Stiles and Jimmy walked into the galley together, quickly followed by Ali. They each dialed up a meal and joined Peter and Henrietta at the long table. They ate in silence for a few minutes, extending the somber mood. Evidently, the kids were hungrier than they imagined because it did not take long to empty their plates.
After awhile, they reported what they accomplished. All in all, it was not much. Ali gave up trying to restore the ship after a day and a half of futile efforts. Instead, he set to work on the blue nav panel. Jimmy tried to analyze the linguistics of a mute computer, which got him nowhere. Stiles determined that all the boats in the hangar were in perfect operational condition, but they still had no access to tactical or weapons.
“You finish with blue nav, at least?” Peter asked Ali.
“Yeah, that’s why I needed to stay up there a few minutes more.” He proudly handed Peter two objects. “I disassembled the blue panel and actually got it replaced. I think it will work again, assuming we can find the spare blue key. We should start searching the ship for it … assuming we get him operational again, that is.”
Peter looked at what Ali gave him. One was the yellow key, still attached to its shiny gold chain. The other was a melted lump of blue durasteel connected to a charred metal string. They were such a contrast to each other. The yellow key looked like a delicate, two-inch snowflake, with fine fractal arms radiating from a central point. It glittered in the galley’s light like a jewel. The other key looked like it was chewed by an elephant and came out the other end. Peter was unsure what to do with either of them. “Arietta, would you hold on to this?” He handed her the pristine yellow key.
“Why her?” Stiles asked.
Peter blushed. “She’s been taking inventory of ship’s supplies. She might as well keep stock of this too.”
“Sure,” Henrietta replied. She took the key and draped the chain over her head, turning the precious key into a necklace. “Ooh … and gold too. Beats a diamond necklace, right? Probably more expensive, too.”
“So you two are engaged now?” Stiles asked.
“No,” Peter stammered. “She’s just in charge of supplies, is all.”
Stiles snickered.
Peter tried to change the subject. “So both nav stations are in working order?”
“I think so,” Ali replied. “Doesn’t do much good if the ship is down, though. Plus, not having another blue key doesn’t help, either.” He looked at his plate and considered going back for more food.
“Um,” Henrietta began, “unless you really need it, Ali, I suggest you just go back for more water.”
“Why?” he asked guardedly.
Henrietta tried to smile, but failed. “I checked out everything we have onboard. I think there’s enough food stock for a month; maybe twice that if we start rationing now.”
“That doesn’t sound good,” Ali said.
“No, it doesn’t,” Henrietta replied sadly. “I also found a stash of wrapped snacks in Lieutenant Wilkins’ old cabin. I put them in the pantry, over there.” She motioned to a line of cabinets next to the kitchen ’cycler.
“A month? No sweat,” Stiles offered, “we’ll be rescued long before then.”
“So what do we do?” Jimmy asked.
“Keep working on the ship,” Ali replied. “There’s really nothing wrong with it. I think maybe it is a command thing, like … somebody … suggested earlier. I’ll work on resetting it tonight. If we can reinitiate it by then, there’ll be plenty of food for us to use jumping to whichever colony we choose. No problem, Jimmy.”
Peter saw Ali glancing at him. Ali quickly turned his face away. Peter thought of saying something, but stopped short when he saw the relief blossom on Jimmy’s face.
“So you know where we are yet, Campbell?”
“No, Stiles. I still can’t get access to anything outside the ship, and you’d probably not believe any results I made calculating jump effects we’ve been through.”
“No, I wouldn’t,” Stiles replied. “I am able to say that all three of our boats are ready to work, except for the fighters’ command lock-out. I vote we find a way to send the courier out. Maybe we could use its navigation systems to find home.”
“I think I can get the courier outside the ship,” Ali said, “but it still will not have any star systems in its navigation memory. They slave to the master computer here on the ship and that’s off as long as the ship is not responding.”
“But we could at least see what’s outside.”
Good point, Peter thought. They were currently blind inside the ship. Cruising outside in a normal courier with actual view ports would be a good way to explore where they were. Unless they were in orbit around a colony world, one patch of black space would pretty much look like any other. On the other hand, if they were near a colony, the Academy would have rescued them by now.
“True,” Ali replied. “I can’t get the hangar bay opened yet, but I should be able to jury-rig it once I find the time.”
“How about the weapons?” Peter asked.
“They’re there, but can’t be used without any means of inputting commands,” Stiles replied.
“Any missiles?”
“Loads of ’em. We could probably take out every planet in a normal star system if we had too.”
“So, we get the ship out of sleep mode, and we’re a force to be reckoned with,” Peter surmised.
“Yeah, sure,” Stiles replied sarcastically, “nothing in the whole universe can stop us. Except Ali’s stupidity.”
Stiles got up abruptly and stuffed his fork and plate into the ’cycler. It gently hummed as their constituent molecules broke down and emptied back into the food stocks. He grabbed a water bulb and sat by himself at an adjacent table.
“I’m doing the best I can,” Ali replied defensively.
Stiles laughed bitterly.
“Hey,” Henrietta offered, “it’s only been three days. Give him a chance.”
“Sure,” Stiles relented.
Peter smiled at Henrietta. She always had a way of smoothing things over. “Okay. Ali, what do you need?”
Ali thought for a moment, his confidence slowly returning. “Well, Peter, you can help me on the bridge. Stiles, would you take Henrietta and Jimmy to the hangar? Try to position the courier near the access door. If I still can’t get anything working by tomorrow, we’ll try your idea.”
“Can anyone fly it?” Peter asked.
“My dad let me take lessons,” Stiles replied. “I was about to get my certificate, before the attack.”
“How close were you?” Peter asked.
“Only a couple lessons more.”
“Yeah, like how to take off and land,” Jimmy joked.
Peter noticed that Stiles did not bother arguing the point.
CHAPTER 8
A PEEK THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS
The popping began in the middle of the night of the third day. At first it was hardly noticeable, and only became apparent when they were very still, like when they were in their individual rooms. Jimmy heard it first and rushed to Peter’s room, banging on his door.
“Yeah, just a minute,” Peter mumbled. He turned on the lights and got up.
Jimmy yelled from the corridor, “Peter, it’s me, Jimmy.”
“Jimmy, it’s late.” Jimmy had been spooked ever since they came out of jump. All of them were nervous, but Jimmy was the worst by far. Every stray noise made him jump. Peter cracked opened the door and the boy slipped in uninvited. “What’s wrong now?” Peter asked in exasperation.
“Do you hear that?”
Peter stood still for a minute, wishing he were back asleep. “I hear silence, which is a pretty good thing for sleeping by the way.”
“No, listen!” They both stood there, staring at each other. “There!” Jimmy shouted.
“There, what?”
“There it is again. There’s a popping sound. Hear it?”
It sounded like hot water traveling through pipes. “Ji
mmy, that’s just the ship. Plumbing or something. Maybe hydraulics. There are so many systems on this ship—”
“It wasn’t there before.”
“Before what …?” Peter pleaded. “Jimmy, you’ve been hearing things your whole life. Don’t tell me you’re going to start seeing ghosts now. Grow up, would you?”
Jimmy looked devastated. “I’m not taking about ghosts,” he said quietly, “but something’s going on. Something strange. Maybe someone is trying to get in. Knocking, maybe?”
Peter did hear it, now that it was pointed out, but it still sounded normal. Mostly normal, Peter convinced himself. “Jimmy, listen to yourself. ‘… Someone trying to get in …?’ Get in from where?”
“Rescuers … Wasatti … somebody … Little Green Men?”
“And they’re just stopping by for a visit because they had nothing better to do. Just dropped in as we passed through their neighborhood, huh? Go back to bed.”
“But—”
“But nothing, Jimmy.” Peter gently took the smaller boy by the shoulders and turned him around, resisting the urge to kick him in the butt. “Go back to bed. I promise; you won’t hear it in the morning.”
Jimmy shuffled back to his room, mumbling something Peter could not clearly hear. He made sure the boy made it back to his cabin before he closed his own door.
“Geez,” Peter sighed. “Grow up.” The popping noises intruded on his walk back to bed. He glanced up at the ceiling. “Pipes ….”
* * *
“Hey everybody, we got another system online.”
It took them another day, but Ali was slowly making progress. Three new systems were functioning besides replication and environmental which never went down. Ali brought back the forward arms computer and then shuttle maintenance, allowing Stiles and Jimmy to set to work in the cavernous hangar prepping the courier craft. He then spent half the day reinitiating the sensors and carefully showing Peter and Henrietta how to rebuild them. While they did that, Ali headed back to the bridge to recalibrate the overall operating system and coordinate the complicated restart sequences.
“You fixed the system we’ve been working on?” Peter asked.
“Yep; external monitors. You guys did the trick up there.”
Now, Ali just brought back the external monitors, which was fantastic news. They could finally start assessing exactly what was needed to get back home. It was the most significant progress they made since jumping out of Vega.
“Great going,” Henrietta said. She looked at Peter and offered her hand in congratulations. He took it eagerly and patted her on the shoulder. Broad smilescoveredboth their green-slime-covered faces.
“Well, I didn’t do anything special,” Ali replied, “they just came up by themselves. So I take it you got all the shunts back in?”
“Yeah,” Peter replied, “that’s exactly when you called, when we got the last one in. But don’t thank us, Ali; it was your idea. And at this rate, we’ll be flying in no time.” Peter handed Henrietta the towel he recently used to clean his face. She tried to find a clean surface on the disgusting rag, and not finding any she daintily dabbed at her cheeks with a tiny corner.
“Let’s hope so. I’m turning on the monitors now.”
Peter and Henrietta spent a few minutes cleaning their work space, carefully placing all the intricate instruments and tools back in their assigned drawers. Ali would have a fit if anything was not where it was supposed to be, and Peter had no desire hearing him complain about how sloppy they were. Even so, it was good practice and they needed to get used to it. Like it or not, they were in charge of a massive warship and had to begin acting like a professional crew. Peter was about finished when he heard the com click open again.
“Um,” Ali said after a slight pause, “guys?”
“Yeah?” Peter did not like the tone of Ali’s voice.
“I think you’d better come down and see this.”
“What is it?” Peter asked suspiciously. “Bad news?”
“Just come on down, would ya?”
“Be right there.” Peter switched off the com and looked at Henrietta.
“Whaddaya think’s wrong?” Henrietta asked Peter.
“Beats me. Maybe he’s just being overly dramatic. Showing off what he just accomplished?”
Henrietta passed through the narrow sensor room hatchway. “I doubt it,” she said slipping by. “That’s not like him.” She called the lift and waited for Peter to join her.
“Yeah, you’re right, I guess,” he admitted, joining her. They rode the lift down in silence directly onto the bridge and joined Ali at the main sensor station. Ali was staring intently at the screen. “Okay, Ali; what’s got you so spooked?”
“Take a look at this,” Ali suggested, motioning at the monitor. He sounded pretty serious.
Peter edged to his side and glanced at the screen. He did a double-take and looked back up at Ali. Ali just continued looking at the sensor read. Peter hit “Refresh” and waited for the image to reappear. “Whoa. What mag is that?” he asked concerned.
“One power,” Ali replied.
“That’s all?” Peter exclaimed.
“What’s wrong with that?” Henrietta asked. She wiped more slime from her forehead.
Peter ignored her question. He could not believe what he was seeing, so he played with the zoom function several times, being sure of what he was looking at. “That’s normal view?” Peter asked.
Ali nodded.
“It’s huge!” Peter exclaimed.
Henrietta looked confused, wedging her way between the two boys. She looked at the view but was not sure what all the fuss was about. She saw a bloated reddish-orange sphere surrounded by thick gas clouds.
“Uh, yeah,” Ali admitted. “Red supergiant, I think.”
“You’re talking about that star?” Henrietta asked.
“Yeah,” Peter replied, “and a big one, too.” He scratched his head, buying time to think. He passed his hand through the screen until a menu list came up superimposed over the image. He rapidly navigated through the options, fingering virtual keys within the screen, until a list of external sensors appeared. He cycled through several frequencies, not finding what he was looking for. Giving up, he asked, “Is radiation a problem yet?”
“Getting to be,” Ali said. He brushed his fingers through the projected screen until the radiation readings Peter was looking for appeared. “But that’s only half the problem.”
Peter looked up at Ali who slowly began to nod. “We’re being drawn in,” Peter guessed.
Ali continued to nod.
“What do you mean?” Henrietta asked.
“What Ali just discovered is that we’re locked in the gravity well of that massive star out there.”
“Oh my God.” Her eyes moistened. She tried to hide her reaction, but failed. Giving up, she knuckled the tears away and took a deep breath.
“And drifting, right?” Peter asked just to be absolutely sure.
“Uh-huh,” Ali said. “And since it first came up, I’ve been able to detect a tiny increase in our speed. It’s miniscule, but we’re accelerating. We’re falling down the well. It must have been that star’s mass that attracted our jump.”
It was the inevitable physics of the universe playing foul tricks on them. Unless very carefully controlled, a ship in K-T-space was subjected to the random currents of bent space. Although FTL was used all the time, the humans and Hive scientists really had a poor understanding of exactly what went on during a jump. If you had an exact plot, you would get to your destination ninety–nine times, plus a bunch of nines after the decimal point, out of a hundred. Shoot blind, though, and you traveled at the whims of nature, never knowing where you would emerge.
“Can we get out?” Henrietta asked hopefully.
“I’m not sure,” Ali replied.
“What do you mean, you’re not sure?” Henrietta sounded ready to argue and refused to take “no” for an answer. Her Latina blood was heating up q
uickly, and her carefully controlled accent became just a little thicker. She looked for a place to throw the slimy washcloth still in her hands, and not finding one she tossed it under the console in frustration.
“I’ll need to take some measurements. Need to find out exactly how close we really are, and how much mass that star has.”
“So?” she asked petulantly.
“So, it’s all physics,” Ali explained. “See, first: the ship is not working; we’re drifting like a log in a river. Unless we can get the engines to fire up, we will fall into that star.”
“Well, that just can’t happen,” Henrietta said. Life was simply too important to her and she was not about to give up without a fight. Why should she when her father never did. “Can’t we establish some sort of orbit, or something?”
“Not without engines.”
“Great,” Henrietta smirked. “You’re just full of good news today.”
“So why stop there,” Ali continued angrily. He picked up the rag and brought it to a recycler. He paused and quickly apologized for his outburst. “Sorry. But, second: the mass of that star is what generates its gravity. Understand?”
“Duh ….”
“So, the bigger it is; the more powerful is the gravitational attraction. See, like, you can fly close to a small moon, but at that same distance, you’d get sucked right into a Jovian planet because it pulls you in more. And see that star, Henrietta?”
“Yeah ….”
“I think it’s bigger than the orbit of Jupiter at Sol. It’s hard to determine yet, but it’s over 500 million miles across.”
If that were true, that would make this star around a thousand times larger than the typical stars found in the Ten Colonies. And all this time Henrietta thought Sol was big, but it was a dwarf by comparison. At sub-light speeds, it would take months to travel to Jupiter. It was difficult for Henrietta to comprehend just how large that star could be.
“That’s a lot of gravity,” Henrietta breathed.
“Sure is. And third: there’s a point when we simply get too close to it in relation to the power of our engines. Once we cross that point, there’s no force in nature can save us. It’s called the ‘zero-point’ when you factor in the gravitational potential, total engine thrust, and distance … which is actually the gravitational potential, so I guess there are only two factors.”