Science Fiction S.

Admiral Young woke up, as he always did, at 0600 hours and ran a full diagnostics check  from his quarters. Everything was in order. The Admiral looked out the glass window into the infinite expanses of space. He’d spent half his life in space, starting his career as an officer on the light cruiser “The crusade”. He’d worked his way up the ranks and when he became the youngest man in the history of the USF to be made an Admiral, he thought he’d finally get some peace, only to be sent to the edge of the solar system to oversee the testing of new weapons system on a newly discovered exoplanet.

 The ship was “The Quest”, the crowning jewel of the United Space Fleet. It was equipped with three decks, four primary and two additional engines, a med bay capable of caring for up to four hundred at a time and a bio lab providing fresh oxygen and produce for a crew of almost two thousand. It was the largest and the fastest Heavy Star Cruiser ever built. It was also the only heavy cruiser in history that was fitted with a worm hole generator making it capable of traveling at light speed.

The Admiral got dressed and made his way to the control room. Even though it housed two thousand people, the Quest sometimes felt almost deserted to him. May be that was because most of the crew was asleep down in the cryo chamber, he thought, or perhaps it was just the sheer size of the gargantuan vessel. The Quest could easily have held ten times as many people. The dark corridor that lead from his quarters to the bridge had always given him the creeps, with is dangling wires and creaking noises.

As soon as he entered the control room The Warrant Officer, Liana Fargo, yelled,  “Attention! Officer on deck.” And the entire control crew shoot up and saluted.

“As you were,” the Admiral said.

The Captain of the Quest, a young man named Silas Brigsly who reminded the Admiral very much of his early days in the fleet, stepped out of his command seat, marched up to him and said, “You’re right on time Sir, we were just about to start the first test.”

“Everything in order?” The Admiral inquired.

“Yes Sir, all systems are at a hundred percent.”

 “Good.”

The bridge was perhaps the most beautiful part of the Quest, it was an entirely white colored room, with hexagon shaped panels on the walls and a large oval shaped table in the middle, where all the officers sat. At the head of the table was the captain’s command chair and an additional command chair had been added for the Admiral.

“Let’s begin” the Captain ordered as soon as they were all seated.

 But before they could something happened, the whole control room went dark, the lights started to flicker.

“What’s going on.” The captain shouted

“We seem to have been hit by an EMP, Sir,” Fargo answered.

“An EMP this far out in space, that’s impossible” the Admiral added.

 That’s when the Communications Officer, Jack Moss, stood up and said, “Sir, the comms room has picked up an incoming signal.”

“Play it on screen,” the captain ordered.

The message that followed was some sounds and noises, as if a language none of them had ever heard. “Where did this originate from?” the Admiral asked.

“Deep space, Sir,” said Moss.

 “I’m calling a meeting, I want every officer on this ship, awake or asleep, in this room within the hour. We may have just come across the first evidence of extraterrestrial life.”

****

After giving the order to inform the Janus about their location, Admiral Young returned to his quarters. He couldn’t believe it. Extraterrestrial life, the biggest discovery in human history and he would be a part of it, he would lead it!

 He sat in his bed for what seemed like hours making plans.

Meanwhile, in the command room, Captain Brigsly was busy making sure everything was perfect. The Admiral had given him a hoard of commands. The ships’ secondary engines needed to be examined and  the auxiliary weapons needed to be repaired. The Quest was mostly a research vessel and rarely needed to use its weapons. But on this journey, they couldn’t take any chances. Who knew what they would encounter. Since they didn’t have time to travel to a maintenance station for the repairs, the captain decided to dispatch a small repair shuttle because the weapons needed to be repaired from the out side.

As the Captain sat in his command seat, waiting for the repair shuttle to embark. Fargo walked up to him.

“Sir,” She whispered.

“Yes, Sargent! What is it?” he answered.

“I know it’s not my place to ask this sir, but are you sure about this?” She said.

“Sure about what, Sargent? ”

“This mission sir,” she said, “I mean who knows what’s out there, at the end of this trail. What if it leads us to something hostile?”

“Why do you think I’m having the weapons fixed,” he said with a smile on his face, “Say whatever you want to say, Sargent.”

“It’s just that, some the crew where talking and…a lot of them seem to have a bad feeling about this mission, Sir.”

“Bad feeling? We are explorers, Sargent. Fear and bad feelings have no place in out hearts. This is our duty and a direct order from out commanding officer,” he stood up, turned to her and put his hand on her shoulder. “Don’t sorry, Liana, it’s all going to be perfect. Now, tell me, is the crew up?”

She looked at him and saw nothing but determination and courage in his eyes. “Most of the crew has been awakened from cryosleep, only about two hundred are still asleep and they’ll be up and reporting for duty within the hour.”

Just as she said that, the Admiral entered the control room.

She saw him and shouted. “ATTENTION, OFFICER ON DECK!”

After putting the control crew at ease the admiral moved to where the Captain was standing.

“Captain! How are the preparations going?” he asked.

“On schedule sir, we’re about to dispatch a repair shuttle, would you like to observe the operation?”

“It would be my pleasure.”

The whole crew took their places as the watched the live footage of a small shuttle leaving the thirteenth docking bay. It was manned by a crew of four, am from the engineering corps. They were supposed to inspect the condition of the engines and make the weapons operational.

The admiral looked at the screen with great curiosity.

“Hmm! How long should thud take,” he inquired.

“An hour or so, Sir, unless there’s major damage.” Fargo told him.

“Good, good,” he said, as he saw the shuttle make its way around the outside of the Quest and get close to the engines. The work on engines was minimal so it was done within ten minutes. The shuttle crew was being lead by the chief engineer, Fiona Michelle.

She took the coms and said, “Engines in optimal condition, now moving on to the weapons.”

The Quest had four proton leaser canons and almost twenty torpedo bays and the all needed to made operation.

“They’re quite fast, aren’t they?” the Admiral remarked.

“Yes sir, not to brag or anything, but we have the best repair crew in the entire fleet,” the captain boasted.

As the shuttle moved towards the second leaser, something happened. The lights in the control room started to flicker again and alarms started going off.

“What…what is this?” The caption roared.

“It’s a secondary transmission of the signal sir, its more powerful than the last one,” Lieutenant Moss answered loudly.

When the lights finally stabilized, the footage from the shuttle did not come back.

“What’s going on, what happened to the shuttle?” Said the admiral.

“Sir it looks like the secondary transmission was so powerful it fried their coms links and navigation systems, they’re out there in the dark.” Moss said, while looking at a screen.

“WHAT!, without navigation, they’ll drift off, dispatch another shuttle immediately to reel them back in,” the Admiral commanded.

Moss turned his eyes away from the scream and said, “we can’t sir, we can’t contact the thirteenth dock. Our communications are down as well.”

“Darn it!” The captain screamed as he got out of his chair. “Fine then, I’ll do it myself,” he said before he turned around and ran to the door.

“Where are you going, boy!” the admiral yelled.

The captain stopped. “Down to the thirteenth dock, I’ll dispatch a shuttle, go myself if I have to, I can’t let them die.”

The admiral looked at him for a moment he’s an idiot, he thought but so was I. “Go!” he yelled. And the captain ran out of the room.

****

All the arrangements and repairs had been made, and with a second dispatch shuttle having safely dealt with the weapons repairs, the Quest was now ready for the long journey.

As per the Admiral’s orders, the Janus had arrived at the Quest’s location. The Admiral spoke to Captain Meera of the Janus, explained to her the nature of the “unknown signal” from Segway one, and gave her special instructions concerning the role that the Janus would play in the journey that was to come.

After briefing the Captain on the situation, the Admiral made his way to the officer’s mess, where Captain Brigsly was waiting with all of the ship’s commanding officers. He took the east corridor so that he could look outside through the huge glass panels and see the Janus looming to the side of the Quest. Half the size of the Quest with a little over a quarter of the crew, the Janus was still a marvel in its own right.

As he entered the mess hall, Officer Fargo stood up and yelled, “Attention!” The Admiral put them all at ease; all 20 of the ship’s station heads were in attendance and got straight to business. He explained to them that now that all of the arrangements were made, only one matter concerning the Quest’s mission remained to be discussed. The matter of time. He told them what Mason Reed, the ship’s head science officer had told him. Through the use of the ship’s experimental wormhole generator, they would be able to punch a hole, and travel, through space at a breakneck speed, several times faster than the speed of light. But that would have its drawbacks. Even if, through the use of wormhole technology, they would be able to make the trip in mere minutes, decades would pass away behind them. According to Officer Reed’s calculations, for every minute the ship spent traveling through the wormhole, roughly five years would pass in relative time on Earth.

The Admiral explained that the science division had estimated that, since the point of origin of the signal was about seventy-four light years away from their current location, it would take them seven to eight minutes in the wormhole to get there, which would mean a round trip would take anywhere from seventy to eighty years. He looked at the faces of the entire command crew as he told them that when they came back from this mission if at all, they would be coming back to a completely different world. All they know and love will be gone. He tried to explain why that was a sacrifice that needed to be made, but before he could speak further, Captain Brigsly stood up and said.

“With all due respect, sir, we have already had that conversation before you came here. We all knew when we signed up for the academy that this day would come. And I think I speak for all of us when  I say, we’re ready, sir. We’re prepared to do what needs to be done. So, are you ready to lead us? ”