The Agathon: Book One (24 page)

Something knows we’re here. It has us
, she thought to him.

“Do what you can. I want updates every five minutes. Barrington out.”

He tapped the comm system again.

“Medical bay, this is the bridge,” he said.

“Sorry, Captain, unless it’s urgent I have my hands full right now. Call back later,” said Brubaker without a beat.

“Understood. Bridge out.”

“Sir, I have forward motion,” said Boyett.

“All stop, Charly,” said Barrington.

“Yes, sir, I understand, but there’s external force acting on the ship,” she said.

“Chavel?” Barrington said.

“Confirmed, sir. We’re back on course for the planet, traveling at fifteen hundred KPH,” said Chavel.

“Engine room, I need thruster control,” said Barrington into the comms system.

“Emerson here, sir. I wish I knew what the hell just hit us, but I can’t get you thruster control while one of the coolant tanks is still offline. We can’t get access to the control room until it’s vented. We’re working on that. The Betty is in bad shape, sir. Right now we’re running damage control. I don’t have any answers as to why we’re moving, but I’m working on it. Emerson out.”

Barrington felt helpless as control of his ship slowly fell away from under him. Something had just attacked and captured him and he hadn’t even seen it coming.

“Velocity increasing,” said Boyett from the flight chair.

“Sir, we’re on a direct collision course with the planet directly ahead at this speed and at this angle we’ll burn up in the atmosphere,” said Chavel.

“Time to impact?” said Barrington.

“Six minutes,” said Chavel.

“Can you get me a visual?” he said calmly. Carrie was now sitting next to her father’s centre seat and nursing the cut on her head.

“Trying to,” said Chavel. The main view screen flickered to life and the planet was now in full view. It looked like one solid landmass.

“Tyrell, what can you tell me?” he said, turning to the doctor whose face was much paler than usual.

“I don’t understand it,” he said, turning to a computer console.

“These should be the correct coordinates. I...” he trailed off as he began examining data.

“Sir, the land masses on the surface of the planet seem to be changing,” said Chavel, puzzled.

“What?” said Barrington. Barrington looked at the planet on the screen above him. Barrington began to enter the sequence into the escape pod programming banks on his control pad, but Boyett interrupted the sequence.

“Sir, we’re slowing down!” she said. “I still have no control over the flight operations of the ship.” She turned and faced the captain.

“There’s something down there,” whispered Carrie quietly. A control panel chirping brought Boyett back to her forward facing position.

“Trajectory is being altered,” she said.

“By what?” barked Barrington.

“I have atmospheric entry protocols, sir,” she said. “We are beginning a descent.” Her hands flew across the flight controls.

“All hands, this is the captain,” he said into his comms. “We are making entry on a nearby planet. Our engines are down so this may be a rough landing. Brace yourselves. Barrington out.” He closed the channel and sat back into the centre seat.

“Everyone strap in,” he said to the bridge personnel.

“I’m picking up signals on the surface,” said Tyrell from a computer station. There was no response from Barrington or anyone else on the bridge. All eyes were on the approaching atmosphere. Boyett and Chavel activated their chair restraints, which curved around their shoulders.

“Changing course again, Captain,” said Boyett. “We’re slowing to entry velocities.”

The tension level on the bridge began to mount as the mysterious force that had control of the ship led it through the atmosphere of the planet.

“Report,” said Barrington to Boyett.

“Couldn’t have done it better myself, sir. Whatever has us is bringing us in on a smooth glide path towards continental land mass directly ahead,” she said.

“Chavel?” Barrington asked.

“I’m reading nitrogen oxygen atmosphere. Breathable. Class M, sir. No vegetation and the ground looks strange. It’s reading as metallic.”

Barrington looked at the visuals. The dark approaching mass was difficult to get a read on. He needed answers and control of his ship.

“Engine room, I need thruster control,” he said with haste into his comm panel.

“I’m trying, Captain,” said Emerson. “It’s a real mess down here.”

“Figure it out, Mr Emerson, before we hit the ground at a few thousand kilometres a second,” said Barrington, without hesitation. There was a pause on the comms.

“Yes, sir,” came the quiet reply.

“Sir, we’re slowing again,” said Boyett.

“Altitude ten thousand feet,” she said. “Slowing again. Forward velocity now approaching zero.” She cleared her throat.

“Tell me we have ventral thrusters,” said Barrington.

“No, sir, we have no thrusters whatsoever,” Young suddenly stated the obvious. He had been seated quietly at the rear of the bridge. “So we’re just going to fall out of the sky?” he said, standing up.

“Calm yourself, Mr Young,” Barrington said.

“I doubt very much that whatever is currently in control of this ship is just going to drop us onto the...”

Barrington was suddenly thrown from his chair.

“Dropping, sir,” shouted Boyett. The force of the drop in altitude was enough to momentarily lift anything not strapped or bolted down nearly a half a foot off the ground. It only lasted a second, but it was enough to make Tyrell throw up the contents of his stomach all over the console he had been working on.

“We’re in free fall,” shouted Boyett.

“Engine room!” Barrington shouted into his console.

“Understood, Captain!” shouted Emerson back. Barrington could hear shouting in the engine room as the reality of what was happening filtered through the crew.

“Five thousand feet,” shouted Boyett. “No flight control.” Barrington began feeling Carrie’s fear from beside him. Instinctively, she grabbed his hand and held it tightly. Her father squeezed it as he gritted his teeth, looking at the view screen as it showed a quickly approaching ground. The ship fell for what seemed like forever.

“Bridge, this is the engine room. You have thrusters,” shouted Emerson through the comms.

“Charly!” Barrington said to his head of flight.

“Firing!” she replied, not needing the order. The descent eased.

“We’re slowing,” she said.

“We’re still going to hit, sir, at this speed,” said Chavel.

Barrington looked at Carrie and tapped his comms panel. “All hands brace for impact!”

18

The planet

19:22 Martian Standard.

T
he last thing Carrie remembered before she blacked out was her father’s voice shouting over the noise of the explosion of the impact. She woke in darkness. She raised her hands to her face and felt a warm trickle of blood slide down her cheek. Her head was pounding. A spark of light to her left gave a momentary flash of light into the bridge. She couldn’t see anyone and the smell of something burning began to play heavily on her mind. Another spark from a nearby console silhouetted a dark figure standing above her. She recoiled at the suddenness of seeing them. She felt a touch at her shoulder.

“Who’s there?” she proclaimed.

“Carrie, it’s me. It’s David,” came a soft, familiar voice. The bridge began to stir with movement coming from all around her.

“Emergency lights,” came her father’s voice, sounding winded. The bridge came to life as the backup lights came on. Carrie shielded her eyes for a moment and looked around as Chavel helped her to her feet. She became dizzy and grabbed his shoulder for stability. Boyett was still strapped into the flight control seat, although she was still unconscious. The captain moved across the bridge and placed a hand on her arm.

“Charly?” he said, while checking her vitals.

“Sit down, Carrie. Let me stop this bleeding,” said Chavel, guiding Carrie over to a computer console. He removed a med kit from under a closed panel and began sealing the cut on her head with a portable dermal regenerator.

“What happened?” she asked, looking around the bridge at the people now picking themselves up off the ground. Doctor Tyrell was sitting upright next to the navigational control holding his arm and looking dazed.

“We’ve hit the ground, but we’re still in one piece thanks to the thrusters firing at the last second. Are you all right?” he asked, looking into her eyes. She nodded.

“Lieutenant, I need a neural stimulant,” said Barrington, trying to prise Boyett’s eyes open. Chavel left Carrie seated and took a small vial of stimulant to the captain, who placed it on Boyett’s neck. He waited.

“Charly?” he said softly. “Boyett, wake up. That’s an order,” he shouted. She snapped her eyes open and recoiled at the shock.

“Easy, Charly, take a breath. Anything broken?” he asked. She took several deep breaths, trying to get the effects of the stimulant under control, then looked around the bridge.

“No, sir, I think I’m okay. We down?” she said. Barrington smiled.

“Of that you can be sure. I need a status report,” he said, looking at both Boyett and Chavel. He looked at Carrie. You okay, Dice?” She nodded. Chavel looked at her.

“Everyone still here?” Barrington said to the bridge. There were some crew members who clearly needed some patching up and Young was beginning to stand up to the rear of the bridge. Barrington walked over to the centre seat and tapped the comms channel.

“Engine room?” he said. No answer.

“Medical bay,” he said after changing the comm settings.

“Comms are down, sir,” Chavel said.

“Are the lifts working?” he asked.

“Internal power is on emergency. They should be,” Chavel said.

“Carrie, come with me. Tyrell, I want you to secure your lab,” he said, looking at the doctor. Carrie knew what he meant by that. The Black was still under heavy containment but it was worth checking. Tyrell gave a slight protest, but it was quickly muted. Her father knew exactly when to turn on the command aspects of his training and he became a force not to be reckoned with nor disobeyed in a situation like this one. Tyrell began to walk to the lift.

“Tyrone,” he said, stopping the doctor in his tracks.

“As soon as you’re done, I want you to work with the bridge on getting a star fix. I want to know where the hell we are and why we’re not where we’re supposed to be. Got it?” She noticed a change in her father’s disposition. He did not like surprises and this was a big one.

“Science can be reckless,” he had told her a number of years after the death of her mother. Tyrell nodded and left the bridge. Carrie hadn’t spoken much to Tyrell in a number of weeks, due to her reassignment and training. He had become even more difficult to read. Their eyes met briefly as the lift doors closed. He face was expressionless. Seconds later a klaxon sounded.

“Life support failure. Evacuate,” came the female computer announcement in a hail of yellow lights. The message repeated as Barrington looked around the bridge.

“Engine room!” he shouted, after running to a comm panel. There was no answer. Carrie felt the air on the bridge become acrid and stale.

“Sir, we have to go,” shouted Boyett, as she started to cough. Carrie grabbed her father’s arm.

“Come on,” she said. She could feel his frustration and anger as he turned to the bridge crew.

“Evacuate,” came the female computer voice again.

“Chavel, you certain this place is breathable?” he asked the lieutenant, who was now walking quickly towards him. Chavel nodded.

“Emergency breathers on,” he said. Carrie had forgotten that the bridge held a store of breathers and followed Chavel over to a storage compartment to help distribute them. The clear devices slid over the nose and mouth and attached at the back of the head. She activated hers with a tap and felt the soothing release of oxygen into her lungs. Barrington placed his breather on and tried to access the ship’s computer again. It came to life as Boyett joined him and stood looking at the atmospheric readings of the planet they had just ‘landed’ on. He turned to Boyett.

“How long to ventilate the entire ship if we blow all the airlocks?”

“Not long,” she answered.

He stared back at the screen. “Okay, we go deck by deck. Get everyone you see to their evacuation points and start getting them off. We’ll set up a base camp just outside the ship until we can get life support backup, but in the meantime we need to get air into this ship. I’m going to the engine room. Carrie, I want you and Chavel to go to deck 24 and open the main docking airlock. Do not leave the ship until ordered. Clear?” he said looking at her. Carrie knew not to disobey her father when he looked at her like that. Commanding officer or not.

“Got it,” she said, as they entered the lift.

“What can I do?” said Young, who was standing to the rear of the bridge with his breather on. He had a patch of dried blood staining his face.

“Try and get to medical and see if they need any help,” said Barrington.

“Okay,” he said behind his breather.

“Abandon ship.”

As they turned to enter the lift Carrie suddenly felt a shock run up her spine. It faded quickly but something else started creeping into her mind. Something was watching them.

Tyrell’s lab

20:08 Martian Standard

The door to the lab hissed open. Tyrell had to cover his eyes as he entered. There was smoke everywhere and the sounds of sparks coming from the rear of the lab made him stop in his tracks.

“No,” he whispered to himself.

The lights were out and the emergency lights were intermittently flickering on and off. There had clearly been a chemical fire and the suppression system had come on. Equipment lay strewn haphazardly on the floor and parts of overhead cabling dangled aimlessly. Tyrell stepped inside and allowed the doors to close behind him. It had felt like someone had ransacked his home. He stepped across the floor towards one of the computer’s stations. There was a crunching sound underfoot as he crushed a fallen container. He recoiled his foot to check whether he had torn the material of his boot. He picked up a broken swing arm that was leaning precariously over one of the tables and examined the broken section of its base.

“Perfect,” he said out loud. “You awake in there?” he shouted into the containment area that held the sample of The Black. A light flickered on and off as Tyrell turned his concentration to the data cube he had been studying for the last several weeks. He had noticed that he had lost some weight and had to remind himself to eat sometime soon. He tapped the panel it was attached to and it lit up.

“Please,” he said, as the flow of power trickled through the device and activated the rendering of the alien structure found on the planet. Tyrell sighed and looked towards the ceiling of the lab.

“Thank God,” he said. He opened a locked drawer under the table with his thumb print and took out a small log recorder and placed it on the desk. He tapped the log recorder and it began to blink.

“Play last entry,” he said into the device. It chirped.

“Doctor Tyrone Tyrell, log entry, readings from the star fixes confirm anomalous space time permutations arising from long term FTL use. The artefact is much older than we originally thought. I believe it is upwards of several million years old. Isotopic scans of the area indicate a high level of decaying Gamma particles, indicating a
non
-natural event leading to the inhospitable nature of the planet and surrounding star system. While current FTL equations are holding true, eliminating relative variances, the boundaries between normal and hyperspace are not acting as anticipated. We may have some time dilation. End log.”

He cleared some cables from an adjacent seat and pulled himself into the desk. He tapped the recorder again.

“Doctor Tyrone Tyrell, log entry.” He paused and looked around the trashed room. “There has been a fire in the lab. A lot of the equipment has been badly damaged. Luckily the scans of the alien artefact are intact. The ship has been brought down by a technological presence on the third planet of the star system. This is not the Aristaeus system. We have not, as of yet, carried out an accurate stellar observation to ascertain our current location, but whatever has happened there is no doubt that there is some sort of technology orbiting this planet. Further tests are not possible currently, due to failing life support on board The Agathon. I am evacuating sensitive data pods and securing The Black sample. The planet appears to have an atmosphere capable of supporting life. We may be stuck here for quite a while, so I will have to...”

A noise from the containment area of the lab paused his recording. It sounded like there was something moving. His heart froze suddenly as he thought about The Black. It could not have breached its container. That was impossible. He stood and made his way over to the entrance to the containment area. He peered into the room through the glass window that separated them. There was no smoke inside but the lights had gone out completely. The only illumination came from inside the main area of the lab and it was intermittent. He tried to focus on the area of the room that held the sample of The Black. He could not see it. He reached up and released the door locks and stepped inside. He regretted Carrie not being around anymore to help him with little tasks like this one. She would have come in handy right about now. The door hissed behind him and he took a deep breath from the breather. He reached for the emergency lighting panel and tried to activate the room’s lights. There was no power flowing through the panel. A flash of light from the lab outside lit up the central containment area for a moment. Tyrell froze at the sight of the broken container. He suddenly felt like he was standing in hot liquid.

“Fuck!” he shouted into the room. He tried to turn but his legs were taken from under him. He hit the ground with a thud, striking his head solidly off the floor. He looked down to see a flash of light bounce off The Black liquid as it made its way up his legs.

“Tyrell to Barrington!” he screamed. No answer.

“No, no, no,” he shouted as he tried to reach for the walls. He knew he only had seconds left but strangely there was no pain. He had known this alien substance liquefied organic material on contact, but he was feeling no pain.

“Help!” he screamed. He always wondered what it would be like to die but hadn’t expected himself to be so frightened. How stupid had he been to bring this on board.

“Fuck you!” he screamed through the breather as The Black oozed its way over his body. Still no pain. Just constriction of his body. The liquid felt tight. He looked around and gabbed at the floor with his nails. His breather was torn from his face and, before he could reattach it, the warmth of The Black had crept up around his shoulders and neck and was now beginning to slide over his mouth. He drew a quick long breath and sealed his lips. His reflexes had taken full control.

He closed his eyes and felt the liquid cover his face. He couldn’t understand why he wasn’t dead yet. Still no pain. He lay on the ground, completely covered with The Black as it rippled and oozed around his body. It didn’t feel like liquid. It was sticky. Every inch seemed to move independently. His mouth began to feel like it was being prised open. His lips were slowly being pulled apart by what felt like tiny muscles on the surface of The Black. The pressure on his lips began to increase until they split apart. He gritted his teeth and screamed for the last time as a flood of the alien substance forced its way into his throat and down deep into his stomach and lungs. His muscles began to reflux as the pressure of the fluid filling his body deprived them of oxygen. Terror began to fill his mind as it felt like the liquid began to burst through his lungs and stomach and fill the rest of his body. He didn’t lose consciousness. He had stopped breathing seconds ago, but his mind remained fully aware. The warm fluid began to fill his head. His mind began to sink.

Tyrell? he thought he heard Carrie say, as the world began to fall away into a haze of distorted images. He suddenly felt like he were looking at his own mind in the third person. He was still alive, but not alive. It felt like he was being pushed away into the far reaches of a dark basement. His last thought was catching his reflection in the surface of a metallic container in the lab. He was standing upright. Looking at himself. Smiling. He felt ancient. He felt free. As the blackness of his mind began to overcome his conscious thoughts, he thought he heard laughter.