> (Engineering Bay, Freighter Roses for Jolene)
In the end it took three days to get everything hooked together. Seamus had managed to bring the maneuvering thrusters online in a few hours, well before Erica finished getting the navigation systems working with Doctor Geitzmann's classic inertial navigation system. It was definitely classic, but it had served not only to let them straighten out the Jolene's slight spin but to pinpoint their course and position within a few hundred kilometers. Good enough for the task at hand at least.
Seamus finished the final checks on the control connections and secured the cover over of the comms panel and reached for his tablet to report in.
"Captain, we're finished down here. The field generator is connected and wired in, interface should be available through the navigation console."
"Thanks Seamus. Good work. I'll get the Doctors started transferring the field parameters now. You should have half an hour to secure Engineering for maneuvering."
"We'll be ready in ten. I'll send Erica up once we're secure, just in case there are any issues at that end."
Returning tools to their racks and policing the few other floating pieces of debris took less than the allotted time so Seamus sent Erica up early. He was doing a last sweep of the bay for loose items when Doctor Eastman hauled himself through the hatchway.
"What's cooking Doctor?" Seamus continued checking panels and ensuring everything was properly secured. It only took one loose tool to ruin someone's day when the drive kicked in.
"Well Mister Henderson," the older Doctor replied, "since I'm one of two people who understands the field module's operation, and Doctor Roche is the only one who can program it on the fly, I thought I'd come down and monitor the system."
"Happy to have you." Seamus grabbed one of the acceleration webs from a storage locker and maneuvered it over next to the module. "You can strap into this once I have it set up."
Since none of the scientists had been able to answer the question of what they would experience while the drive was active Seamus figured the harness would help. He didn't even know if the floor - what was normally the floor, when the main drive was active - would end up being the ceiling or just another bulkhead, it seemed like a reasonable precaution.
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> (Bridge, Freighter Roses for Jolene)
"We're ready for the field test Captain."
Corwin was both relieved and apprehensive. If this worked they'd be OK. But despite the assurances from the two physicists there was no guarantee that it wouldn't kill them. Or worse.
"Thank you, Bridgette." Returning to his station Corwin activated the ship-wide PA. "All hands. Field test will commence in one minute. Secure for manuevers, signal when ready."
Corwin strapped himself in and watched the navigation timer counting down.
"Erica, can you get the camera feed from the drone on the main screen?"
The engineer grunted - the one that meant she was thinking about a problem - then started typing commands into the console at her station. Within seconds the main screen lit up and displayed the view from the drone on the hull. While not useful for navigation it was better than having no external information.
Over the next few seconds the crew and passenger status displays all transitioned to 'secure' as everyone used their tablets to report in, everyone showing ready well within the time limit. Corwin strapped himself in and watched the last few seconds tick down on the navigation clock.
"Field activation in three... two... one... activating."
Nothing happened for several seconds that felt like minutes to Corwin. He was just about to ask for an update when the camera feed from the drone... changed. It was hard to put a finger on it, but there was a subtle difference in the quality of the light. Away from the hull the few visible lights seemed to twist somehow.
"Field established, hold steady."
"Doctor Roche, report please."
The man seemed different now that his experiment was under way. More focused.
"Captain, the field is stable. Geometry is good, no fluctuations or deformations. Everything is within computed tolerance."
Even his odd speech cadence had faded, leaving just a hint of an accent.
"Proceed with thruster test. Bradley, as discussed."
"Roger Captain, rear thrusters set for twenty five percent output for two minutes. Programmed and on the clock."
They'd survived this far. Corwin hoped their luck would hold for just a little longer.
"Execute."
Brad activated the timed burn and Corwin turned back to the main screen to see if there was any visible result. Within moments the display seemed to go crazy, lines of brilliant blue light streaking back along their heading like some terrible special effect. The field ahead of them began to glow, the light building over only a handful of seconds before the feed cut out completely.
"What the hell just hap..."
Corwin didn't get to finish the question before the lights went out.
Not again!
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> (Ceres Traffic Control, Ceres Station)
"Roger Blue Illusion, you are cleared to dock. Proceed on lane seven."
Just like most days, Steven Dobbs was bored. Which was exactly how he liked it. As one of only two traffic controllers on duty the only time he wasn't bored was when somebody screwed up. Since the Blue Illusion was the only freighter due in today the 'skies' around Ceres were clear, meaning this was going to be a satisfactorily uneventful shift.
Having no other traffic in the zone meant he could focus entirely on the freighter as it maneuvered towards the assigned docking gantry. Steve spent the next few minutes arranging camera views, trajectory plots and so on to give him as much detail as he could. He pulled up the docking history for the freighter on a side screen and started scrolling through the notes made by other traffic controllers when Blue Illusion had docked in the past.
"Hey Steve," Lisa McNaughton interrupted his train of thought. "Did you see that?"
Steve had no idea what she was talking about, everything was going perfectly with the freighter. He was just scanning his displays for some anomaly when the system highlighted a flash in one of the camera views. An analysis window popped up showing a pulse of white noise running up and down the EM spectrum.
"Well shit. There goes my day."
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It took almost five minutes to backtrack through the recordings from the various sensor arrays to get an idea of what had happened. Whatever had caused the trace and subsequent burst of noise hadn't shown up on the ranging scanners, so apparently it had been moving faster than either RADAR nor LIDAR could handle. The EM antenna arrays however had a clear record of the object passing through, but the figures they gave were boggling even to a mind as unimaginative as Steve's.
"Look, if these are right then something tore through our space at a sizeable fraction of C then what, hit a stray dust particle or something?"
None of it made sense to either of the traffic controllers, so they followed protocol and passed the buck up to Ceres Management. When they couldn't figure it out they called in some of the people from the Ceres observatory who immediately demanded that they not be bothered with such obvious pranks.
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Of course, that got Steve and Lisa pulled from the desk and marched up to the Management office.
"Look, if someone is pulling a joke here, it ain't us." Steve shrugged, completely at a loss about it. "We just spotted the thing, we didn't make it."
An irate astronomer, clearly dismissing the entire thing as an attempt to ruin his day, was patently unimpressed. Before he could launch into an angry lecture about how important he was or some such nonsense Station Manager Kittrick shut him down.
"Can it, Fred. This is serious." She dragged a few reports from various departments onto the board room display. "We've checked the logs, they're pristine. The arrays are calibrated correctly. Whatever it was, it's for real."
'Fred' sat back and glared at the Station Manager for a moment, then sighed.
"According to the data we had a near miss from an object travelling somewhat in excess of quarter light speed that doesn't show up on any scanner other than the EM arrays but somehow emits electromagnetic radiation up to the gamma range. There's just no such thing."
"That's what they said about antimatter conversion, Doctor Andrews."
None of which made any sense to Steve, but then he was apparently only here due to the misfortune of having observed the damned thing.
"Uh, Madam Station Manager?" Lisa was clearly uncomfortable interrupting the discussion. "According to the triangulation from the array the final burst came from about fifteen hundred klicks outside of our monitoring range. Shouldn't we send one of the S&R ships to check it out?"
Doctor Andrews scowled at her, but the Station Manager seemed surprised.
"Oh god, I must be losing it." She punched a number into the room's comms deck, ringing through to the station's Search and Rescue office. A young officer answered the call, appearing on the room's screen, but she cut him off before he could speak.
"Lieutenant Mears, please have the Major send two ships out to the following coordinates." She read off the numbers from the report in front of her, then forwarded them to the S&R office in a station memo. "I want a full sweep of the area, report back what they find. Tell Bill to be careful, we don't know what he's likely to find out there."
"Certainly Station Manager, I'll get on it immediately."
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> (Near-Ceres Space, Sol System)
The S&R ships approached the coordinates cautiously, scanners working overtime to map anything in the area. On the bridge of the Wren Major William Peyton was watching the scan display, looking for anything that might endanger his ships. They were a few hundred kilometers from the target zone when he started to get radar returns.
"Jay this is Wren. We have radar returns, bearing five by negative twelve, range approximately 80km. Do you have it?"
"Confirmed Major, sending targeting data now."
The data from the two ships gave a more accurate triangulation on the object and Bill sent orders to the helm of both ships to approach cautiously. No IFF or transmissions of any kind that his sensors could detect, but nor could they find any traces of hazardous radiation. Thermal imaging showed a cool spot, a little under normal temperature for a ship rather than the extremely low temperature of a deep-space object.
As they drew nearer the visuals improved, showing the outline of a freighter-class spaceship.
"Alright team, we have a ship out there. Nil emissions, hull temperature is low but not cold, negative on lights. Rescue team suit up. We'll be in place in two minutes."
Bill pulled up the mission system and drew up a quick plan, placing the two ships near the wreckage to provide illumination while the Rescue team went over to the wreck to investigate. Scanners were clear so they didn't need any special preparations for incoming debris or micro-meteorites so a pair of jet bikes - open frames with handholds, gyros and a simple liquid-fuel thruster - would be sufficient.
He sent the plan over to the Jay and watched as the smaller ship adjusted thrusters to arrive on target. Shortly both ships slid into the indicated spots and killed thrust, stationary with respect to the wreck, and activated their flood lights.
As the floods illuminated the ship and Bill could assess the damage he shook his head. This wasn't going to be pretty.
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> (Engineering Bay, Freighter Roses for Jolene)
"Still with me Doc?" Seamus finally managed to locate his tablet and get the torch to light up, giving them a little illumination. Nothing seemed to have exploded and Doctor Eastman looked unharmed.
"Still here Mister Henderson. Wherever here is."
As far as Seamus was concerned, 'where' could wait. He rummaged in one of the storage cabinets and produced a couple of hand lights.
"Looks like we blew out the secondary conduit again." He started trying to connect the tablet to the emergency net. Nothing seemed to be working. When the tablet shut down after a few tries and wouldn't power on he gave up on it.
"Looks like whatever happened fried the power supply on the tablet too." Seamus handed one of the torches to Doctor Eastman. "Take this and run up to the bridge, would ya? See if you can find out what's going on. I'm going to see what state the power conduits are in, try to get the lights back on."
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Ted was deeply concerned. He'd managed to get to the top deck and was making his way to the bridge and still hadn't encountered anyone else. The ship felt dead, making him very glad he was not superstitious. Plenty of old horror movies had scenes just like this one.
He was relieved when he finally heard voices from the direction of the bridge.
"...even the tablets are drained. The only things that are still powered are running on fuel cells and chemical batteries."
Ted finally reached the bridge hatchway, finding it only partially open. He'd been thinking about the power issue and hearing that chemical power sources still functioned gave him the hint he needed. He rapped the torch against the frame to gather attention.
"I might be able to explain that."
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> (S&R Vessel Wren, Near-Ceres Space)
The rescue team had reached the hull and started sending data back to the Wren, and Bill just couldn't make it fit any reasonable pattern. Main drive holed, sensor and comms blisters destroyed, extensive impact damage to the hull... but none of it looked random. What the hell had done this to a freighter?
Worse, the freighter shouldn't be anywhere near here. The only nearby ship that matched was the Roses for Jolene, which wasn't due in for another three weeks. Nobody had heard from the Jolene in a while, but that wasn't unusual. Intra-system communications were expensive to run and most freighters didn't get in touch until they were about a day out.
Bill sent a request to Ceres Control to ping the Jolene just in case, then turned back to the feed from his team. They'd found an undamaged airlock but it wasn't responding even to the emergency power pack, so they'd started trying to access the manual controls.
Of course they could just tow the wreckage back to Ceres, but both regs and the Station Master's information pack required a full sweep before Bill could break out the grapples.
One of the rescue team's icons blinked, indicating they'd found something of interest.
"What have you got Riley?"
"Looks like a wrecked maintenance drone, Major." Riley's camera focused in on a lump of twisted metal and circuitry. "Something smashed it hard, but there's an umbilical. I'm going to trace it back, see where it exited the ship."
That was definitely out of place. Bill froze the video feed, then zoomed into it to examine the damage to the drone. No sign of impact damage, it looked more like something had twisted the top of the droid halfway around until it tore.
But if there was a maintenance drone on the hull that meant someone had sent it out there.
"Check on it Riley. Thompson, how's that airlock coming?"
"Almost open Major. The access hatch for the manual controls was jammed, we had to cut it off. No gassing from the lock yet."
Since freighters often didn't pressurize the airlocks unless needed, that wasn't an indicator either way. Bill kept the rescue leader's video feed open, hoping to catch a glimpse of a sealed inner lock.
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> (Bridge, Freighter Roses for Jolene)
"Mister Henderson is working on restoring power, but I suspect he'll be disappointed. I believe that the reactor is no longer operational."
Corwin frowned. If the reactor was offline then this was the end of the line.
"Without reactor power, and with everything more complex than a battery pack failing, how long until we lose antimatter containment?"
Even asking the question brought the deep-seated fear of AM annihilation to the surface. Corwin knew it was clearly visible in his expression. Strangely the physicist smiled in response to the question.
"If I'm right, about the same time as the lights went out."
If they weren't in free-fall Corwin suspected that most of the crew would have leapt to their feet at that statement. As it was there were a number of exclamations from around the bridge. It took a lot of effort and most of his training to not react.
"Since we're still here, can we assume that we're not about to be annihilated by a delayed AM explosion?"
"Oh no, we're quite safe Captain. In fact I'd be rather surprised if there were any antimatter particles left within a hundred kilometers. I'll need to study the data recorders when we get to Ceres, but it appears that the collapsing FTL field..."
"OK," Corwin interrupted, "explain later. For now we don't even how power enough to send an emergency signal out."
As far as Corwin could tell the whole exercise had been a failure. Not only were they still adrift in space with no idea of where exactly they were, but without power they now had only a few hours to live.
He was just turning to send Erica back down to help Seamus in engineering when he caught a flash of light in the passageway outside the bridge.
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Thompson grunted to himself when the outer lock finally cleared the frame. He could see through to the lock's inner door which appeared intact. No light was visible in the viewing port on the inner door though, even emergency lights were down.
"Major, inner lock appears intact. No sign of light inside." It took only a moment to reach the inner door and check the emergency mechanical pressure gauges. "Green on pressure. We're going to need a seal to crack this open."
"Roger that. We'll bring the Wren over and extend the rescue tunnel."
In the time it took to get the Wren in position and extend the tube Thompson was able to finish his examination. He and Carla Rios were in position to secure the flange around the open airlock, filling any suspicious gaps with expanding foam. They worked quickly and within a few minutes the rescue ship was pumping atmosphere into the final chamber.
He was so focused on the process that it was Rios who first noticed the change.
"Major, looks like we get to play taxi today."
Thompson glanced at the inner lock. While the port was still dark the rescue tube's lighting was enough to show faces beyond it.
Well damn, guess we get to celebrate this one after all.