Until the Dawn, page 22
"Oh Greg…" she said, looking out the open window they had neared. As far as she could see, clouds of brilliant white stars and intertwining, colorful nebulae dotted the blackness beyond. "This is beautiful… I knew we had moved the Waywardsman close to a cluster of galaxies, but I never expected to be able to see so much of it from in here!" She just stared in admiration, soaking in the spectacular view of the heavens outside.
"I dare say there will be a lot of people checking out the scenery from up here later this evening," decided Greg. "But I wanted to share it with you first." He kissed her softly and, almost immediately, she began to blush.
"How long have we been going together, anyway?" he asked, looking into her beautiful brown eyes. "Has it been over a year already?" She drew back her hand to smack him and he held up his left forefinger. "Actually," he said, his brow furrowing intensely as he thought things carefully through, "My guess would be 627 days, 15 hours and 12 minutes." He glanced at his watch as if to check his facts and she finally did lightly slap him on the shoulder.
"You're more accurate than you know," Melissa said, mocking a bit of irritation. "It is actually closer to two years now than it is to one."
"I know that… facts and figures are my specialty," he said. "I checked very carefully this morning so that I would be correct with my facts at this evening's celebration. It's been 627 days, 15 hours and 11 minutes now since we first met…" He trailed off talking as she reared back to slap him harder this time. She stopped in mid-swing as he humbly lowered his head and dropped to one knee. "…And during that 1.7 years I knew from the start that it was only a matter of time before I worked up my courage and asked you to marry me. So why don't we make it official right now!" He pulled a small black box out of his pocket, opened it, and held the diamond ring out for her to look over.
"Greg, are you serious?" she asked, attempting to hide her elation. The diamond in the ring sparkled brightly in the soft starlight winding through the dimly lit woods surrounding them. Her brown eyes were so wide with astonishment that he laughed heartily.
"Melissa Hastings, will you marry me?" he asked, kissing her softly.
She reared back again and slapped him harder. "You had this planned all along, didn't you?" she said, laughing so hard that tears ran from her eyes. She nervously wiped them dry, smiling happily the entire time.
"Of course I did Melissa," he said, rising back to his feet. "And when a fellow asks a lady a question like that, he's usually feeling very vulnerable, scared, and extremely worked up with anxiety until she answers…"
"Yes," she said, lowering her eyes. "Yes, I will marry you, Greg Fredericks." She held out her hand as he put the ring on her finger and then they tenderly kissed again.
He resumed their slow dance and quickly earned a third slap from his bride-to-be. "Let's get back to the party pal," Melissa said, her normally soft voice deepening with determination. "I've got some serious gossiping to do with my friends." She laughed as she grabbed his hand and began pulling him back toward the distant sound of the music.
They walked past the tree rows and headed back toward the party area. The overhanging branches were quite thick so Melissa was surprised again as they emerged from the trees to see everyone gathered around. The crowd began applauding as soon as the couple emerged back into the light and Lieutenant Melissa Hastings promptly turned and whacked her boyfriend on his shoulder for the fourth time.
"Already the honeymoon is over," he said, shaking his head. "And the abuse begins."
"Everybody on the ship knew about this except for me?" Melissa asked. Greg nodded and couldn't help reacting to the expression on her face. He pulled a chair out from one of the tables, sat down in it and began laughing as loudly as he could. He could hear cameras clicking in the background and pointed a finger at her.
"I forgot my camera," he said. "So I'm glad there are people out there who thought ahead and are preserving our first of many precious moments!"
"Congratulations," Captain Norris said, walking over and heartily shaking Greg's hand.
James stood next to him with a huge smile on his face and handed Melissa a bunch of brightly colored balloons. "Congratulations, Greg and Melissa!" the twelve year old grinned.
"I'm glad you could be here, Captain," Melissa said, taking the balloons and holding them close to her. She smiled at the ecstatic grin on James's face and glanced around, picking out all the friendly faces in the crowd. Trey was there, standing next to the really pretty brunette who lived directly across the corridor from her. She also spotted Aaron and Liane, along with many of her other good friends. Dr. Simon was also present along with Jeff Mathison, Corporal Keenan and his daughter Lucy. She hadn't expected Jillian to make it, and the thought of her friend and shipboard duties caused her to suddenly swirl around with a puzzled look at Norris. "Aaron is here now, Captain. So who's minding the store up in the Command Dome?" she asked, unable to restrain her curiosity.
"A couple of raw ensigns I found down below," William replied with a smile. "Actually I will be, in a few minutes anyway." He leaned over and kissed her on the cheek. "I wouldn't have missed this for the world, Lieutenant." He glanced over at Aaron. "I have to go back on duty after one more dance with Greg's blushing new bride. I hope I can count on you to get James home safely and keep the fruit off the ceilings."
"Yes sir," Aaron promised, trying not to smirk as Liane elbowed him expertly.
The Captain turned around and proudly raised Greg and Melissa's clenched hands into the air. Everyone shouted and hooted their approval and began to applaud again. The Captain expertly waited for the crowd to quiet down and then shouted as loudly as he could, "What's everybody waiting for? It's the Fourth of July… let's get this party going again!"
* * *
Later that evening found William sitting comfortably in his chair on the Command Dome carefully studying the latest status reports. Several ensigns manned the stations normally helmed by Aaron and Melissa, but other than that the room was very quiet except for the background noise of the active equipment. He noticed on the overhead monitors that there were a couple of star systems in the immediate vicinity, but the Waywardsman currently sat very quietly in space near one of the few vacant areas thus far mapped in the Centaurus super-cluster. Dr. Marcus needed darkness for her telescopes in order to minimize the star shine and use them to gaze as far as possible deeper yet into the space beyond.
The Captain was very grateful that he had not heard that terrible "enemy contacts" phrase used for well over a month now. People were actually beginning to feel safe and secure aboard ship, and he still held their general welfare listed as his number one priority. After the brutal attack they had all witnessed, just getting back into some semblance of a normal life had proved to be a daily challenge for everyone… not just the ship's officers.
He remembered the horrible events, how fast everything had happened, and all the progress they had made since then. He also remembered very vividly the frightening encounter with the sinister Brotherhood and their mysterious warship. Looking back with a touch of hindsight, he felt that the right decisions had been made at the right time. There would always be things that bothered him, things that he felt he could have done better. But overall he was in good shape and was confident that he and the crew had made the best choices possible given the circumstances.
What he had kept to himself and would never tell anyone was the tie-breaker that Contingency Plan Delta had been. If Trey had been unable to get the touch-screen technology reliably working for him, he would have ordered the crew to ignore the distress signal that they had inevitably responded to. It wasn't something he was proud of and it made him feel a lot better knowing that they had produced working technology in time to allow them to show up and safely prove conclusively that the signal was indeed a trap.
But no matter how many times he had silently reviewed the situation his conclusions remained the same. Without a dependable way of defending the Waywardsman against an attack there was no way he would ever have ordered the vulnerable ship full of civilians anywhere near a possible confrontation with the murderous Brotherhood. Sometimes he wondered how many other ship commanders had been faced with the same decision, without the benefit of CAS technology at their disposal. How many of them had simply turned their ships toward the stars and transited directly into the unknown? He was still thinking over the possibilities when an electronic beep sounded from one of Melissa's consoles.
"Ensign Long," he said, breaking the silence. "That sounds like an incoming transmission of some sort. Since such a transmission is a virtual impossibility considering our current situation, what exactly is causing that?"
There was a lengthy pause. "That's what it is," the sandy-haired young Ensign announced, clearly astounded. He turned and looked at Norris in utter astonishment. "We are receiving a signal from an external source – coming in on a secure military frequency. But how can that be?"
William leaped out of his seat as if jolted with electricity. He ran over to the Ensign's position and they both studied the motion sensor screens carefully. "There's nothing else out there, not even a rock fragment close enough to transmit from," the Captain pointed out. "Where the hell did it come from?"
"I have no idea, sir," Ensign Long replied. "It was a very short data burst… just one image file and that was it. Other than that I've got nothing on record in the logs."
Norris pointed at the nearest monitor. "If we can't track down the source, let's take a look at it. Put up the picture file, please." The Ensign quickly complied and they both stared in complete shock at the image transmitted to them only seconds before.
Mystery Transmission
Dr. Jillian Marcus was squinting into the viewfinder of one of her larger telescopes in the Observatory when she noticed Norris pull out a chair and sit down next to her. He tossed a sheet of printed paper on her desk and leaned back with a mysterious expression on his face. Intrigued, she pushed the viewfinder aside and picked up the piece of paper, carefully examining the image on it.
"Nice job," she remarked. "I like all of the pretty colors. Are you thinking of taking up astronomy, Captain?"
"I didn't create that," he stated matter-of-factly.
"Well whoever did draw this has been paying close attention as we travel along through space. I've been developing some tentative sketches of my own but none nearly as interesting as this." She smiled. "It's quite possible that our new CAS technology will eventually allow us to explore beyond the event horizon – or outer edge – of our universe." She frowned slightly. "Sorry Captain, I don't mean to keep throwing terms like super-cluster and event horizon at people, but that's what they're called in all of the textbooks." She paused, carefully studying the image on the sheet of paper. "Honestly, who did this Captain? I'd call it a very excellent hypothesis as to what lies beyond the perimeter of our universe."
"No one on this ship," he said, smiling ominously.
She stared at him, trying to get the joke she expected was hidden in his words. "Pardon me?"
"No one on this ship drew that," Captain Norris replied, pointing at the sheet of paper in her hand. "We are out here alone – in the middle of nowhere – with most of our crew and passengers still in the Garden wing celebrating the Fourth of July. So I was just sitting up there on the Command Deck quietly minding the store…" he said, still sounding a bit stunned, "…and right out of the blue Ensign Long picks up a transmission." He held out his hands. "As far as we can tell, there isn't so much as a meteor floating anywhere near this ship as far out as our motion sensors can see. And yet we picked up a signal from an unknown source using one of our classified, encrypted military frequencies. We saved a record of the transmission and I used it to print that piece of paper."
"Somebody – other than a person on board the Waywardsman – transmitted this image to you earlier tonight?" she repeated, her face turning chalk white. "And you don't know who sent it?"
"No," he insisted. "We checked everywhere in the vicinity and there is nothing. I came down here to show you this because I have a pretty good idea what it might be a sketch of and needed you to confirm it for me. I'm also hoping you can use your telescopes to try and search the surrounding area for a ship or planet. There was no PTP window detected and the signal was not faster than light. So now you know my problem… I have no idea how someone got it here at the perfect time for us to receive it."
"Could we have intercepted an older transmission?" Jillian asked. "You know, perhaps something someone sent years ago and it's just now passing through this area?"
"Nope," Norris said confidently. "The signal strength is perfect… it hasn't traveled through any radiation storms or deteriorated in any way, shape, or form that we can determine based on a standard Comm-signal originating from a distant origin point. Somehow, someone transmitted that image file to the Command Dome, and I've been left here wondering who did it and how they managed the feat."
"I have no idea," said Jillian, dumbfounded. She pointed to the yellow cube that denoted an enlarged area of a piece from the overall map in the lower right corner of the picture. "Do you realize what this means?"
"Yes," William said grimly. "It means someone or something out there has been observing us long enough to know who we are and the areas we're visiting – even across billions of light years." He rubbed his chin nervously. "And even more importantly, they know exactly where our home galaxy is and where we came from."
Wasteland
UNTIL THE DAWN
Chapter XIII: Wasteland
* * *
The day after the Fourth of July celebration proved to be as exciting on board the Waywardsman as the holiday itself had been. Since they were all personally invested in their journey through the stars together, Norris continued his policy of full disclosure – he withheld no new information. The only exception to this rule, of course, continued to be the medical and technical research on the captured Brotherhood spy. That part of their trip he considered to be a military matter, and – until proven otherwise – he was still operating under the assumption that there might be other undercover operatives on board. By morning of the next day, however, copies of the mystery transmission were circulating throughout the ship via E-Notes, and by lunch time it was easily the most popular subject overheard during discussions.
Who sent it? From where did they transmit?
One person had even proposed the theory that it was a message directly from God himself. Norris shook his head in amazement throughout the entire morning as he heard or read whacky theory after whacky theory. Couldn't people find anything better to do with their time than come up with this stuff? When anyone asked him for his opinion – and there were a lot of people who did – he would politely respond each and every time that he was prepared to wait and see what further exploration of the immediate area revealed. Perhaps the answer was close or maybe it was a long way off… he was simply not ready to read too much into such a significant development without confirming it first with facts.
The Captain walked quickly into the restaurant at the rear of deck four and ordered a sandwich. His plan was to get a bite to eat and then move along to the rear of the ship and meet with staff from the Lab and Observatory wings. He grabbed a plate containing a chicken sandwich and poured himself a cup of coffee before moving to one of the empty tables to sit and eat his lunch. He noticed that Peter Wrangler was working on the other side of the room, busily bussing tables left disorganized by the lunch crowd. There were several bruises on the left side of the man's face and a bandaged cut under his right eye.
"May I join you?" Greg asked, appearing from behind and smiling as the Captain immediately waved him toward an empty chair.
"I've heard that our Brotherhood guest has had a few run-ins with some of the personnel down here, but then I guess we expected that," the Captain commented.
"A little uncertainty concerning his own personal safety is doing him a world of good," Greg replied, taking a bite from his own sandwich. "He's been working his butt off in here, hoping everyone will just leave him alone. Without his friends and their nuclear missiles, he sure doesn't have a lot of self-confidence left."
"There have been three documented attacks on this man so far," the Captain pointed out. "Some of those boys working the tougher jobs in the hangar bay naturally need to let off some steam… but I don't like it much when they get carried away. I've got four of them cooling their heels in the brig for a while… perhaps they'll drink a little less and work harder now that they've got assault charges filed against them."
"There are lots of folks on board that are wondering if an attack on him qualifies as an assault," said Greg, taking a drink of fruit juice from the plastic cup in front of him.
"It does as long as I'm the Captain and the ship's Council agrees with me," replied Norris. "I will not tolerate hate crimes on this ship." He gave Wrangler a quick once over. "From what I hear he is quite strong and can hold his own very well. We may all pick up a few bruises here or there before matters are settled between us and this Brotherhood fellow, but in the end I have confidence that we'll all be okay."
