Farlost: Arrival Read online

  She turned to the hunched over native american man, observed his too-young face reflected by his workstation screen as he tapped out lines of code in a diagnostic window he had somehow accessed.

  “Beacham, what are you doing?” Lou asked. There was no response.

  She was about to ask him again when the blue lines of text winked off her screen. She tapped to the screen and stared at a command level authentication code. She blinked, and stared back at the man who had defeated Haskam’s in-house corporate security in seconds flat.

  Yeah, maybe he was worth the money they paid him.

  “We need to move the ship,” he muttered finally.

  “We’re losing the emergency propellant jets.” Third Officer Villanueva shouted. “They’re exterior to what little protective plating Six’s tanks have, so they’re getting blasted by smaller rocks that haven’t made their way inside yet.”

  “Anything you can do about that, Doc?” Lou called out.

  One sarcastic grunt from the native american, asshole genius was all she rated. His fingers kept moving on the screen.

  Lou flipped through emergency readouts, looking for something, anything. Her heart sank with every line she scanned, but her trademark stubborn refusal to accept the worst had been fully engaged.

  She would find a way.

  “Call for help!” VP Burkov barked at her.

  “Sure, that'll work!” Beacham said without looking up. “At full burn nobody’d be here for a week, tops, Alexei.”

  The blue light appeared on Lou’s screen again, just long enough for her to notice it in her peripheral vision. She dug through traffic from his terminal to see what he was doing.

  It was a security lockout. He was disabling them almost as fast as they rose up to block his access requests. She didn't know what he was after but she was impressed by the speed with which he was mowing through the systems.

  She mirrored his terminal and watched as Beacham accessed the control system for one of the prototype arrays he'd had installed around the ship.

  Code name: Light Show.

  Lou remembered the reason Beacham was on the bridge right now: the fuss he had kicked up about personally locking down his prototype emitters. “You think your science project help us? Beacham? Beacham!”

  He held his hand, palm out towards her, the universal symbol to shut up. “Trying to save our lives here,” he muttered, swiping and tapping madly.

  Burkov reached a hand out for Beacham’s shoulder. “You can fix this, Stewart?”

  Beacham didn’t waste time even grunting a response, just kept his head down and working.

  Lou watched her display, still slaved to his, as a new window opened. Another computer animation exploded to full screen. She saw the red flare of his fingertips mirrored on her screen and looked over to see Beacham flipping the image around, tracing the power lines that connected the field emitters that Haskam had paid to spread evenly across the surface area of 6.

  The image pulled back, and she saw the ghostly outlines of the pipeline of cables that was the spaceship’s electrical system. The top half of the ship was awash with red lines, showing minimal power reaching past the engines and reactors at the base of the ship. The reactor systems themselves though, were still glowing green.

  “The readout's wrong,” Beacham said, his voice rising hopefully. More tapping, more swiping and the reactor expanded on their mirrored screens.

  Even Lou could tell that automated ship's systems had restored the power reactor to near full functionality. “Reactors are fine... Shit, yes, they're fine!” The screen image blurred again, and Lou could see the error diagnostics where power mains and backups had both been severed by impacts, effectively cutting power off from the majority of Six.

  Beacham slammed the screen with a closed fist. “Too bad we can’t get to any of the power they’re generating!”

  Alexei turned to Villanueva. “You heard! What are you doing to get the power back!”

  Beacham answered first. “What do you wanna do, Alexei? Order someone out to patch up conduits? The ship is being shredded, a space suit wouldn't last long enough to do the job!”

  “If we can’t get the power back,” Lou asked, afraid the man wouldn’t have an answer, “then what do we do?”

  Beacham’s head twisted, searching around. “Stan.” Beacham called. “Stanislaw!”

  “What!” the youth shrieked.

  Lou scanned the circular room and saw Renic at one of the workstations farthest from Beacham. He was strapped down and had a death grip on his harness. He’d gone white as a sheet.

  “We’re firing up a light show!”

  “Yes!” cackled Burkov. “Oh, Beacham, I could kiss you.”

  “Why?! What good will that do ten minutes from now!” Renic wailed. “There’s not enough power to sustain a sphere without the reactors!”

  Beacham shook his head. "I... squirrelled away some power, don't worry about that. Besides, we just need to maintain it long enough to cycle up a displacement field and plot a course before we’re swiss-cheesed.”

  “Cycle up a—“ Lou started laughing. “Wait, you want to take us FTL? your solution to death by tiny rocks is to kill us faster?”

  12

  Sorry," Dina grunted to herself as she pressed the adhesive bandage smooth against the scientist's head. His eyes didn't open. She strapped him down to one of the stations running down the side of the tank and pushed off, watching him float beneath the strap. She didn't know the man's name, he'd come aboard with Beacham's group back at Mars, but that didn't make watching his pain any easier.

  Once she was clear she pushed herself over to the conveyer built into a column running down the center of the tank. As she floated she stared at the dozens of injured and unconscious people strapped down in the stations designed for the crew's comfort and safety as they weathered the radiation storm.

  So many hurt, she thought.

  She grabbed hold of the skinny-ladder-like handle of the conveyer and let it carry her down toward the med station at the center. It was too crowded and too chaotic in the packed storm cellar to hog the free space with a long coast. She was forced to go slowly, and look at so many bleeding and moaning women and men as she traversed the fifty meters to the med station.

  The hammering on the walls changed every moment. Thunderous and world-ending one moment, then a constant sandpaper-scratching the next. Every little ping and pop squeezed her heart. It was exhausting, being so scared and being so helpless all at once.

  Ahead she saw Doctor Sanders pass something to Raj and point at a woman with blood trickling from her ears. Raj nodded and kicked off the cushioned wall of the med station.

  Knowing they worked well under stress, Doc had drafted Dina, Murray and Raj to aid him. Grant, the second shift Doctor, was in the other cellar. Each cellar should also have a nurse or two -there were five on board- but Doc was on his own in this cellar. No nurses at all.

  Dina tried not to think about what that why crew was missing, what that might mean.

  "Doc!" She touched down beside Forrest Sanders, holding onto his bicep tight. He put a hand under her other arm, pulling her close.

  "Breaking regs, hon," she murmured close to his ear.

  He laughed, just a little. "They can dock my pay if we live."

  Still, a brief hug was all they had time for.

  "What do you need next?" she asked.

  Doc’s eyes flitted to the open supply cabinets. He reached out and pushed a velcro strap closed before the plastic boxes inside drifted all the way free. "I think that's everyone for now," he said.

  They both tightened their grips on each other as another thunderclap hit outside, setting off a chain reaction of groans and ticks from the walls, like a submarine narrowly escaping a depth charge.

  A second chain reaction of screams and sobs followed.

  "There's got to be something else we can do!" Dina said.

  Doc smiled, the lined map of his face a beautiful life study.
"Now? We wait, darlin'. I know it's not your strong suit, but the rest is up to Dwyer, and whoever's in C&C. We just wait..praying might not hurt though."

  In between the planets, the stars shine brighter than they appear on Earth. With no atmosphere to dull their brilliance, they become all the more like diamonds. Anything man-made reflects their light, and the polished and painted skin of Haskam Heliocentric Lab 6 stood out from the emptiness like a beacon.

  Or a firework, once the fragments of rock and dust began shredding the ship's skin. Oxygen, too, gleamed like a million tiny diamonds as it sprayed out from torn and jagged walls and froze in the deep-freeze cold.

  Handfuls of minutes after the rocks began to kiss the stacks of gigantic, repurposed fuel tanks that encircled the spine of HHL-6, plumes of frozen and glittering atmospheric gases sprayed like crystalline arterial blood. The dying ship spun awkwardly, and more of its violated skin sloughed off in its uncontrolled tumble .

  All these death throes took place in the silence of the vacuum, while inside the craft, groans escaped from the wrenched frame and the chaotic drum beat of impacts terrified all who waited for their end.

  Everyone in the Command and Control module of 6 was frozen in place, eyes trained on the acting Commander and the brilliant scientist. For these few, the roar of the space debris shaking their fragile metal womb apart faded in the background as all assembled waited on their next words.

  “You want to take us FTL?" Lou said. "Your solution to death by tiny rocks is to kill us faster?”

  "Want to? Fuck, no! It’s not like we've got another a choice." Beacham tapped three fingers against his forehead roughly, eyes crunched shut. “If I can get a sustainable force field around us, we should hold together long enough to make a short jump, no time to plan anything more auspicious.”

  “Holy Mothers,” Burkov said. “You haven't tested using force fields during FTL! Not outside a simulation! Hell, you’ve never tested your force fields on a live crew! No fucking way are you risking my life!”

  At his station, a bark of laughter escaped Third Officer Villanueva. "This isn't a sim! Those rocks out there aren't going to re-set if this doesn't work like you want it to, Beacham!"

  “You paid for the math!” Beacham roared at his patron, ignoring Villanueva. “And the math is golden. As for energy, well... I never discharged the FTL Pods." Now he looked over his shoulder at Villanueva, whose face was turning rapidly red. "Yeah yeah You can fine me for unsafe practices after you thank me for saving our lives!" He looked back to Burkov.

  "They can make a jump right now, and whatever external force makes ships go boom when they go hyper-light will be blocked by my force field! You're gonna want to make it up to me for being an asshole when this is all over. Buy me another island, that's a good place to start!"

  “Jesus, Beacham!" Alexei retorted. "Remember USS Zeus? An armored battleship designed to withstand nuke impacts? Even she didn’t survive FTL... and this thing's a bunch of balloons and tin cans by comparison. You are not risking my fucking life as a lab rat!”

  "I'm not keen on playing hamster in the microwave, Chief," Taggart murmured. Lou turned to look at him. How had such a big man crossed to her side so quietly? He smiled. "But even if it doesn't work, going out fast beats asphyxiation, or a space walk without a suit."

  Something in her started to break, hearing the proud, stubborn black man and former soldier reduced to weighing in on how he wanted his life to end.

  Then it made her angry again.

  "Alright," Lou called out in her command voice. "Quiet now, everyone!"

  She cast her eyes back to Beacham. Yes, he was a genius. And yes, he was like most civilians in a crisis, he was terrified. But was he terrified enough to see things as they really were? S he couldn't see the arrogant prick ever imagining his life was truly over.

  Her instincts told her he really believed Believed his pet projects would save him, believed he could protect the ship and initiate a Faster Than Light drive transit.

  Even after Burkov had invoked the specter of the Zeus again, Lou thought.

  She had heard a million reasons for why the government had been so foolish as to risk almost fifty lives chasing the dream of faster than light travel.

  Most of them amounted to imperialism.

  In every ruling body there were those who thought they were better, they were more deserving of the gifts of the universe than everyone else who had ever reached for something. So, of course, the universe would bend for them, when it didn’t bend for anyone else.

  In other words, fools.

  Of course Zeus had been atomized, like every ship before it and since. Lou shook her head, and almost laughed despite the pain the shake had stirred up.

  Are we there? she wondered. Is there no way out but to try FTL again? Was Beacham really so arrogant, so delusional that he thought his parlor trick with force fields could be the miracle escape HHL-6 needed?

  Then again, if the only other options were suffocation when the air ran out, or worse, having her lungs sucked out through her mouth when the vacuum clawed its way in to C&C, well... she was with Taggart. She'd rather go out in a big bang.

  “Officer Okoro, mate your nav console with Doctor Beacham’s terminal and plot a course.”

  The words were out of Lou’s mouth before she realized she’d said them.

  13

  “Officer Okoro," Lou called out, "mate your nav console with Doctor Beacham’s terminal and plot a course.”

  "No!" Vice President Burkov boomed, struggling to free an arm from the webbing of his seat.

  “Chief Montagne,” a voice whispered. “Don’t do this.”

  Lou looked up to Third Officer Villanueva floating toward her, illuminated by reflected, red and blue overrides on her screen. Two more loud micrometeorites gonged of HHL-6’s skin as he floated closer.

  “I know. It’s bad," He continued near her ear . "But you don’t really believe Beacham can make us go faster than light without flaming out, do you?”

  VP Burkov had crawled arduously along the wall railings towards her as well. “Listen to him, dammit!" the Veep pleaded angrily. "Stewart has never tested his plans. We need…we need machine trials, and then years of animal trials before human testing.”

  "Return to your seat, Mr. Burkov," Lou said cooly, her eyes narrowed at his in warning. "Or I will have Taggart put you in your seat."

  "Yes, Ma'am," Taggart echoed, his voice betraying happiness at the prospect.

  Burkov's face grew ugly, but he shut up and backed up to his seat again.

  “Years, Alexei?” Beacham snorted. “We won't last hours if we stay here.” His fingers kept sliding on glass, examining the navigation data sent to his screen by Okoro.

  Villanueva leaned in even closer. “Every egghead that’s ever attempted FTL said they got the math right. No one ship has ever survived!”

  Lou looked back down to the monitor where a security prompt hovered over the FTL arming screen. Apparently even Beacham couldn’t override the security on that system. Yet.

  She stared at the prompt requesting Dwyer’s password.

  Until she and another ranking officer notified the computer Dwyer was dead.

  As another barrage of micrometeorites pounded the side of the craft, Lou stared back up at Villanueva, her expression fierce. “Hear that? We’re being shotgunned to death, and if that doesn't get us?" She leaned in close. "Pablo, if you have another option to beat the rocks, the radiation or becoming spacesickles, don't keep it to yourself! Tell me!”

  Villanueva's jaw clamped like steel beneath his skin. He shook his head, eyes roving, reflecting the search for alternatives going on inside his skull. Then he looked across to Beacham. “I thought your force field could stop radiation?” he challenged. “Why the jump?”

  “Morons!” Beacham moaned. “Yeah, my force field can block radiation-until the reserve power is all gone! You should be glad I've been keeping the FTL pods charged up, despite your whining about the regs, and t
he dangers of charged particles in an enclosed environment. That juice is all that we've got, unless you've got a secret power line back to the reactor! So, can you guys hurry up and have your pissing match already? We gotta go!”

  From behind Lou came Taggart’s deep voice. “Lucky you, Doc. Get to skip all the way to testing with us live guinea pigs, huh?”

  Beacham offered the security officer his index finger as he swiped through diagrams on his monitor with his other hand. His eyes scanned the images and numbers on the screen and he started nodding vigorously. Then he clapped his hands together, bowing his head for just a moment.

  “Golden math!” Beacham roared, and tapped the screen again.

  Lou felt a momentary hum in her bones, then it was gone. The background drum beat of rocks hitting the skin of the ship disappeared, too.

  She tapped open an exterior camera feed and gasped. A ghostly green light shimmered between the camera and the stars. It was faint enough Lou wondered if she was only seeing what she wanted to see, until something impacted the curtain of ghostly green.

  The entire screen flared brilliant green. Even as the light faded, another small circle of green blossomed. And another. And another.

  Serene silence filled the C&C.

  It was Lou's first time seeing what Ed had described in his final moments... And he'd been right. The sight filled her with awe.

  Lou looked at Beacham. “Holy shit.”

  Beacham grinned, manic and sweaty. “I don’t do autographs.” He turned back to his screens and let out a shaky sigh. He raised his hand and waved blindly in Renic's direction. “Oh, any time you want to help, Stan? Reroute every watt you can find to keep this Light Show going!”

  This time, the kid jumped to it, whooping like mad.

  Lou floated free of her chair, hands grabbing at a porthole over her head. She stared out at the curtain of green, smiling a little more at each protective flare of light.

  Holy Shit, she said again.

  14