Until the dawn, p.4
Until the Dawn, page 4
Norris made his way past Melissa down to the center of the Dome. He put his hand on the shoulder of a handsome, young officer wearing a Lieutenant's uniform. "Trey says the CAS Drive isn't ready, Aaron." He said. "So how about we do this the old fashioned way?"
"My brother never finishes his work on time," Aaron Rem replied sarcastically. "That's why he's a certified software weenie. Because he doesn't realize that occasionally you just have to pick up a wrench and hammer on things until they work." He smiled slightly as he worked, then glanced across the waist-high computers that encircled the center of the dome.
"I heard that," Trey said, seated almost directly opposite his brother. "Sometimes I think it's you that doesn't understand. These days we're working with systems that need a gentle kiss now and then… along with a great deal of fine-tuning."
The tone of his voice brought a smile to Melissa's face. "There's still nothing on motion sensors, sir, but you should be aware that the enemy soldiers have penetrated the underground airlock."
Norris sat down next to Aaron and both took a moment to verify the pre-flight indicators. "Everyone is aboard," the Captain confirmed. "All outer hatches have been closed. If you folks will do the honors, I think it's time that we were leaving."
Melissa's expression changed to one of frustration. "There's structural damage to the overhead hangar doors, sir," she reported. "They're not opening." The last part of her statement was almost drowned out by a growing roar as the ship's maneuvering thrusters powered up for lift-off.
"Is the locking mechanism disengaged?" the Captain asked patiently.
"According to the indicator on my board," she replied. "I can't confirm."
"Aaron, if you please." Norris gestured overhead, and the Lieutenant smiled.
"Aye aye sir," he said.
The Waywardsman lifted off the ground and hovered several dozen meters above the hangar floor. Aaron carefully verified that the ship was level and then powered the forward thrusters to full capacity. The hammerhead "nose" of the ship lifted up and slowly touched the center of the hangar doors. The ship continued to rise and the doors began to open upward as the large ship continued to push persistently from below.
"Careful Aaron," Trey warned, "You don't want to damage any of our critical areas."
"Don't worry," his brother replied. "We're on a moon, remember? I won't damage any of your precious wings in this low gravity."
The ship continued to slowly lift the large doors upward. Despite his confident comments Aaron continued to watch the hull stress readouts carefully. He waited patiently until the angle of the doors looked correct and then fired the Waywardsman's rear thrusters. The doors resisted at first, but the large ship beneath insisted and – unfettered by the lower gravity – they finally reached vertical then passed it. The Waywardsman flew out into the clear and hovered above the lunar surface as the massive hangar doors continued parting – each now fully open and falling toward the distant ground below.
"A gentle kiss and fine-tuned precision flying," Aaron decided, meeting his brother's eyes. Despite the direness of their predicament, Melissa chuckled. Both of the brothers exchanged humorous criticism on a regular basis – she was used to it. But it still was fun to see what a great team they made when they put their minds to it.
"We're free and clear," Melissa reported.
"Firing main engines," Aaron responded. He glanced over at the Captain. "Any particular destination you have in mind?"
"Let's head away from our solar system for now," Norris replied. "Our next course is something that we're all going to have to decide." He stood up and again placed a hand on Aaron's shoulder. "Good work, Lieutenant."
Behind him, a kindly-looking blonde woman came through a door near Melissa and glanced around the room. Norris pointed to the wounded Corporal Keenan, who was still grimacing in pain and trying to relax. Dr. Simon walked over to the wounded soldier and began examining his arm.
"We're very lucky to be alive, people." Norris decided.
* * *
"Somebody please pick one," ordered Captain Norris. On his desk, a computerized map on his monitor showed half a dozen possible destinations. They had discussed the matter for over an hour and narrowed the list carefully. On the overhead monitors, the image of the moon was slowly dwindling as the ship continued moving away.
"I choose somewhere else," Trey spoke up nervously. "With respect, sir."
"Is there something wrong with these locations?" the Captain asked.
"Well, yes. They're all near radioactive dust clouds like the one shrouding Neptune," Trey pointed out cautiously. "Most of the space-based colonies within our solar system have lots of supplies and equipment, not to mention food and water. From the reports we've heard, the Brotherhood is attacking anything – be it military or civilian – that could possibly be used as a refuge or temporary hiding place. They've been pretty thorough and efficient thus far."
"I agree," Colonel Emerson said from his seat next to the Captain. "We have to assume that there are enemy warships waiting at these locations. If not, then they've no doubt got scouts flying nearby so that additional forces can immediately transit into the area when called."
Norris leaned back in his chair and ran his fingers through his dark brown hair, then self-consciously became aware of the action and glanced irritably at Melissa. She was so fond of commenting, lately, about the flecks of gray beginning to show.
"If you choose somewhere else, then where would you go Trey?" the Captain asked. After working with the young scientist for so many years, he had really come to admire the young man's intellect. He had a habit of thoroughly thinking things through and evaluating options before coming to a final, informed decision.
"Right now, we have no idea which bases are occupied or still under attack. So I'd transit to any random point that's far enough outside our solar system where we'll be certain to find absolutely nothing," he said with growing confidence. "With the exception of our CAS Drive, the Waywardsman is ready to go… we have all the supplies we could possibly need for the foreseeable future and we should take advantage of that."
Norris thought for a moment, then looked to Melissa for additional comments.
"The Garden and Livestock wings are fully operational," she pointed out. "We're built for an extremely long-term exploration of the surrounding galaxies, so we won't run low on supplies. The only question is whether or not we can get the CAS Drive working."
"What is a CAS Drive?" Corporal Keenan asked. Dr. Simon was placing the finishing touches on the new cast surrounding his broken arm as he spoke. "You've all been here for several years, but I've been stationed at Khyber Base for only a month. All I've heard is rumors that you've got something that can beat standard Point-To-Point transit."
"It's a modified Point-to-Point," Aaron replied. "The project requires lots of hardware and a sophisticated new array of navigation software…" he paused to shoot a dirty look at his brother, "…all working together in order to extend the range of PTP."
"CAS stands for Controlled Artificial Singularity," said Trey. "Basically, the landing bay on the bottom of this ship has a large amount of extra shielding. Once we finish our final set of tests…" he looked confidently back at Aaron, "… we'll be able to generate a small, powerful artificial singularity beneath the ship using enhanced PTP technology. Instead of just carving out a temporary wormhole between points the usual way, we're creating a temporary power source capable of supplying us with more energy than liquid fuel alone ever could. That's why we have a sophisticated Observatory built onto one of the lower wings – because we will now have the capability to literally transit farther than we can see."
"Just because we can doesn't mean we will," Norris responded. "The Waywardsman was built to take us to other galaxies and to also provide for our long-term needs in case the engines are damaged or become temporarily inoperable. But we'd still have to use Trey' previous suggestion during exploratory situations as well. The hull is well shielded… but we want to make sure there's absolutely nothing dangerous in the area we travel to. Our plans are to approach galaxies, survey the area from the Observatory wing, then transit further from there."
"Light from distant galaxies and other astronomical phenomena takes so long to reach our telescopes," Trey continued, "that we have no way of knowing how much things have changed in the vicinity of the really far away objects. For example, our universe seems to confirm the un-provable – but widely accepted – theory that everything began with some sort of massive 'Big Bang'. Most of us accept this because if you study them closely – the galaxies in our local cluster are primarily flying apart as if from the result of a huge explosion."
"Sounds like a looong way to travel to me," the Corporal replied. He rubbed the new cast on his left arm, took a deep breath and then flashed a grateful smile at Dr. Simon. "I'm no astronomy expert," he admitted, "but I do know that the number of stars right here in our own galaxy is pretty astonishing."
"There are billions," Trey noted proudly. "Most of them move in a very lengthy orbit around the center of our galaxy. Years of study has revealed that most – but not all – galaxies are basically spiral helixes like ours and contain a large number of cooling Red Giant stars. Hotter, younger stars like our own sun are much harder to find."
"There are plenty of them out there," Aaron interrupted, "Amongst all those billions."
"Well, with so much area to explore in our own galaxy… why go so far out?" Colonel Emerson wondered. "I knew you folks were planning a long journey as part of your project – probably one that left the general area surrounding our solar system – but I had no idea you were planning to explore other galaxies."
"Exploration on that scale is pretty much impossible with a single ship. We're more interested in beginning to map out a small section of the known universe," decided Trey. "We want to eventually take a look at what's WAY out there – as far as we can see. That's why we can't PTP too far at once. Some of the most distant pictures we have are of gaseous clouds and nebulae… much of which is what we'd expect to find as a result of the explosion that created our universe."
"However," Melissa pointed out, "Some of the galaxies we've studied are over 300 million light years away. And those gaseous nebulae that Trey spoke of are closer to a billion light years distant. By the time their light reaches our telescopes, we have absolutely no way of knowing if they're still just dust and debris or whether galaxies with stars and planets eventually formed. So it's not wise to look before we leap – not without knowing for certain whether the destination is vacant or currently occupied by something."
"This sounds unbelievable," Colonel Emerson commented. "For God's sake, how long would it take for a mission like that? You could explore for years and barely scratch the surface of what's out there."
"That's why Waywardsman has been designed as a colony ship," Norris responded. "We're capable of leaving… quite literally… for a lifetime if necessary. The ship that was to return from our first mission would quite possibly have to be crewed by a whole new generation of our descendants."
"We've worked so hard on this," Trey said, frustration apparent in his tone. "Now everything has changed and we're probably going to be put on indefinite hold. The government is going to need every ship available to help the survivors from the attack."
"If there are survivors," Norris pointed out. "It's quite probable there will be, but we need to determine specifically how many." The Captain thought for another moment and came to a decision. "Trey, please plot a standard PTP transit to an area of your choosing. It should be well outside our solar system and make certain that there is absolutely nothing of any significance nearby." He noted the young man's innocent smirk with satisfaction.
Dr. Simon was packing up her medical kit, but she had been listening. "If you don't mind my asking, sir… then what?"
"Then we launch a shuttle patrol back into our system to see who survived," Norris said firmly. "We need to know if there are surviving ships we can rendezvous with, and we also need to determine how many refugees on Earth are in need of food and medical supplies."
"If you need me, Captain, I'll be in the Medical Ward," Colonel Emerson said. "I'd appreciate it if the good Doctor here will take a look at my collar bone. If it's not broken, it's certainly bruised."
"Follow me, sir," Cassie replied. She glanced at Brad – her first patient. "I think you should come, too." She requested. "I need to run some additional tests on that arm, just to be safe."
Flanked by the two Marines, Cassie left the Command Dome. The Rem brothers watched them leave, with Aaron shaking his head once again as his thoughts drifted back to the suddenness of the unbelievable situation facing them. Trey was thinking about a lot of things too, but he busied himself with coordinate calculation for the ordered PTP transit.
* * *
Trey Rem stood next to one of the shuttles in the Waywardsman's launch bay. He could barely contain his frustration. He detached the wireless transceiver from his belt and activated it, noting that several equally irritated deckhands also stood nearby.
"Captain Norris, I think I've figured out how the Brotherhood shut down the military's defensive systems," he said simply into the transmitter.
"Really," the Captain's voice erupted out of a small speaker on the handheld unit. "How?"
"None of the computer systems in the shuttles or fighters down here will activate," he replied, clearly intrigued. "There's got to be some sort of 'back door' or system virus concealed in the software. When that warship bombed our base, they also shut down all of our support ships. I'm getting all kinds of conflicting diagnostic error messages… reports of environmental malfunctions mostly, even though that system is currently idle." He laughed darkly and shook his head with disgust. "Our enemy probably had the military crews all worked up about losing air and heat, then popped out of transit and opened fire."
"Why haven't we noticed anything with the Waywardsman's systems?"
"Because, sir, to put things simply… we're using a completely different type of hardware and software than the rest of our fleet. It's one-of-a-kind, and specifically developed to integrate PTP with the new CAS technology. We manufactured and programmed everything ourselves at Khyber Base. The Brotherhood apparently couldn't get to us."
"So how long will it take to get the shuttles working?"
"Unknown, sir. At least one part of their hidden program is using a randomizer. Instead of our software executing its machine code in the correct sequence, everything is being scrambled like the proverbial egg. It's brilliant – I would never have found it without a deliberate search if they hadn't activated it." There was a long pause as the Captain silently weighed available options. Trey gave him a minute or two before continuing. "I also have some additional bad news, Captain." His expression betrayed the deep concern he felt. "When we turned on one of the shuttle's systems, it immediately accessed the communications system. Not all of the onboard functions are completely useless – there's a background program running that's using the shuttle's PTP computer to determine our location. Those coordinates are being fed directly into the onboard transmitter and broadcast on a frequency we've never used."
"Trey, shut down all of those ships immediately," the Captain ordered, "Then let your support staff work on the shuttle and fighter systems. I need you to get to the engine room. I know it will be difficult without setting down on the lunar surface, but I want you to finish calibrating the CAS Drive. I'm going to transit at least one more time and then we'll try our best to hold still out here as long as possible. I want to be ready to 'outrun' the Brotherhood if the need arises. They know about us and will continue to try and pinpoint our location."
"Understood," replied Trey grimly. He turned to one of the assistants standing next to him. "Your best bet for now is to purge the entire software package from each shuttle," he said. "Install the CAS software in its place, and I'll calibrate everything to fine-tune everything for the smaller vessels when I get back." The noticeably agitated assistant nodded and motioned to the other nearby deckhands. "I know it's a big project," Trey continued, "but once we're done, all we have to do is disable the CAS options and that should allow the shuttles to maneuver using standard PTP."
"What about the fighters?"
"They'll have to wait until I can take a closer look at their current software. I can't say for certain without looking, but we're probably going to end up flushing their memories too." Satisfied, he gathered up his laptop and tool kit before heading for a nearby lift that would take him back up into the main body of the Waywardsman.
* * *
"Motion sensors have detected contacts, sir," Melissa reported. "I have a large target that's probably a Brotherhood warship and a dozen smaller signals. None of them has responded to my attempts at communication." Her expression soured. "I think they've found us."
