Ringship Discretion (23 page)

Attie said "Cool" as he surveyed the situation.  What are these blinking ones at the side?"

She said "Those are ships to starboard off the screen.  OK, we are leaving the atmosphere. I am going to align us with our destination and we can try this drive out."

As they turned to the starboard to align with the destination star part of the fleet came into view.

Attie inhaled loudly. "Whoa. Shit! Don't need any triangles to point those ships out!"

Amelia looked at Attie. "Ready?"

He took a deep breath, nodded. "Yes."

She activated the warp field and the ship started to shake.  As she increased power it got worse.   She finally shut it down.

Attie, big eyed, said "WELL?!"

Amelia looked back and forth at the new warp panel. "I...I..Don't know!"

A bright explosion caught Attie's attention and he looked out the window.  A large Big Sis cruiser was turning toward them. "Amelia...now would be good!"

Angela asked. "Did you take into account the swapped plates?"

Amelia whipped her head around, thought a second and looked at Attie. "No...Jesus..stupid!"  She turned back to the panel, swapped the calibration of the two plates and began running a test to calibrate their new alignments. 

Attie was watching her while pointing out the window.  "Ahem..."

She ignored him, but finally said "There...got it!".

The stars turned deep blue and the ships were gone.

Attie, with his hand still pointing. "Did we just...go? Did it work?!"

Amelia turned her head slowly and a large smile formed. "Holy shit Attie..it really worked."

His smile grew as the realization struck him. He didn't know whether to look out the window or at Amelia.

Over the intercom Ben said "That's it! We are warping!"

Everyone started yelling and cheering.

CHAPTER 13 : A New World

At a journey's end,

A world of only friend.

Not just freedom lend,

but truly of Eden.

Eighteen days into the trip, the captain was explaining where they were going on the new view screen/window.  "This is the second planet in the system. It looks habitable from all the astronomical observations."

AJ asked. "How do they know if it's habitable from 40 light years away?!"

The captain smiled. "They use spectroscopy to determine the atmosphere and surface content.  Each element or molecule has a distinct light pattern as to what kind of light it absorbs or reflects.  With the new gravity scopes that are kilometers wide, they can see details on the continents of planets even hundreds of light years away.  They actually have found several hundred habitable planets, but this one was farther than some of the close ones and it seemed to be a nice mix of climates.  Don't want to be too close to the Solar system, or it will get crowded faster." He grinned. "Plus it had two large moons..and well, I thought that would be beautiful." He put his arm around Amelia. "And twice as romantic as the moon on Earth." She smiled and kiss him on the chin. He continued. "Our new sun is a red dwarf, so everything will be, well... redder.  The plants will be colored to absorb this wavelength, so they probably won't be green.  We should be able to find edible plants and maybe animals, but not sure on the second one.  We bought a chromatograph and other instruments so we can study our food before we eat it. Until we know what we can eat and can't eat, we will stick to our food supply.  As you know, Helen has already started to grow new plants and we will set up a green house when we arrive, although we may have to supplement the lighting to keep them healthy."

The captain hit a few buttons and changed the display. "The parent star has a high metallicity content, which means that the planets should have good metal resources as well.  Our new home has slightly more gravity than Earth."  He looked at everyone. "I don't think that should be much of a problem for us, since we all have lived in 1 'g' environments, although these 40 days of weightlessness aren't going to help us.  So be careful when we arrive, you will be weaker than normal, even with the exercise."

Angela asked "What about the rest of the system?"

The captain changed the display again. "Well, there are two large gas giant planets, one of which is just at the outer edge of the habitable zone, so its moons might be another place we can visit.  There are two smaller planets and one double planet further out, then there is the local version of the Oort cloud beyond."

Amelia asked "Can you bring up the image of the planet again?"

Attie pressed a button and the blue white world appeared. 

Amelia stared at it. "Looks a little like Earth, just smaller oceans. Attie, do you know where we..." An alarm sounded and everyone pulled their hands from the panel.  The ship started to shake terribly and everyone tried to grab for things to keep from flying in random directions. The stars returned to their normal color as Amelia looked across the panels to see what the problem was.

Attie saw the stars change and said. "We dropped out of warp!"

Ben pulled himself back over Amelia's shoulder. "What is it?"

She said "Give me a minute."

As they waited, Ben whispered to the captain. "If the warp drive fails out here, we are so screwed!"

The captain gave him a look and put his finger in front of his lips.

Amelia said. "Well, it looks like that same plate failed and the opposite plate shut down automatically in response to it.  That collapsed our warp field.  The plates really compensated well."

Doc, rubbing his head, asked "All that shaking was compensating well?"

She turned and looked at him. "Well, we are still here, aren't we?"

Ben waved to the captain to follow. "Let's get down to the engine room and see if it just blew the breakers again."

When they got to the panel, they scanned down it. "Nope.  They are all still set....crap...that's means it's a different problem."

The captain looked a little worried. "Do we need to go outside and take a look?"

Ben turned and pulled a panel off. "Not yet, let me make sure it's not something inside first."

Amelia came over the intercom. "I can't get any kind of reading at all on that plate."

Ben put the panel back on. "Well, it has to be in the new communication cables then." He then squeezed behind some racks and disappeared. 

A few minutes went by and Attie jumped when Amelia said his name.  He turned to find her approaching him. "What are you doing?"

She said softly "Attie.  If we can't get the drive working, we have about three months of food.  That would only get us a few light hours.  Not far enough to get anywhere.  Even if we grow food, we won't be able to last."

Attie swallowed. "I know.  That's why we have to get it fixed.  Ben is.." Ben interrupted. "Ben is what?" They turned and smiled at him. He looked back with a strange look on his face "I think we are all aware of the "gravity" of the situation."  Amelia and Attie both rolled their eyes.

Ben wiped his face.  "OK, I can't find any problem back there.  It has to be on the outside."

Attie nodded. "OK, then lets get out there and fix it, because I'm finding this part of space to be a bit boring."

Ben nodded as he walked by. "Yeah..let's try and go somewhere more interesting."

A few minutes later the captain and Ben were suited up.  Ben opened the inner airlock door and put his tool bag in. Attie turned with his helmet in his hand and kissed Amelia.  Then he and Ben stepped through and closed the inner door.

Ben hit the depressurization button. Both Attie and Amelia stared at each other through the airlock window.  They both had a strange feeling of finality as they watch the other's face.  When the airlock reached 40 kPa, Attie gave a smile and put his helmet on. Ben checked it and slapped him on the back. Attie was still staring at Amelia when Ben cleared his throat into the mic.  Attie turned and checked Ben's suit and gave him the thumbs up.  With that, Ben began to depressurize the airlock to zero. When the pressure hit zero, Ben opened the outer door.  Amelia came over the radio. "Be safe." 

Attie turned back and saw her hand against the airlock window.  He radioed back while raising his hand. "We will."

As the captain climbed out of the airlock and rounded the ship he looked around trying to find the Sun.  He saw Orion and most of the usual constellations, although some of them, like the Big Dipper were not quite right.  Ben asked. "Are you coming?"

The captain looked across the hull at him. "Yeah, I just can't find the Sun.  Guess we're just too far away."

Ben stopped and look out at the deep blackness.  The vast nothingness made him feel uneasy and he turned back toward the ship. "OK. Let's get this done."  He proceeded along the bottom of the hull to the plate and latched himself to an anchor point.  "Here it is. This one." He looked up to see the captain still looking out into space.  "Hey, Captain. You coming?"

The captain looked over at him. "Oh, yeah."

Ben knelt down onto the hull and looked under the plate. "Ahah!"

The captain and Amelia both said at the same time. "What? Did you find something?"

Ben replied "Yeah, the cable connector cracked and the cable was just floating free. Probably what caused the problem back on Oberon too, but we just couldn't see it then."

The captain's hand touched Ben's shoulder and he bent down to take a look. "Something we can fix?"

Ben nodded. "I don't have this kind of crimping tool, but all we really have to do it keep this cable in the hole.  Hell, we could just duct tape the damn thing in there, but we should probably use something a little more secure."  He grabbed the cable and was about to plug it in, but stopped. "Now, Amelia, this thing is powered down. Right?  I don't want to plug this in and find the two of us floating here by ourselves."

She responded.  "Of course. I shut the whole system down once I couldn't get any telemetry from the plate."

Ben looked at the captain. "OK. Here is goes." He plugged in the cable and held it in place.  Nothing happened.

Then Amelia came over the comm. "OK. I can see the plate.  I will have to run a calibration sequence on it again, but it looks good."

Ben smiled. "Great. So, I'll just stay out here and hold this cable in until we get there."

The captain reached into the tool kit and pulled out some tie wraps. "Here, can we just use these?"

Ben shrugged. "Sure, they will work as good at anything, but hand me the purple ones.  They are made for larger temperature extremes." 

Ben held the connector in while the captain tie wrapped it in place. "There. Should we cut the extra off?"

Ben shook his head. "No, that will create sharp edges and if they were to slip under vibration, they would be more likely to come off. It looks ugly, but just leave them like that."  He pulled on the cable to make sure it was secure. "Good. Hand me a few more. I am going to secure the rest of this cable to this stanchion." 

They worked for a few minutes and Ben gave the thumbs up.  Attie hit his comm button. "OK, Amelia, I think we are done.  We are coming back in."

Ben said. "Give me a minute to check out the other plates.."  The captain nodded and while Ben checked them, he looked back out into space. He felt a magical wonder.  He looked up at the Milky Way's bulging globs of stars and the dark gaps in between. He felt like he could imagine where he was in the disk and felt at one with all that he could see.  He thought. "This is my home. My galaxy."  He was so lost in thought that Ben's touch startled him. "OK, Boss, let's head back in."

Ben entered the airlock first and then the captain. As he reached for the door, he paused for one last look before shutting it. "OK. We are in...pressurizing."

Amelia said "Alright. I am going to turn the drives on and see if I can get them to calibrate."

Attie responded. "Go ahead.  We will be there in a few."

When the airlock turned green, Ben and the captain took off their helmets.  As Ben removed his, he looked at the inner hatch window to see Angela looking back at him.  She smiled and he smiled back. The captain saw the looks between them and nudged Ben. "So, I don't see your stuff in the engine room?". 

Ben laughed "It's working out." He turned and winked at Angela as he changed the settings to bring the airlock to full pressure.  When the lock turned green once again, Angela opened it and they floated through.  She took Ben's helmet and gave him a kiss on the cheek.

The captain said. "Hey! Where's mine?..Amelia?!" 

She yelled from the cockpit. "Get you ass over here and I'll give it to you!".

Attie pushed off the wall and flew across to the cockpit, grabbing the back of her chair. She tilted her head back and he kissed her upside down from above. They kept kissing until Attie's feet were on the ceiling and Ben interrupted. "Hey! All I got was a peck on the cheek!"

Angela pinched his butt through his suit as she floated by. "Maybe you will get more later." Ben turned and eagerly watched her float by.