimistic about a hard start."

  "Alright, we are depending on you, Gentlemen. Who here is reporting on the Scout craft option?"

  "That's me, Captain." Terry Lee, the chief structural engineer, raised his hand from the right-hand side of the table. "We have a prototype attachment designed for the scout ships and we've run enough simulations to know what the best possible scenario would be. Two scout craft, one aft, one starboard, at the 240 degree and the 80 degree on the Y-plane. That gives us enough clearance from the other ship to avoid blowback from the scout engines. It would need to be a very slow move. Once inertia takes over the scouts would just be following along. The thrusters must be offline to do it. And, we would need them later to stop Electra. There are no desirable bumper points back by the reactor core to use the scouts. They'll be able to come back in the hangar bay anytime during the move, but without thrusters we'll just keep coasting backward. Also, we have run simulations of problems with the hangar bay doors. Technicians in spacesuits would be able to open them manually if that kind of problem crops up. It'll take several hours, but it can be done. The pilots waiting in the pressurized scouts will not have a problem with life support lasting through the operation."

  Grey nodded. "Very good, Paul. Let's quietly issue the work orders to produce the necessary modifications to the scout ships. I want them ready if everything else fails. We will put distance between us and that ship, one way or another.”

  Grey turned to Erin. "I've read the preliminary report on the life science group’s investigation of the alien data brought back by Mr. Tarn's team. Do you have conclusions for me?"

  Erin winced. "I have to report no, Captain. We cannot say conclusively."

  "Your group is not able to tell me if there are life forms aboard that ship or not?"

  "There is something, Sir. We don't know if it's some kind of chemical reaction or absorbed memory. We don't have enough to go on. I'm sorry."

  "Could we make an attempt to try to communicate with whatever is on board that ship?"

  "Sir, it would be like one man trying to talk to an arena full of people without a microphone. Amplitude is not a factor in this case. Our signal would be just one more in a noisy room. We have considered this."

  Grey started to ask something more but was interrupted by Doctor Pacell. "Captain, there is one possibility which might assist in this matter and would serve a dual purpose."

  "We are listening, Doctor."

  "I, for one, would like a sample of the substance found on the lower level. That's what this is all about, after all. It would only need be a very small collection. A pin drop would do. Using the medical containment facilities in sickbay, Erin's team could conduct direct studies on the material. There are a number of very important tests that should be run on it."

  "Are you hypothesizing there is a relationship between the psychological episodes we've been experiencing on board Electra to the material on that vessel, Doctor?"

  "Captain, I'm sure you realize the incidents we have had to deal with first began when we arrived here and have been increasing in number ever since. I would like to see if I can find any correlation. That material, as I understand it, radiates extreme neuronic energy, and that alone is suspiciously coincidental with the area of problems we have been experiencing. We need to understand if there is a direct relationship, what the actual effects could be, and what the proper response should be. I consider this very important. When we do depart this area of space, we cannot be sure that if these problems are related to that ship over there they will subside."

  Grey looked at Tolson and shook his head in reluctance. "Doctor, Commander Tolson and I have already discussed this. You are suggesting sending another EVA team over there, of course."

  "If we do not, we will leave here not knowing, Captain. And, if the problems we're having continued to spread and escalate, would we then be forced to come back for answers?"

  The Captain looked down and shook his head, “Jesus…”

  "I believe the incidents of nightmares, memory loss, and the unexplained fight which took place in Main Engineering all to be related, Captain. We are just lucky more serious
damage was not done to the ship."

  Grey sat back in his seat and cast a dejected stare at his chief safety officer. "Ray, the next time you warn me not to deviate from mission planning remind me to listen, okay?"