Planetary: Mercury, page 19
“Ring orientation shift completed. Resume normal operations.” The E.I. announced.
Zanwe continued to watch as the countdown for the plasma containment ticked off its remaining two minutes. It continued to flare in spots as ripples of out-of-phase energy ebbed and flowed like waves crashing into a tidal pool. When the last of the plasma energy had fully dissipated beyond the ship, the field finally winked out completely. Satisfied all had gone according to plan, he put away his flimsy and proceeded to addressing other matters.
“Sarah, if you can leave off now,” the captain said as he unstrapped from the jump-seat, “I have a very hard-headed patient in the med bay that could use your rather unique bedside manner.”
“MY bedside manner!? Oh my God, what did he do?!” Concern tinged with a bit of ire laced Sarah’s voice.
“Ask him yourself”, Ozi pressed the comm button beside the bed.
Marsh grimaced at the captain, “It’s fine Sar, I just got a bit woozy trying to put my shirt on is all. Don’t worry yourself. You’ve got things to do.”
“‘A bit woozy’ is not the same as passed out onto the floor, Marshall.” Ozi corrected him.
“Marshall Fairbanks, what did you do to yourself? No, you know what? Don’t answer that. I’ll be there in two minutes.” Sarah’s tone was stern over the speakers.
Ozi raised his eyebrows and gave a slight shake of his head. “You know, as captain, it’s supposed to be my job to instill discipline aboard this vessel. Consider this your discipline.” Ozi helped his friend sit up a bit so he could adjust the pillow under his head.
Marsh just grunted, resting his left hand on his bandaged ribs. He threw his right arm over his eyes and lay back on the bed. “I just feel so damned useless, Ozi.” Ozi spoke to Marsh as he retrieved the bedclothes and threw them atop the prone man.
“I understand my friend, but that’s only temporary. Let us take care of you for a while so that you’re ready to take care of us when we need it.” He patted his friend on the arm. “Concussions are not something you get over quickly. Give it a few more days.” There wasn’t much else for him to do. Sarah was the backup doctor on board, so it would be up to her to make sure no lasting damage had been done. “I’ll see you later.”
He turned to start ascending the ladder back to the ring deck. He swung back quickly as his XO slid down the ladder, almost crashing into him. She would have had it not been for his quick reflexes.
Without so much as a ‘sorry’, Sarah pushed to her husband’s side and began both berating and ministering to him. She asked pointed questions but didn’t wait for an answer before asking the next. Ozi shook his head and made his way up the ladder.
Once back on the ring deck, he reversed his course back to the communications module at a much less breakneck pace. It was odd walking the corridor in its new orientation. The main radial connecting spokes were now straight up and down directly overhead and hidden by the central ring framing. They had been just on the edge of peripheral vision before. Also, the deck markings and slit windows were left and right now, instead of at an oblique angle to the walking deck and pod ladders. The change felt strange after the last couple of days spent under thrust. He found himself unconsciously tilting his head to the left. Hopefully, he wouldn’t have time to get used to it before they could reactivate the drive. He tapped his wrist comm and spoke aloud, “Richard, any progress?”
“Ahh, yes and no,” Rick’s voice spoke into his ear. “I’ve run diagnostics on the fluctuation data, and it’s come back with a rather strange conclusion. It seems that the containment bottle field developed a very high amplitude modulation at two different points. Part of it dampened the field enough for radiation to leak past. The weird part is that the flux points seemed to travel along the field like they’re synchronized with each other. The really weird part is that they rapidly shifted and disappeared as soon as we started reducing thrust.”
“So it wasn’t a code fault, this time?”
“I haven’t completely ruled that out, but it seems unlikely at this point. You should look at this simulation when you get a moment. It’s really fascinating. I’ve never seen anything quite like it.” Rick’s fascinated scientist voice told Ozi that he would either find it very interesting or totally incomprehensible… maybe both.
“All right, I’ll join you in a moment. I have to go deal with Con-Cent’s reply first, it’s just coming in now.” He saw a light flashing on his wrist comp, notifying him of the priority message. It would be Control Central’s response to his original shutdown message.
He hurried his pace a bit and reentered the Comm Module. Descending and sitting on the stool again, he steeled himself for the fallout he was expecting. He still winced when he saw the face of mission commander and CEO of Horizons Unlimited, Jonas Hartman on the screen. This was going to be harsh, no doubt. He tapped ‘replay’:
“Ozi, what the hell is going on out there?” He stared at the screen for a moment before looking off to the side. He frowned and turned back. “God damn it, I keep forgetting about this time lag bullshit. Ozi, we need more info than a cryptic sentence or two. Send us the info on what you have going on so we can look at it with you on our end.” He paused and looked off as someone spoke to him off-screen once more. “Ok, good, we’re seeing a data dump now. They’re telling me you have to shut down, or risk some kind of catastrophic cascade failure of the bottle. OK, fine, safety first as always, but this better turn out to be unavoidable from your end or you and your crew will foot the bill for the wasted joules.”
“This is going to play hell with the grid. Now we’ll have to plead with the Power Regulation Authority for more peak power to make this up. This last shot caused brown outs in three major cities and most of Malaysia, and it was planned! Look, you and your crew know that we’re already way over budget on this mission. I know we’ll make it all back over time, but investors are a fickle bunch. If they start getting nervous back here and start a sell-off, we’re going to go in the red real fast. I want you guys to be safe, but the numbers really matter here. Sorry to have to be a hard-ass, but you guys have to pick up the ball when it gets dropped. It sucks, but there it is. You’re the only ones who can, and that’s why we hired each of you. We’ll be waiting for more data. Alphonse will be monitoring. Get my ship to Mercury, Ozi.” He pointed his finger sternly at the screen, then rose and walked away.
Alphonse Diamata, the mission’s Operations Manager, stepped into view in Hartman’s place. He was a small Indian man in a loose blue button-down, his dark wavy hair unkempt atop his head. He smiled widely at the screen, his perfectly white teeth contrasting sharply with his darker complexion. “Ozi, we have your telemetry. We’ve discontinued the beam, and we will run diagnostics on our end. I am sure Richard will have them by now, but hopefully ours will corroborate his own. We will leave the channel open. Control Central standing by.” He gave a cheery wave at the screen and stepped away.
Ozi sent a quick reply. “Chariot of Helios copies. We have completed shutdown and are running analysis. We will report back when we have more information. Zanwe, Captain, out.” Ozi disconnected and stood, moving back to the holo disk in the floor. He commented under his breath to himself, “Well, that was an unnecessary lecture, Jonas.”
Once back on the disk, Rick’s image appeared to his left. “I’m here,” Ozi informed.
“OK, here… take a look at this.” Rick pulled up a graphical representation of the containment field that surrounded the plasma drive. He pressed play on the simulation and the conical field of the plasma shield began a slow swirling rainbow-hued fluctuation as energy was pulsed toward the rear of the drive. The swirls were represented in reds, oranges, yellows and the occasional greenish hew. “This is a few seconds before the fluctuations began… normal operation.” After a few seconds, a small eddy appeared on the upper edge of the conic shield. It worked its way slowly downward, causing ripples of brighter green, then blue to purple, and even some white to appear around it. Below the point, energy swirled to either side leaving an almost empty hole. It reminded Ozi of the swirl of a stream around a rock blocking the normal flow. As the point got lower along the axial direction of the shield cone, a second point appeared on the opposite side. It kept pace with the other as they both moved downward.
Ozi became aware of the changing color spectrum of the shield as energy seemed to pile up on the upward side of the spots (holes?), and then suddenly be released to the far end. The result was a ripple effect that bounced around the entire shield structure, sometimes causing bright white spots or dark voids to appear.
Rick threw another layer onto the model, showing the ship and the radiation spikes that had been recorded. They overlapped the voids and white spots, each allowing certain wavelengths to bypass the shield.
“By the way…” Rick paused the simulation and started another labeled ‘Tacoma’. “This is what would have happened if we hadn’t shut down.” The new simulation showed the progressive fluctuations getting larger until finally the shield failed, irradiating the entire ship before finally exploding.
Ozi merely grunted and restarted the first simulation. He was watching carefully as the time index reached the point where the ship began its drive shutdown. The two points seemed to reverse their course of movement right up until the point where all acceleration stopped, and the field itself was shut down. One had already receded out of the field completely, and the other was just barely inside it when the field shut off.
Ozi looked up at the image of Rick Corrington, who was watching him with a quizzical eyebrow. “Did you see it, too?”
“It looked like something was crossing through the field. Like an invisible rod or something. What was that?”
“That, my good Captain, is the sixty-four billion dollar question of the moment, now isn’t it?” he said with a smirk. “I dare say the next best question is why did it reverse when we stopped thrust?”
“Did we have any particle detection equipment running?”
“We had the radiation monitors, or course, but nothing special.”
“Perhaps we should activate all our detection capabilities for a while. In the meantime, run a full diagnostics check on the entire propulsion system as well as the backups.”
“Aye, aye, sir. Between that and the analysis of this data, I should have enough time for a bit of a nap. Glad I decided against the stim, or it would be a wasted opportunity.”
“Good. You look like crap.” Ozi smiled at Rick who extended a middle finger to him. “I’ll be recalculating consumption data. Be sure to forward your information to Con-Cent so that they can digest it as well.”
“Will do.” Rick replied.
Rick went back to his tasks, and Ozi stepped off the holodisk. He tapped discontinue and his image faded. He tapped his wrist and spoke again. “Sarah, how is your patient?”
“He’s resting. I gave him a mild sedative to let him sleep. He’s bored to tears, but he’s still dizzy and a bit light sensitive, so catch-up reading or vids are out as a time waster. Sleep is what he needs anyway.”
“All right then. How much longer do you think he’ll need to recover enough to go back to active duty?” Ozi asked.
“At least another day, maybe two.” Sarah replied. “His ribs are on the mend, but that cryo-tube frame blew out of there with some serious force behind it. It’s good he has such a hard head.” She was silent a moment. “Ozi, that scared the hell out of me. If that had been any worse, I don’t know that I could have…”
“But it wasn’t worse, Sarah. It was what it was, and you handled it. He’s going to be OK. Take some advice that my mother always gave to me: ‘Don’t borrow trouble to put on your shoulders while you’re paying for the trouble in your hands.’ ”
Sarah sighed loudly, “Yeah, you’re right. Sorry. Your mom sound like a very wise woman. OK, I’m headed back to OQ2. Did Rick finish his sim?”
“Yes. It’s very interesting. Take a look at it if you like, but then finish up your shift changeover. I’ll mind the shop while you and Richard rest. We’ll figure out what happened after the diagnostics are done. I’m factoring in a minimum of eighteen hours delay in thrust. We’ll have a briefing in ten.”
“Aye, sir. It’s been a long one. See you in ten.”
Sarah carefully folded the bottom open on the thin bio-box and planted a tomato seedling in the loose black soil. She smoothed out the dirt around it and then sat back to stretch the muscles in her aching back. All around her, row after row of young plants stretched off and curved upward until the ceiling blocked her view of them. She admired their handiwork for a moment while watching Marsh check readings on the cryo-pods as he made his way down the suspended catwalk lining the inward walls of the greensward above her. The warmth from the artificial lighting hanging under his feet felt nice on her face. The circulation fans also dangled from bottom of the catwalks, pushing a moist warm breeze around the ring. It was almost like being at home in her mom’s garden, except for the light gravity.
Despite the idyllic conditions, her heart began to race with dread as a warning signal suddenly began to blare from the cryo-bank where Marsh stood. She watched for a moment as he rushed back and forth, trying to rectify the problem, but the warnings just seemed to be multiplying instead, growing louder. She barely heard him yell, “Could use a bit of help here, Sar!”
She stood to go help, but her foot was caught on something. She looked down and found that the newly planted tomatoes had somehow grown and twisted, sending out curling vines that wrapped her legs, keeping her from moving. She tried to pull them off, but they were too strong. As Marsh’s cries for assistance became more urgent, she grabbed a nearby planting spade and began to chop at the vines. She succeeded in freeing herself, yelling “I’m coming!”
As she began to run toward the access ladder to climb up to him, the vines seemed to grow across her path, reaching for her. She dodged, tripped, even fell once and had to scramble back up before being completely entangled. This continued for an impossible distance, as if the ring of the greensward were a sliding walkway beneath her feet traveling in the opposite direction.
She was still only half-way to Marsh when the concussion wave hit her. The cold blast of cryo-freeze gasses knocked her off her feet again, almost taking her breath. She jumped up as fast as she could and began to scramble forward through the now frozen jungle of vines. “Marsh! Are you OK?” she shouted as she snapped and battered her way through the plants. “Marsh! Answer me!”
The alarms kept blaring, as another cryo-pod up high on the curvature of the wall began to spew forth super cooled fluids that vaporized in the air. She could see Marsh now. He was lying in one of the garden trays against the outer bulkhead opposite the cryo-bank. His head was gashed open just above the left eye. Flash-frozen blood was spattered down his side, but a freely flowing rivulet was running from the head wound and ever-so-slowly dripping from his chin onto his crewsuit in the low gravity. The heavy door from the cryo-unit lay across his left side pressing him into the loose soil. “Marsh!” she yelled again. “E.I. signal medical emergency in the greensward, sector two! Urgent!”
There was no reply from the ship’s electronic intelligence as expected. She continued to struggle through the vine-choked garden. The plants had returned to life now, and were again actively trying to stop her progress. She flailed and scrambled to get to Marsh, and was within a few feet when the second cryo-pod exploded.
The heavy framed door shot straight away from the bank of pods with an impossible force. It bounced off the catwalk, then hit the far ring wall some two dozen feet above Marsh’s prone form, and ripped through it like tissue paper. The sudden exposure to the vacuum of space began to blast and pelt Sarah with anything not secured—plants, dirt from gardens, tools—it all came screeching by her as the air began to lift her as well. She grabbed the edge of a garden bed as her feet swung around her toward the hole in the wall. The loss of pressure triggered her suit helmet which slammed into place like a closing clam-shell from the collar. The noise died down to a dull roaring echo. Now, the loudest noise was the sound of dirt hitting her helmet and the rapidity of her own breathing.
She looked over to see that Marsh too was a flailing rag-doll in the decompressive wind. The cryo-door that had hit him was now pinning his arm to the floor, and it was the only thing holding him inside the ship. She reached out to try to grab onto him, but there were still several feet between them. She began to panic as she realized that the dirt and detritus blasting past them had somehow wedged into his suit collar, keeping the helmet from closing like hers had. If she didn’t get to him quickly, he would suffocate.
She began to slowly pull herself toward her own anchor, fingers aching with the effort of holding on, and managed to get her other hand around the bar along its edge. She worked her way hand over hand toward the wall. The pressure was dropping significantly now, and she caught a glance upward at the farthest point of the greensward she could see as a section door slammed shut. She knew that the others would be closing from the other direction as well. That meant there was even less time to get to Marsh and close his helmet before they ran out of atmosphere.
He was pinned by the cryo-door on the next garden plot over. There was a four-foot gap between the two, but another railing on the wall would allow her to drag herself over to reach him. She continued her slow crawl, almost losing her grip twice, but finally got to a point where she could reach out and grab his suit.
She still had no way to pull him and hang on herself, though. Knowing she needed more leverage, she took a deep breath then began to fold herself into one of the hardest crunches she had ever done in her life. Flying like a flag in a hurricane, she struggled against the blasting wind to pull her knees back level with her chest. Then she twisted her arms to bring herself forward just enough to make a desperate lunge downward. Luckily, she managed to catch her booted foot around the bar of the garden bed on the first try. She then used her leg to pull herself downward in a reverse squat to loop the other through the gap between the bar and the garden bed itself.
