Compete (8 page)

From this vantage point of being outside looking in, the shuttle bay gate directly behind us is a maw of shimmering plasma—an oval spot along the outermost narrow “brim” edge of the saucer shape. All around it the silvery orichalcum surface of the ship disk extends into a gradual sloping rise above and below—defining the shallow saucer “bowl” portion—while the saucer “brim” stretches seemingly for miles horizontally. . . . And the entirety of it is bathed in the same violet plasma glow, radiating a few feet outward from the hull. I am guessing it’s some kind of energy field or shield.

My God, the ship is
huge
, a true metallic colossus. . . . So immense that nothing comes even close to it on Earth, not the biggest cruise ship or military aircraft carrier. And as we only begin to comprehend the monster thing we just exited, the shuttle makes another small lurch to the right. It moves smoothly and fast, like an orbiting satellite following the curvature of the ship, so that the ark-ship now fills only the distant left edge of the view in the window.

And now we can see another colossal ark-ship about five miles away, and then another one beyond it, receding in size and distance, until it becomes apparent there’s a long line of ark-ships stretching out into seeming infinity. And to the right of us, there’s a second similar line of ships, stretching parallel to the first. Basically our shuttle is in the five-mile narrow corridor between these two immense streaming lines.

“What kind of flight formation is this?” Lars Hansen asks suddenly.

“You may think of it as a diamond—three parallel lines of ships, flying with a one-ship offset. We happen to be in the channel between two of the three lines. Those of you who are Cadets will learn it very soon, in your Pilot Training classes,” Keruvat replies. “For now, simply observe how we fly within the Quantum Stream.”

And then he does something, and the shuttle shoots forward along the corridor between the two lines of ships. The shuttle is going so impossibly fast, relative to the rest of the Fleet locked in formation, that the ships appear to be stationary road markers, standing still, while we hurtle forward, passing a ship on alternate sides of us, every two seconds.

This goes on for about five minutes, maybe less. The shuttle slows down just as suddenly as it had accelerated before. Now it begins to fall in line and float alongside another huge ark-ship, visually indistinguishable from the rest.

“There it is,” Keruvat says. “That’s ICS-2, or Imperial Command Ship Two. Your home for the next twelve Earth months.”

Pilot Ruo continues to direct the shuttle smoothly to circle around the ship. At one point as the shuttle turns, giving us a wider view of the cosmos, we see the remote golden ball of fire that is the Sun. We are receding from it, judging by the direction of our movement. And the Earth too is somewhere out there, hidden from view by the line of ships stretching behind us, at this point reduced to a tiny bead of blue light.

“This is amazing,” Jennica Tulls whispers.

But in that instant the shuttle lurches again, and for one crazy instant we seem to be flying directly at the ship, about to crash into the hull. . . . Which turns out to be the shuttle bay opening veiled by plasma.

W
e arrive inside the shuttle bay of Imperial Command Ship Two, decelerate, and come to a hover stop at a platform deep inside the tunnel. From the shuttle window, I note that everything here is the same as the other ark-ship—a brightly lit open space, with neutral off-white walls and fine gold etchings. Shuttles line the platform on both sides and occasional Atlantean officers and crew move through the bay.

“Unbuckle, and get your belongings,” Pilot Ruo tells us, rising from his seat. “Cadet Vetrova, you follow me to Cadet Deck Two. Lark, Hansen, and Tulls—you report to the information and dispatch desk here and they will give you instructions. Welcome, and now, dismissed!”

In moments, we are outside the shuttle. I carry my two bags and stop before the dispatch area. Pilot Ruo and Alla Vetrova head to the nearest exit and disappear.

Lars Hansen and Jennica Tulls remain with me. We are scanned and then we wait.

About ten minutes later three young Atlantean guides approach, consult with the desk, and are assigned to each of us.

“Gwen Lark?” A metallic-haired teenage boy barely older than Gordie approaches me. His expression is serious, somewhat superior, and perfectly controlled. He’s wearing a yellow armband. “Follow me.”

“Okay,” I say, shifting my heavy bags from one hand to the other. “Where are we going?”

“Yellow Quadrant, Command Deck Two,” the Atlantean tells me curtly without even looking at me, as we start to walk from the shuttle bay and into a long hallway. “I will show you your living quarters. You will leave your things there and then report immediately to your commanding officer.”

I nod and follow him. We move past occasional Atlantean crew members through a maze of sudden contrasts—long corridors illuminated with soothing light then wide brightly lit decks that make me blink from the unexpected radiance—though at this point I am beginning to get some kind of basic grasp of the ark-ship standard layout.

In a nutshell—each great saucer ark-ship is a flattened sphere. The circle is split into four sections from the center, a cross-cut forming four large “pie slices,” and each “pie slice” or wedge is allocated to a Quadrant. Yes, that’s where that whole “Four Quadrant” notion comes from—four major divisions of function and labor on each of their ships! And, apparently this tradition has been in place for thousands of years, stemming from the time of their original colonization.

There are four shuttle bays in each ship, and they run lengthwise, almost the entire radius length of the ship, effectively making those four cross-cut “lines” that separate each Quadrant wedge.

In the circular heart of the ship, in the very center, is a great spherical chamber called the Resonance Chamber, which is very important for various systems functionality including actual propulsion and flight—but more on this later.

Each Quadrant wedge is cut across horizontally into three sections. The first and innermost smallest section of the wedge, adjacent to the central Resonance Chamber, is the Command Deck, the section where the Atlantean Officers Quarters are located, and where much of the ship control takes place.

The second, middle portion of the wedge, larger and closer to the outside, is the Cadet Deck. This is where the Cadets living quarters and training area is located.

Finally, the outermost largest section, number three, is the Residential Deck. This is where all the Civilians are housed, and it is adjacent to the storage, hydroponics, and other large-scale general life support systems areas closest to the outside hull.

That’s the basic breakdown. There are many sub-levels and many corridors connecting the whole thing, but for now, all I need to know is that I am heading toward the heart of the ship—the control and central operations center called the Command Deck.

That’s where the Officers Quarters are located, and where supposedly I will be staying.

It is also where
he
is supposed to be—my commanding officer.

Command Pilot Aeson Kassiopei.

M
y pulse begins to race and my breathing comes fast, as we approach the center of the ship, long before we even arrive at my destination. I don’t know why, but I am close to hyperventilating as we emerge past the middle section that’s the Cadet Deck and cross the wide dividing corridor gap into the elite “upper” cross-section of the Yellow Quadrant wedge.

The Atlantean walking ahead of me announces nonchalantly, “Command Deck Four.” And then he turns into the first corridor.

The hallways here are filled with many frequently spaced doors, unlike the residential decks of the other ship I am familiar with, where the hallways had only occasional doors and each door opened into a huge barracks dorm chamber. Obviously these are smaller cabins meant for individuals.

My guide stops before one of these doors, only three doors away from another cross-corridor. “This one is yours,” he says, pointing to a small square logo on the wall next to the door. “Number 28. Remember its location well.”

I peer closer and see the same Atlantean numerical etchings marking the surface of the small square. I count five hatch-mark “fives” and a single three-dash character, which together makes number 28.

I also notice there is no door handle or lock. Back on the other ship, the barracks door always slid open automatically when you approached it and was never locked, but apparently not this one.

The Atlantean notices my confusion. “Pass your ID token over this square, and the door will key itself to you. From there on you simply touch it with your fingers to open or close, and no one else but you can come in.”

I drop my heavy, book-laden bags down and key my door with my token. It slides open into darkness. The moment I step inside, illumination blooms forth, reaching standard daylight levels. Now I can see the room is very small, a cubicle really. There’s a long narrow bunk bed along one wall, and directly above it a bulkhead storage area in place of an upper bunk. Only a couple of feet across is the opposite wall with a small one-person table and bench chair, both retractable and built into the wall, and then a small closet-like enclosure that I can see is a combination retractable toilet stall, sink, and shower, the kind I’ve become familiar with at the other ship in the common barracks lavatory.

The Atlantean stands quietly at the door watching me.

“Close the door and take five minutes, but no more,” he says. “And then we proceed to see your commanding officer. It is bad form to keep an officer waiting.”

I frown for a moment, then nod, and touch a similar square on the interior wall, which causes the door to slide shut.

I am now alone in my tiny cabin. Claustrophobia descends on me momentarily and I stand, breathing deeply to calm myself, because my heart is hammering in my chest. I leave my bags on my bed then go to the lavatory enclosure, call up a sink, and splash concentrated water spray on my face, seeing my pale reflection with its newly hollowed cheeks staring back at me in the small narrow mirror that is revealed above the retractable sink.

Then, when my heartbeat slows down sufficiently—or at least enough that it does not threaten to rupture my chest—I open the door.

“I am ready,” I say. “Take me to see him.”

“Him?” The Atlantean raises one brow. “Pilot Oalla Keigeri will not appreciate your ignorance regarding her.”

“What?” I say tiredly. And then it occurs to me—this Atlantean crewman
does not know
who my commanding officer is.

Apparently my ship-board assignment is particularly rare, possibly unique.

“I don’t report to Pilot Keigeri,” I tell him. “Take me to your Command Pilot—what do you call him—CP. He’s my commanding officer, and the one I need to see.”

The look on the boy’s face is a combination of confusion, amazement, and then an immediate reassessment of me.

A
few minutes later we walk through the Command Deck of the Yellow Quadrant, pass the neighboring Red Quadrant Command Deck and cross over into Blue. The Quadrant sections are marked by appropriately colored square logos on the walls of each corridor, which indicates the end of one Quadrant and beginning of another.

“The Command Pilot Quarters and Central Command Office are in the Blue Quadrant,” my guide tells me, giving me periodic glances of curiosity. “So why did he assign you to live in Yellow?”

“I’ve been training with the Yellow Quadrant all this time,” I say. “I don’t see why that should change.”

“But you are a Cadet? How is it that you report directly to the CP?”

“I am not a Cadet,” I say.

I think I’ve managed to confuse the boy enough to render him silent for the moment.

The Atlantean does not speak again until we arrive at a large wide corridor that bears a grand square rainbow logo on the wall. On one side of this hallway is the inner rounded wall that encircles the Resonance Chamber—that central hub that marks the very heart of the ship. And on the other side I see a row of doors, each marked with special ornate insignias, one of which is particularly grand and impressive. There are also two security guards posted at the door.

Here we stop.

“This is the Central Command Office, or CCO,” the Atlantean guide tells me in a loud voice, and I realize that he is a little overwhelmed himself. The boy then turns to the guards, and gives a brief salute and then tells them something in Atlantean.

One of the guards glances at me with a blank scrutiny, then raises his wrist, activates some kind of comm device and speaks into it.

A moment later, the door slides open and the guards on both sides step aside.

“Command Pilot Kassiopei will see you now,” the guard tells me. “Proceed inside.”

I
walk past the guards at the door, as my heart begins once again hammering wildly. I take shallow breaths—because it’s all I can manage—and enter the chamber.

The Central Command Office is not particularly large, but it is impressive. A wide desk and high-backed chair takes up half the space, and there are four comfortable visitor chairs across from it. About a dozen computer display screens take up the back wall, and directly above is what appears to be a grand digital photograph—a landscape image of impossible beauty, with tall green mountains framing a deep lake, with a castle-like structure of fragile antiquity perched at the cliff-edge of a plateau above the lake, all of it illuminated by a white sun.