Chapter 28
It took four hours for Engineering to work out a gravity generator fiber optic bypass plan. It was not simple. Earth-bound engineers would have considered it absurd. The work required polishing tools, microscopes, and fiber couplers. Technicians from every department were redirected for the project. A training station was set up to show all involved how the fiber connectors were installed. As technicians demonstrated they could make the polished joints, they were quickly dispatched to the work areas. Inspectors, trained in the same way, toured the areas to be sure everything was happening as it should.
In parallel, the Supply Group went into twenty-four-hour operations to locate and stage the necessary circuit cards for the new connections. When supply ran out, Engineering jumped in to decide where other cards could be cannibalized and modified if necessary. Software engineers supported the effort by working full time to develop the necessary code to give priority to the gravity field in the area the crew would take refuge.
When the air and water numbers came in, the news was worse than expected. We had air for sixty days, but only one bladder-type storage unit of water. For the remaining crew that meant about five weeks. It made the decision to manually go light an easy one.
Although I had not been summoned, I found an inconspicuous time to visit Captain’s quarters. In the low light, nothing had changed within the forsaken room. The Emissary’s door was closed. Paperwork from before the invasion still sat on the desk. Both computers had Electra emblems on their screens. There was a strange stillness in the air. I wandered slowly around and began to think about leaving when the door slid open behind me.
She entered the brightening room, her hands held closely in front of her. The golden feeling became dominant once more. I wondered if she understood the dangers of acceleration we were about to risk, and if we needed to arrange a special area for her.
“Transcendence,” was her silent reply. She had her own solution.
Did we need to make arrangements for her when we arrived home?
“Unshared time-space.”
That reply challenged me. She was saying when we arrived at our system she would not be a part of that time and space. She knew the concept would perplex me. She intended it to. It was homework from the teacher.
I wondered why she hadn’t helped us more, having come to understand how omnipotent she actually was.
Her answer was equally complex. “The least necessary.”
The system of life we exist within is here for a reason. It was created by the highest of the intellects. The rules which govern it cannot be broken or modified without compromising its core purpose. For any advanced being to do so is a sin, in that they presume to be wiser than the creator of the system. She had aided us in the least necessary way, to equal the playing field against an advanced, malevolent species. After that, it had become a test of free-wills. She had done her best not to circumvent the will of the creator, or to rob us of a test we needed to endure and confront. I'd been embarrassed to ask the question, fearing it would be insulting, but she had been waiting for it all along.
As usual, my mind was overloaded, and having fulfilled my reason for visiting I was left not knowing what to say. At the same time, I dearly did not want to leave it at that. It was not enough. I wanted this to be a friendship.
“Friendship,” was her reply. It made me look up to her.
Without my consent, a feeling of sadness at leaving her arose within me. Because I knew she sensed that, it embarrassed me once more, and at the same time I wished I would see her again.
“It will be so,” was the next unexpected reply.
She turned and moved back through the door. It made me realize she had actually been in the room with me this time and had not the times before. She looked back and smiled in my mind, and the door slid shut.
I began to breathe again. I collected myself back to the real world, thought “thank-you” to her, and left with as much of the golden feeling as I could hold on to.
The ship modifications took seven, twenty-four hour days. By then, we had used up all our electronic supplies and support expendables. Everything was in place that was going to be. The engines had been programmed to talk to each other. The new software had been tested and retested. The large cargo area selected to protect us had been set up in the best possible ways. A specially orientated bed had been set up for Perk. There was nothing left to do. Everyone just wanted to go home. Some were referring to it as the flight of the phoenix, after a very old James Stewart movie.
There would be no helm control. Navigation, the jump to light, and the return to sub-light would all be done by timing the individual computers dedicated to the systems to which they belonged. No central control, no navigation array. In addition to our other firsts, we would essentially be ballistic. It had taken us two months to reach this area of space. We had been cruising at sixty-eight percent of light speed capability, the normal econo-cruise power level. The arguments for how to run the engines on the way home were long and arduous. If we used sixty-eight percent, the trip back would be another two months. If we dared to run at ninety-percent, the return time could be cut down to about forty-five days. The slower speed was the safest for the engines, but it meant spending more time in space, which in turn increased our chances for other problems. In the end, a vote of the department heads was unanimous. Ninety-percent power, forty-five days. If it all worked, we would decelerate a safe distance from our solar system.
On the day of departure, jump time was set for 10:00 hours. People began to show around six. Most of them lined up against the walls as though they were about to be shot. Others were camped out on the floor near them. It was surprisingly calm and quiet. A computer station had been set up near the front of the room. Telemetry was minimal, but a systems simulation had been synchronized with ship’s chronometers so we could see a little of what was actually happening, and all of what was supposed to.
With all hands accounted for, the room grew dead quiet as the ten-second mark approached. The person at the temporary computer station began an ominous ten-second countdown.
At zero, there was no waiting. There was an erratic shifting like a small earthquake, then a gradual pull toward the back of the room. As the acceleration continued, waves of gravity came and went, making us heavy, then light, then heavy again. The jump corridor approached rapidly, bringing with it some strange effects. There was a blurring of vision, then double vision and popping of the ears, culminated by a strange kind of bump that caused an exclamation from some people. Abruptly, everything came back into focus. The ride became smooth. The simulation showed us at ten percent of light speed and climbing. As the rate increased to seventy percent, we opened the hangar entrances and allowed the Engineering teams to attend their stations. We had made light without missing a beat.
The strategy had been for all crew to remain within the confines of the protective cargo bay habitat. If for any reason the light speed engines failed and we came out of light unexpectedly, anyone outside that safety net could be injured or killed. The plan was only essential personnel would leave and return as required, but as the days went by, that rule grew more and more slack. For management, it became an understandable risk. We did not clamp down. People spent time in their quarters for needed privacy and solitude. Some new, intimate relationships developed. There were a number of services for the friends we knew were lost. The cargo bay became a kind of home base. People were always there in groups, or just occupying themselves with their favorite pastimes, but the complement was usually down to around twenty or thirty. The place became decorated in a dozen different ways. Permission was given to paint murals on the walls. Flowers, some artificial, some real, were everywhere. The modest food preparation area grew larger, and the portable freezer units remained over-stocked with non-essential food items. It became very apparent the Doctor and I were not the only ones who had smuggl
ed alcohol onboard.
Three days before we were scheduled to drop to sublight the excitement and tension began to build once more. The cargo area’s usual occupancy grew larger. The tone of the voices was raised, and more energetic. There was the deep anticipation of getting home, combined with the apprehension of an untested deceleration.
On that highly anticipated day, they again began to gather early. Someone had installed a large countdown screen at the front of the bay. The mood devolved to somber but resolute, with people greeting each other and trying to be reassuring. The cargo bay had taken on the atmosphere of a church.
In the final hour, a headcount was taken to ensure all of the family was present. The doors were sealed. Some people held each other in an embrace, others prayed, and some just stared hopefully at the big screen. Under ten seconds a few voices could be heard quietly counting down, and at zero we immediately knew it was happening.
It began with a shifting left to right, forward to back beneath our feet. It gave me a surge of euphoria to know the programming was happening right on time, though I quickly returned to the same trepidation we were all feeling. Next, there were gentle roller coaster waves of up and down which intensified into a harsh washboard effect, making some people nervous. Suddenly there was a loud bang from somewhere forward.
I woke up on the floor. Everyone was down. Others around me began to wake. I climbed to my feet and quickly surveyed the area. No one appeared to be injured. A Navigation technician beat me to the doors. He ran out and down the corridor with RJ and I close behind. An entourage quickly formed behind us. Slapping the doors to Navigation open, we stared at the big forward view screen. In the center of it was a star, much bigger and much closer than any of the others around it. It was our star. It was home.
Chapter 29