Chapter 7
“Veirn,” Captain Kellen said, “could you inform the crew that we’ll be exiting star drive for the final time and should make orbit in two ship’s increments. Convert those time stamps for the Earth crew, please.”
Of course, the only Earth crew was Lt. Dish. Did Veirn need to convert for Tim or Trac? No, he decided. They could do their own conversions. But Lt. Dish—his thoughts did a weird kind of splutter that had only begun since she came on board.
“Roger that, Captain,” Veirn said.
Kellen accepted the Earth acknowledgment without reaction. He was getting used to it, though he didn’t understand how it had managed to filter into every AI he’d encountered since he woke. And it wasn’t as if it was the only strangeness he’d had to deal with in this unexpected future.
Only Riina Katala knew that this transit had taken longer than it should have, despite the use of the star drive, because he’d also been tasked with making strategic stops to get updated survey information on the regions between Central Command and Arroxan Prime.
During their long sleep, some of their outposts had experienced minimal to catastrophic damage.
None of it was a surprise, but it had left gaps in their knowledge base.
This had been a good opportunity to fill some of those gaps.
They’d initiated scans and dropped drones that could connect to the nearest working outpost to monitor the various systems.
None of the other passengers had appeared to notice their jump/pause transit, or if they had, they hadn’t commented on it in his hearing. He’d enjoyed the feeling of actually transiting systems, rather than just passing through them in the quickest possible time.
He had chosen to become a ship’s captain for a reason, that reason being that he liked exploring space. The short missions he’d been sent on since he woke had not nearly satisfied that desire.
There was a sound and a screen appeared on his console. Lt. Dish stood outside the bridge hatch, requesting permission to enter.
He ignored the sudden splutter of his thoughts and opened the hatch for her.
The Garradians had always had varying degrees of physical attractiveness, but it had never been a priority in creating couples. Competence was much more highly prized in his culture.
Perhaps, he thought, as he turned to watch Lt. Dish walk onto the bridge, they’d missed out on something.
Her uniform wasn’t excessively tight, but it did fit her admirably shaped form.
Everything about her was neat, contained, crisp and yet—there was a quality about her that was very far from crisp.
She moved briskly and stopped to salute him, then lowered her arm and gave him a rueful look that almost stopped his heart.
“Do your people salute, Captain? I don’t wish to offend.”
“It’s fine,” Kellen said, fighting the urge to run a finger around his uniform collar.
“Please, sit.” He indicated the second-in-command position.
He hadn’t had a full crew complement since before the long sleep.
Even at the rate they were waking up their people, they didn’t have enough people to man a ship as they had in the past.
And they weren’t waking up ship’s crew. Their priority was scientists and other specialists who could help them rebuild their infrastructure.
And that had been delayed when they’d had to respond to threats.
He couldn’t blame all of them on the Earth Expedition or the robot crew, but they had definitely played a part in arriving in the Garradian system trailing clouds of enemies.
Lt. Dish sat in the second chair, giving a little wriggle that he took to be delight. He arched a brow, and she gave him a rueful look.
“I grew up with Star Trek. It’s like a dream come true to sit on the bridge of a spaceship,” she explained. Perhaps something in his face prompted her to add, “I promise I won’t touch anything.”
She didn’t know it, but she already touched “something.” There were controls embedded in the arm rests she gripped, but they weren’t active and wouldn’t become active for her without some kind of triggering control. Such as the sudden extinction of the captain.
It was his turn to sense his expression turning wry.
“What can I do for you, Lieutenant?” It seemed wise to alter the subject before he embarrassed himself.
“I know we’re dropping out of star drive soon,” this also seemed to please her because her eyes gleamed with excitement, “but I was wondering how close to Arroxan Prime we’ll be at that point.”
Kellen activated a map of the Arroxan Prime star system—one updated with data from the ship that had dropped Dr. Walker off—and added a data point for their arrival.
“I don’t want to drop in too close to the planet. Star drive is not kind to large, solid objects,” he added. It pleased him when she grinned, as if she understood the small joke. “And we want to do new data scans. Make sure nothing has changed and to restore comms with Dr. Walker.”
Now Lt. Dish frowned. “Did we lose comms because of the star drive?”
Kellen hesitated. “It is possible. The systems we have transited are…complicated.” He wasn’t a scientist, but he’d learned enough to know complicated when he saw it. “And we dropped out of star drive several times.”
He waited for her to ask, but she didn’t. She just nodded.
“Why do you ask?”
“I’ve been studying the pattern of Dr. Walker’s transmissions.” She sighed and frowned. “I’m no expert on space transmissions, but it looks to me like his last transmission wasn’t complete. As if there is data missing.”
Kellen nodded. “It is possible our own transits cut off the data stream…”
He knew Veirn was listening and was probably already looking into it.
And then Veirn weighed in to the discussion. “Dr. Walker mentioned concern that someone planet-side might be tracking their transmissions.”
“But,” Lt. Dish’s frown deepened, “according to him they lack the technology to disrupt…” Her voice trailed off. “Miss Marple.”
“Excuse me?” Kellen said.
“She’s an imaginary detective on Earth, but she always says don’t believe what you’re told.”
“It is true that Dr. Walker couldn’t know if the government had the ability to block his comms,” Veirn said.
“So, it is possible that someone else down there knows we’re coming?” Kellen didn’t like that idea.
“I don’t think they could—unless they could read the transmissions and that would take time,” Lt. Dish pointed out.
“Cracking an alien language is most difficult,” Veirn said.
And Veirn would know. It and its AI kin did it fairly regularly.
“They might not need to know what we’re saying. Just the fact of the transmissions might cause…distress,” Lt. Dish pointed out. “It’s probably a good idea we’re coming in kind of slow and easy.”
“Yes,” Kellen said. And they could also come in cloaked. That seemed an even better idea.
Now the bridge felt oddly full to Kellen.
Riina and Tim were seated at the science station to his right.
Trac, as was typical for the robot, stood in the corner, with his skitterfin wrapped around his neck.
He didn’t know how he could stand it. Of course, he was a cyborg. A robot. He couldn’t feel it.
Lt. Dish was back in the number two seat at his left.
Four bodies total and it felt crowded. He wondered what Veirn thought of the sudden intrusion into what had been their space alone? Could an AI care?
“Dropping out of star drive in five…four…three…two…one…”
Star drive transitions were advertised as smooth by the scientists who’d created them, but they’d oversold smooth a little. And Kellen now knew that what space one dropped into also played a part.
This transition was bumpy, but it didn’t seem to affect Trac. The robot rode the bumpy slowing as if it were nonexistent. Kellen was glad he was strapped in. And that he’d insisted the others strap in.
The other feature of the transition into normal space was the lag while the sensors came back online and began delivering data. Near space was easier. Far space took longer for all the obvious reasons, the main one being it was further away.
While he waited for sensors to begin delivering, he pulled up the data from Dr. Walker’s drop-off ship.
It had also noticed unusual bumpiness and disruptions in the data.
It was yet another reason, in his opinion, on why no one had visited the system much.
But it didn’t explain how a human civilization had managed to develop here.
The original data from before the sleep offered no explanation for Arroxan Prime or why or how it had come to the attention of their scientists. It was an uncomfortable mystery, even for an explorer of space and one much used to the puzzling.
“We are starting to receive data,” Veirn said.
Forward screens flickered to life and planetary objects began to appear.
Riina released her restraints and stood up, pacing forward until she stopped next to him.
“Any sign of a transmission from Dr. Walker?” she asked.
“No.”
Did Veirn sound concerned by that? It was hard for Kellen to tell when the AI felt emotion. If the AI felt emotion?
“What kind of inter-system interference are you detecting?” Riina asked.
“Quite a bit,” Veirn said. “Most of the outgoing transmissions we have already picked up.”
“Let’s begin transmitting to Dr. Walker…” Kellen said.
“I would recommend waiting on that, Captain,” Veirn said. “Until we get closer and the data is more definitive.”
Kellen looked at Riina and saw concern in her eyes that probably echoed the look in his. They hadn’t been out of contact for that long, but even when factoring in the distances in space, events could change rapidly and in unexpected ways.
“We’ll hold any transmissions,” Kellen said, he glanced back. “And we are going in cloaked.”
“I was going to suggest that,” Riina said. “The longer we can postpone detection from any possible observers, the better.”