Still Falling: Book 1: Solstice 31 Saga

Still Falling

by Martin Wilsey

This is a work of Fiction. All Characters and events portrayed in this novel are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual events is purely coincidental.

Still Falling

Copyright © 2015 by Martin Wilsey

All rights reserved, including rights to reproduce this book, or portions thereof, in any form.

Cover Art by Duncan Long

ISBN-13: 978-1507802380

ISBN-10: 1507802382

For more information:

Blog:
http://wilseymc.blogspot.com/

Web:
http://www.hell-labs.com/

Email: [email protected]

The Solstice 31 Saga:

Still Falling 
(2015)

The Broken Cage
(2015)

Blood of the Scarecrow
(2016)

For Brenda

The only one that saw all my pain

For Eric

Because you never got to read it

Still Falling

CHAPTER ONE

The Fall Begins

“The Ventura was a deep space survey ship, with a crew of over 2000 men and women. When we entered the orbit of the planet Baytirus that day, we never expected the Ventura to be immediately destroyed. We didn’t know we weren’t the first people to find that planet. But someone knew.”

--Solstice 31 Incident Investigation Testimony Transcript: Logs of Master Engineer Wes Hagan, senior surviving engineering member of the Ventura's crew. Recorded on 26291010 over three decades ago and stored in the data being analyzed.

<<<>>>

Barcus crashed back into consciousness when his face smashed into the inside of his helmet.

He was in a three axis tumble. He knew the feeling. All inertial dampening was off. His maintenance suit was powered up, docked in place, but off-line.

He coughed and could feel blood spray into his helmet. Great! His nose was probably broken. Again.

Then he began to remember.

His mind was coming back on-line.

“Status! Visual!” His helmet systems came alive. Temperature and pressure were normal. He confirmed it was a freefall spin. Wherever he was, it was pitch black.

“Lights!” The suit’s work lights all activated.

He saw immediately that he was locked into the suit dock on the bridge of Chen's shuttle. Chen was strapped into the command chair. Her flight suit didn't have her helmet, and her arms swayed with her neck in the tumble. The shuttle seemed dead.

The shuttle bridge was all white in the suit’s harsh work lights. It was a perfect oval dome around them like they were on the inside of a huge egg. The command chair was in front left. Two support stations were behind that and the four passenger seats.

He hammered the EXIT control in the suit causing its helmet chest plate to hinge open and back. He pounded the restraint release in the center of his chest, and the straps retracted smoothly, freeing him.

In the chaos of the tumble, he slammed first into the ceiling and then into the seats, but he managed to cross the compartment to grasp Chen's belt. As he felt for her pulse, her eyes fluttered open.

She blinked for a moment and focused by force of will, saying, “Display Delta” to the air, as something impacted the exterior of the shuttle. Suddenly, it was like they were in a convertible, the dome turning into an exterior display. They were in a gut-churning three axis, high-speed spin with no control. Debris tossed all around them. Some more chunks crashed into them, slowing the spin along one axis. The suit was locked into place in the dock. Otherwise, the heavy armor thing would have killed them by now, crashing about loose.

Barcus could see life pods and other shuttles that had managed to get aloft from other bays, but they were destroyed by plasma cannon fire.

“Chen. Don't stabilize.” Suddenly a giant explosion destroyed what was left of the main ship. The shock wave crashed more debris into the shuttle.

“Display, Baker,” Chen said weakly. It changed to a 3D rendering of the ship tumbling with massive chunks of debris. The display showed the expected path of the shuttle to its crash to the planet.

“Chen, I have no idea what happened, but we have to let the ship tumble towards the planet as debris. I don't see any enemy ships at all. There has got to be some kind of automated defense system that is shooting down anything that looks like it's under power and has people in it.”

“Barcus...I'm bleeding...bad.” He could see the blood splattered on her neck, flowing up from inside her pressure suit.

“Is the cabin holding pressure? Do we have a breach?” Barcus asked.

“Yes, it's holding, but we can't get you out of your flight suit until we stop the tumble. If we stop, we're dead.”

“Slow the tumble with manual thrusters,” Barcus said. Chen did until the ship was just turning gently.

Chen's eyes fluttered again. “Shrapnel in my guts, man. It's bad. Listen...” She fell unconscious again.

“Display Delta,” Barcus said. Nothing happened. “Damage Report.” Nothing. He then saw on one of the log display windows: “Unauthorized Command Attempts 2.”

“Status Report!” The count moved to three.

“Chen, wake up. I can't fly this thing.” Her faced winced in severe pain. Then her eyes opened.

“Stu. Activate AI, Emergency. (Gasp) Pilot injured...grant full master control authority to Roland Barcus. Present. All systems.” She winced and fell silent, except for the occasional gasp. Barcus had to hold tight in the weightlessness.

“Stu. Follow this same trajectory and passive scan the potential crash site. The tactical screen indicates that orbital decay will be in about three orbits. Give me stats on this planet.”

“Mr. Barcus, it's an E7 class world. It seems to be sparsely populated by humans, with .89 gravity.” He had heard Stu’s voice before. “Temperate climate. If we maintain the present course, we will land in a very rocky mountainous region.”

“Population there?” Barcus asked, looking at the tactical map display.

“Unable to tell with passive scans only. Little to no population expected. Harsh climate and terrain in that region. Cold temperatures. Estimate, -4 Celsius,” Stu reported.

“We need to continue to look like debris as we descend. Grav-foils only until we need the engines and even then, thrusters only. Can we wait until we are well within the atmosphere?” Barcus asked the AI.

“Yes, sir. Our Polycarbon hull can withstand unpowered re-entry temps easily.” The computer was calm.

“Find a nice ledge in those mountains and set us down, Stu. Grav-foils only.” He began unstrapping Chen.

“Chen.” He said. She winced as Barcus moved her. “This shuttle has a med bay. Stu. Stop all tumble. I need free fall in here.” Moments later, the tumble sense was gone. He drifted gently down to the lower level and into the infirmary with Chen. The med bay was the dominant feature at this end to the front of the hold.

The door slid closed behind them as Barcus set her on the scanning table still in her spacesuit. Drops of blood drifted everywhere. A vacuum sound began emitting from the table and the floor while a fluids-elimination unit kicked on. The blood was sucked down to collectors. The midsection of Chen’s suit was shredded. The unit scanned her and confirmed that her injuries were beyond the abilities of the auto-doc.

Barcus felt his weight begin to return as the Grav-foils activated in preparation for landing when the ship entered the atmosphere.

If they were being tracked, now was when their deceleration would be noticed.

“Chen. Wake up. What do I do?”

Her eyes fluttered open. “Stu. Status?”

“We will be landing in three minutes. I have found a wide, isolated shelf that is clear. I do not detect any active scans. It is heavily overcast, visibility less than two kilometers. Temperature is minus 11 Celsius. No population present.”

“Stu... auto-doc, go.” The system whirred to life. A bar light swept over her once and returned to her belly for a more detailed slow scan. The monitor read, “Spleen, liver, stomach, large and small intestines, all severely damaged. Medical Nanites deployed will be insufficient. Injury fatal.” She squeezed Barcus’s hand, holding it as if they were about to arm wrestle again or she was going to pull herself up.

“Stu...” She coughed up a little blood as she struggled to speak. “Activate EM. Emergency Module... Survival mode, hostile environment, Full AI.”

“Barcus, listen. They will come. Put on your suit, take the Emergency Module and run. Use Escape and Evasion mode. EM, can you hear me?”

“Yes, sir.” Barcus heard the EM inside his head. It spoke directly to his wetware, his internal deep brain systems. A new window opened in his vision via his advanced HUD implants. It was the Emergency Module’s operation status window.

Chen gasped to the EM, “Say hello to Barcus. It is now your job to keep him alive. He's got full admin control. Bring his suit down here via remote.” Her eyes looked to Barcus.

“Take me outside with you when we land. We will have to hurry.”

The suit descended via its lift just as they felt the soft settling of their landing. The forward ramp began to lower.

“I'm sorry, Barcus.”

Barcus couldn't speak.

“EM. Where are you?” Chen whispered. HUD systems didn't require volume.

“Right here, sir.” The voice transmission was still coming from his HUD, not his ears.

A giant black spider rounded the side of the ship. Its skin was the same as the ship and the suit. Somehow it seemed like it was watching them even though it had no visible eyes. Closely watching. Its body was the size of a large van-type, ground transport.

“That’s your souped-up Model 66 EM, isn't it?” Barcus asked, wearing a forced smile as he carried her to the wall and knelt with her in his arms. She was so light. Was the planet’s gravity so low?

“Yeah, it is. You're gonna love it. Finally, get to test all the mods,” she said.

“We'll have fun running it. Like that time last year. We got in so much trouble,” Barcus said.

“I want to go outside,” Chen whispered. “I want to breathe real air.”

Barcus lifted her tiny frame from the bloody table and walked down the still opening ramp into the cold. They descended to find a sun about to set. It blazed in a gap between the clouds and the horizon. It was cold and windy.

Chen showed an honest but weak smile. Med-bay painkillers were settling in. “No need to bullshit me, man. I know I'm done. I want you to leave me here. Stu will watch over me. You have to. They probably tracked us on our descent down.”

Barcus carried her out.

“Stu... Standby mode. Settle,” She whispered to the Shuttle Transport Unit.

The ramp closed. The landing legs retracted. The ship’s belly settled to the ground. Barcus had always thought it looked like a turtle with all its limbs withdrawn.

“The last orbital rotation indicated that an atmospheric ship of some kind was diverting this way. It’s screaming with transmissions. It's not in passive scanning range yet.” She coughed more blood.

“What happened?” Barcus asked. He didn't know what to say. He knew he would not let her die alone, whatever the cost.

“Hyper-missiles, nukes, no warning. We had just entered orbit. No warning, no 'go the fuck away' message. Just boom. Point blank.” She was fading now. “You had just gone into dock the maintenance suit. I was waiting on the ramp for the rest of the morning crew for our day. The first strike explosion filled my guts with shrapnel.” She coughed again, choking on blood. “I made it to the command chair.” She was fading. “Barcus, you need to know, the EM is more, it's not what you think, the mods... it's AI, listen...”

“Barcus...” She stiffened in his arms, eyes locked. Then, slowly, Chen went limp. He watched the light disappear from her open eyes.

“We must go, sir. Now. They are coming,” the spider said inside his head.