Power systems checkout began at the start of my shift. Wilson and RJ huddled at their engineering stations, running analyses while I sat sideways, watching.
“It’s forward of the starboard OMS nacelle, Adrian. It’s a wave guide out of alignment,” said Wilson.
“An inside job or outside?”
“Inside. Access through the service module. But it’s actually propulsion’s territory. We’d be stepping on their toes if we went in there.”
“Really?”
“Paris has done this in the simulator. I don’t think Erin has.”
“How big a job?”
“Probably one hour. There’s some stuff to move out of the way, and then it has to be put back, of course.”
“We need to drop out of light to do this?”
“You guessed it. Don’t really want to go climbing around inside that part of the service module with the stellar drives just outside warping space, do we?”
“Crap.”
“Yeah. Dead stop in the middle of the void.”
“What happens if we don’t do it?”
“The phase alarms will get more and more frequent, we could damage the power distribution system, and then we will stop in the void anyway.”
“Crap.”
“You really don’t have choice with this.”
“Is Paris out there yet?”
“Nope.”
“When he wakes up, would you brief him and ask him to come up front?”
“Will do.”
I sat there in the pilot’s seat trying to get my head around Paris Denard repairing a critical Griffin system a million miles from rescue. The only reassurance was that his ass was in the sling just as much as ours. There was no way he’d screw around with this. He’d have to do it by the book and correctly. Right?
Paris showed up about a half-hour later more cooperative than usual. “When do you want to do this?” was his only greeting.
“Do you agree with the systems guys that it must be done?”
“Yes, unless you want to deal with more serious failures later on.”
“How long do you think?”
“One to two hours.”
“What do we have to shut down?”
“All power to the starboard drives, part of the ventilation system, and there’s some sensor packages in the way.”
“The ventilation system?”
“Yes. A section of duct has to be removed.”
“And is this a physical alignment?”
“Yes, but I’ll be on a headset with somebody at an engineering station. It’s a beam alignment. They’ll tell me when we’re set right.”
“Why’d this happen?”
“You know how many interfaces there are on this ship? Why wouldn’t it happen?”
“But there’s no dangers in the procedure, right?”
“No. There shouldn’t be anything of concern.”
“Okay. Would you brief the crew in case they have questions, and when you have your support people set up let me know and we’ll begin the dropout?”
“Yes. I’ll do that.”
He pushed away and headed aft, leaving me feeling off balance. Although he wasn’t cordial, he had been reasonably professional. I sat forward in the pilot seat, dreading the shutdown. The stellar drives seemed to be operating perfectly through the void, but what if they did not come back up after stopping? What if they couldn’t reform a field from park? We’d be dead in space, but it wouldn’t even be space as we knew it. The thought irritated me. I felt like snapping at someone. RJ coasted in.
“Are we almost ready?” I asked with indignation.
“They’re setting up tools and equipment.”
“Has everybody been told?”
“Just about.”
“Here they come. They must be ready.”
Paris, Erin, and Wilson regrouped in the flight deck. Wilson took the lead. “We’re set up, Adrian. It’ll be Paris and Erin in the service module crawlway and RJ and I will man the engineering stations. We need to wake Danica and Shelly up so they can strap in.”
I tapped the intercom button and tried not to bark. “All personnel, please report forward.”
While waiting for everyone to join us I tapped commands into the flight management computer and told it of our impending stop. A yellow line on the blue flight path appeared, anchored by a red designator showing where we would no longer be moving. The top right hand button next to the crew display indicator lit up with the word ‘resume’, a button I feared yet looked forward to pushing.
With everyone accounted for and strapped in, Danica and I engaged the flight plan deviation and sat back watching the speed and distance indicators spin down as the darkness outside our windows remained completely unchanged. When deceleration was complete, our status screens lit up with station keeping and we watched the silhouette indicator of our ship sit idly, occasionally firing thrusters for station keeping based on inputs from gyros since there were no stars to orientate by.
Paris and Erin wasted no time. Minutes later, the service module hatch-open indicator flashed on our screen. RJ and Wilson took their place behind us. What I hoped would be a one-hour wait began. RJ switched the intercom to overhead so we could all listen in. The tedious job of removing panels and equipment within the crawlspace of the service module began. Paris’ voice sounded calm and collected. Erin sounded impatient.
One half hour into the work things did not appear to be going well. Paris and Erin came forward to explain. There were extra packages in the way, shield and communications interfacing items that had not existed in the sim. They could not give a time estimate. I had to leave my seat and pull out the classified manuals on those items so they could study the removal and installation procedures. They needed some extra tools from the science lab. For some reason, Paris wanted reassurance that the stellar drives were cold. I wanted to know why. He said it was in case they ran into any more unexpected interfacing like weapons systems, for example. He wanted to be sure they weren’t live.
I had to pull Danica from the copilot seat and send her back to bed. We couldn’t keep her up indefinitely. As I sat drumming my fingers on the armrest, RJ appeared and gazed down at his console.
“It’s going okay back there?”
“Except for the surprises. I’m just checking the external nacelle temperatures for Bob.”
“For who?”
“Who what?”
“You just said you’re checking nacelle temperatures for Bob. Who’s Bob?”
“Did not say that.”
“Yeah, you did.”
“There’s no Bob on board. Why would I say such a thing?”
“You’re screwing with me. This is not a good time, RJ.”
“Would I screw with the guy in the pilot’s seat at a time like this?”
“For cripes sake, RJ.”
He gave me a bewildered look, shook his head and left.
Hours passed. They had still not resumed work. They had not located some of the tools needed. They were still trying to understand the order of removal. On the science lab camera Paris was pulling up floor panels and removing storage boxes, looking for something he needed. Wilson and RJ were fully into it helping, so at least there was that. When Wilson came forward to check something on the engineering console, I almost slipped and asked him to get Doc to take the pilot seat. I bit my tongue just in time. A short while later Erin showed up, asking me if I had seen her artificer. “What is an artificer?” I asked. Never mind, she could use her pendant instead.
The day of doldrums dragged on. Shelly appeared right on time to start her shift. It allowed me to go back to the aft airlock and stick my head in the door to watch them puzzling over tools and schematics. A three-foot long piece of ventilation duct had been removed from the service module and was fastened to the wall for temporary storage. As much as I detested being stopped in the void, I kept my mouth shut for fear of making things take longer than they already were. I listened for a while, but finally ga
ve up and answered the call of the galley.
With the four of them working aft, Shelly in the pilot’s seat, and Danica back in her sleeper, the place was quiet and deserted. It felt even more eerie than usual. Alone in a silent, empty ship with a sinister flat blackness peering in the portals. I could tell it was getting to me. Sometimes there were shadows moving in the corner of my eye, and occasional sounds from the ship seemed more noticeable. I sat alone at the table and ate my muck stew, so named because they make it the consistency of muck so it won’t escape the dish in zero-G. As I spooned out the last of it, Shelly suddenly floated by on her way toward the back. That meant Danica was up front and had relieved her.
Bored, I set one of the forward entertainment displays to the aft airlock camera and watched the work. Wilson was climbing in and out of the service module verifying things. Erin was handing tools in and taking things out. RJ was making notes on a tablet. It seemed like he was staring intently at the wall in between notes.
In desperation, I called up the movie list on the second entertainment monitor. I lasted about thirty minutes on a documentary called Ocean Life, clicked it off, and went back to the aft airlock camera where nothing had changed except Danica was up and watching, probably getting in the way more than helping.
Somewhere in the back of my mind a little alarm went off. It took me a minute to get a handle on it. Shelly had left the flight deck more than a half hour ago, but now Danica was back in the aft airlock. I hadn’t been paying much attention to the comings and goings. I tensed up and pushed myself out of the seat and into forward airlock, grabbing the flight deck door as soon as it was in reach.
Both pilot seats were empty. All the displays were alive and running. The ship was still obediently maintaining station keeping, but for more than half an hour not a soul had been monitoring flight controls. I hurried into the pilot’s seat and quickly went through the hand-off checklist. Everything looked okay. We were still oriented to resume our previous course. I let out a sigh and looked back over my shoulder, then tapped the intercom.
“Danica, would you come up, please?”
Danica showed up with a squeeze-tube of ice cream in one hand. She peered over my shoulder at the readouts. “My shift doesn’t start for another few hours, boss. What do you need?”
“Could you check on Shelly, for me?”
“Is she sick or something?”
“All I know is she left the flight deck unmanned for half an hour. I don’t know why.”
“No!”
“And I’m an idiot. I sat out there thinking you were covering it.”
“Wow! I’d better go see.”
Off she went. I rubbed my forehead and pinched the bridge of my nose, wondering if empty space was getting to all of us. I kept looking over my shoulder, waiting for someone to report. No one did. Looking back through the open airlock, I could not see anyone in the habitat module. Finally, I used the intercom.
“Danica, would you please report forward?”
A ten-minute wait produced no results.
“Shelly, please report to the flight deck.”
Ten minutes. Nothing.
“Would anyone at all please report to the flight deck?”
To my relief, RJ popped his head in. “What might I do for you, Kemosabi?”
“Is Danica back there anywhere?”
“She was working out in the gym, but now she’s in the shower.”
“Shelly?”
“I think she’s sleeping.”
“Am I losing my mind?”
“How could we tell?”
“Are they getting anywhere with the wave guide adjustment? Nobody’s been up here at the engineering stations.”
“I shall go check and come right back.”
“Weren’t you back there with them?”
“No, actually I’ve been trying to avoid Bob. I never should have lent him that caliper. It’s like he thinks we’re BFF’s now or something. He’s become a real pest. If you see him, please don’t say I was here, okay?”
“Bob who?”
“You know. Bob Sulick. Jeez, maybe you are losing your mind. I’ll be right back.”
“But…”
And he was gone. I waited five minutes and couldn’t take any more. Something was way wrong. I checked over systems and reluctantly left the flight deck.
The habitat module was deserted. Someone had screwed with the video wall displays. I was surrounded by a primeval swamp with things slithering by. Crocodiles snapped at me if I floated too close to the wall. I looked around, decided to head for the science lab, and bumped headlong into my high school football coach, Mr. Cunningham. He wore his standard gray sweatshirt with hood, sweat pants and tennis shoes. His hair was streaked gray, as always. His face still had the tanned, chiseled look earned from years as a Marine. He grabbed me by the arm and cast a concerned look. “Mr. Tarn. I’ve been looking for you. I did not see you on the track with the others. Have you put in any running time at all today?”
It caught me off guard. As best I could remember, I hadn’t run in several days. “No, no…Sir. Not yet.”
“Well for Christ’s sake, Tarn. You’re supposed to be a running back. How can you be a running back if you don’t run? I saw a treadmill back there. Get your ass on it and give me at least thirty minutes, okay?”
“Yes, Sir. I’m on it.”
The flight deck and waveguide procedure would have to wait. I couldn’t risk running into him again and not having put in some laps. They wouldn’t bench me, but I’d keep hearing about it. I pulled myself back to the gym, strapped in and set up speed. As the treadmill picked up, I went into runner’s Zen, kind of glad to have a break from everything else. Occasionally people passed by behind me but fortunately, none of them interrupted.
The thirty minutes was a real pickup. It cleared my head. Now I could get back to the aft airlock and see how the waveguide fix was going. The adrenaline was still pumping. I needed a quick shower first.
Hovering outside my sleeper compartment, I dug into my tiny closet for my shower kit. Something made me stop. I rubbed my temples. What was I doing? Had I just worked out for thirty minutes and left the flight deck unmanned? Did I really see my high school teacher? What was happening? The ship was in trouble. How could I have ignored that?
Reality slapped me in the face, hard. I spun around in time to see RJ passing by. I grabbed him by the arm and stopped him.
“RJ, the waveguide repair, are they working in it?”
His voice sounded jovial. “It’s on hold, Adrian. Paris said there’s some guy in a black cloak with a hood bothering him. Paris thinks the guy wants revenge or something. He said to tell you he’s going into hiding until it blows over. He said not to look for him. You won’t find him.”
RJ pulled in close to my ear, looked in both directions and whispered, “I know where he’s hiding.”
“RJ, there’s no compartments onboard big enough to hide in. Please tell me where he’s gone.”
RJ shook his head. “I’m not supposed to tell.”
“Please?”
He looked at me with the wrinkled expression of a child making a joke. “Well, if we went there, that wouldn’t be telling.”
He waved me to follow. He led me to the habitat module. The room’s borders had changed in one spot. The habitat area was still surrounded by the swamp, but Paris’ hiding place stood out like a newly installed support column.
He had collected several sections of white cardboard that looked like former boxes intended to hold our supplies below deck. It meant that food items and other basic necessities were now floating free about their designated compartments. He had taped the cardboard together into a phone booth-sized cubicle, just large enough for him to fit into. On the outside, in red magic marker, he had written ‘High Energy Plasma Conduit. Danger. Do Not Access. The cardboard cubicle was anchored to the ceiling and floor in the far corner, and Paris was hiding within it. The construction was not quite perfect. You could se
e his zero-G boots through a hole in the bottom.
I pulled myself over to it. “Paris?”
No answer.
“Paris, I know you’re in there.”
No answer.
“Paris, the ship is stranded until we finish that wave guide procedure. We need you to do that.”
No answer.
I turned to ask RJ for help and found him gone. I pushed off the wall toward the flight deck and once again ran into Coach Cunningham.
“Ah, Mr. Tarn. Lucky I found you. Listen, Aikens is out with a hamstring. You’ll have to play second string QB. If anything happens, you’ll be next in line. Do you have your wrist play list?”
“Yes.”
“Where is it?”
“In my locker.”
“I need you to get that and let me make a few number changes on it in case you have to go under center. Would you go get it for me?”
“Sure, Coach.”
I hurried along to get my play list, but suddenly realized I did not know where my locker was. My sleeper cell. It had to be in my sleeper cell. I swam along, opened my sleeper compartment, and tried to remember where I left it.
What was I doing? I wasn’t in high school. I was aboard the Griffin. We were in trouble. Stranded. There was no coach here. As I tried to shake myself back to reality, RJ bumped into me. He was excited.
“Adrian, you’re not going to believe what just happened.”
“RJ, we’re in trouble here.”
“Admiral Takuma was here. Did you see him?”
“RJ, you’re imagining things. How could Admiral Takuma have gotten on board this spacecraft?”
“He didn’t check in with you? He said he was going to.”
“RJ, it’s a delusion.”
“That’s strange. I would think he would have come to you with the news first.”
“What news.”
“I’ve been promoted to …Captain!”
“Oh boy.”
“Yes, isn’t it incredible? Of course, I won’t be stepping on your toes. You know me.”
“RJ, where is Erin?”
“In the shower, I think. Something about a beauty contest.”
“Where’s Wilson, then?”
“He’s way in the back of the service unit crawlway. He thinks he discovered a secret room back there.”
“And Danica?”
“Training in the gym for her upcoming fight. Hey, Adrian. I’m working on a whole new daily routine for the crew. You don’t think that’s too much too soon, do you?”
“RJ, we’re in deep shit here. We need to get this ship going. Do you understand?”
“I’m not the one who isn’t working on it.”
“Come with me to the flight deck. Let’s see if we can tell if they aligned that wave guide or not.”
“Okay. That will be my first decision as Captain. We go to the flight deck and check the wave guide alignment readouts.”
Before leaving the sleeper section I tapped at Shelly’s cell door. There was no answer. As we passed through the habitat module, Paris’ cardboard conduit was still in place, and he was still quietly hiding inside.
At the engineering station behind the copilot’s seat, RJ tapped a few buttons. “Nope. The crosshairs are in the same place. The calibration beam is running. It’s ready for someone to make the adjustment.”
I pushed by him, held onto one of his arms so he wouldn’t disappear, and looked over the flight control readouts. The Griffin was still holding her position. There were no new alarms. A voice from the habitat area suddenly broke the silence. It was someone softly singing. I moved back through the airlock and froze in disbelief when I spotted the source of the song.
Erin, stark naked, was suspended near the ceiling, her arms outstretched, ivory-blonde hair splayed out in perfect weightless symmetry. Her soft white body seemed to glow. It was possibly the most perfectly proportioned figure I had ever seen. She was smiling a Mona Lisa smile. Hanging there overhead, it was the closest image to an angel I had ever seen. In contrast, the habitat walls had changed again. They were now displaying a perfect imitation of hell. Fires were erupting all around. Molten rock poured through dark crevices. In the middle of it, the naked angel Erin drifted gently.
She smiled and continued to sing, then moved herself around and flew back to the sleeper units, disappearing inside one.
RJ’s voice came over the intercom. “All personnel, may I have your attention. As most of you have probably already been informed by Admiral Takuma, I have been promoted to Captain and will be assuming all the duties and privileges thereof beginning immediately. I want you to know how much I appreciate your support in this transition and will make every effort to make this a smooth and seamless handover. I am humbled by this promotion but I believe that together we can create an atmosphere conducive to our mission and personnel. I’ll be issuing new daily scheduling later in this period. You will notice the improvements almost immediately, such as group singing every morning, and corn shucking and butter churning classes in the afternoon.”
“RJ, hold on a second, will you?”
“What do you need, Adrian?”
“If I sit at the engineering station and monitor the crosshairs, can you do the alignment on the wave guide?”
“Well, yes, but I’m afraid my duties as captain supersede that type of work.”
“Okay, but when the ship is in trouble, the Captain will go to any length to save his ship, right?”
“Damn right.”
“So at great risk to yourself, and turning away all other distractions, you’d go into that service module crawlway and save the ship, wouldn’t you?”
He rose up from the console. “A man has to do what a man has to do.”
“Okay then, Captain. I’m standing by for your orders when you reach the wave guide.”
“I’m on my way. Don’t try to stop me.” He charged past me, heading aft.
I turned back to the console, and found Coach Cunningham sitting there. He rose up and put one hand on my shoulder. “You’re not going to believe this, Mr. Tarn. Zeke is not working out. We’re going to need you to start. We know your running game is up to speed, but we’ve got to do a little work on the timing patterns, see how your throwing arm is.”
He handed me the ball and motioned to a wide receiver on the sidelines. After a few pattern discussions, we began running two-man drills. Some deep passes, some quick cut passes. It went well.
“That’s it, Mr. Tarn. You are ready. Now go get some rest until the game starts.”
“Thanks, Coach.” I headed for my sleeper cell. It was already open. I pulled myself in and as I did, I bumped an overhead compartment and something floated out. It was my Nasebian crystal. It was doing things I had never seen before. The light from it was brilliant. Spokes of white and yellow rays turned like a pinwheel. The crystal's center beamed starlight. I stared, mesmerized.
What was I doing here? Why wasn’t I trying to save the ship? It was the void. It was affecting all of us. Something had changed after we stopped.
The crystal pulsed its rays into my eyes. I hung hypnotized and possessed. It was blocking the effect. I grabbed it, stared down into it and began to understand. With it zipped into my breast pocket, I jerked myself out of the cubicle, whacking my head on the ceiling a good one. Ahead in the corridor, Shelly was entering a restroom. As I approached, she stopped and began to look confused. She looked around in a daze, but returned to her delusion. I passed through habitat hell and reached the forward airlock. At the engineering station, RJ was calling me on the intercom.
“Captain Smith to Mr. Tarn, report!”
I hit the com button and held to the console. “Tarn here, go ahead, Captain.”
“Where have you been? I’ve been calling you for five minutes!”
“Sorry, Captain, I was detained.”
“You are hereby reduced in rank to ensign, Mr. Tarn. Expect further disciplinary action when I return.”
“Yes, C
aptain. I’m ready for the wave guide alignment.”
“Very well. The alignment template is in place. What is the first beam correction radial on your readout?”
“The two hundred and eighty degree is out by seven degrees.”
“Correcting the two hundred and eighty. How’s that?”
“It’s on! That’s great, RJ. I mean Captain. Now the zero-nine-zero radial is out two degrees.”
“Correcting the zero-nine-zero radial. How’s that?”
“We’re on, Captain. The waveguide is in alignment. Can you reassemble the interfacing and ducting?”
“I’ll need your help back here, Ensign. Get back here on the double.”
“On my way, Captain.”
After a quick check of the deserted flight deck, I tried to switch on shields but found those power system controls shut down. After closing and sealing the flight deck hatch, I hurried back to the aft airlock where the service module access door was still locked open. I pulled down the section of duct attached to the wall and crawled in. It was a long, tricky crawl inside to reach where RJ was working. Tools were loose and floating around. RJ’s stocking feet were sticking out into the isle. I looked into the space he had squeezed himself into. He stopped working and got a confused look on his face.
“What am I doing?” he asked.
“You are saving the ship. Keep going.”
Still confused, he continued mating cables on a service box. He closed the cover and went on to the next one. I jockeyed the duct into place where he could reach it and waited. The fear of deluded crewmembers running loose around the ship gripped me. It took another half hour. By then, RJ had been close enough to the crystal that he seemed to be coming out of it, but he was holding on to the captain delusion. We were just about ready to jump to light, except for one thing.
Everyone needed to be strapped in.
Chapter 32