Chapter 3
A Rude Awakening
Aboard the command ship of the Forerunners
One day before full tine
The ship had lain silent for almost ten full cycles, coasting through the dark void on its mission of preservation, seeming almost empty. Although filled with life it still seemed like a ghost ship to anyone who might look. While its crew and passengers slept, the automated features of the ship performed various tasks that kept the slumbering crew alive by monitoring their health and stasis status. The onboard programming also kept track of the progress of the other ships in the fleet. Acting as the lead ship, the other three vessels used its position to align their own and stay close. The craft they were aboard were entirely experimental at the time of launch. There had been no time to test some of the technology incorporated into them. The people of Alta had only just begun to develop technology for space, their initial explorations were limited. Before the catastrophe they had yet to venture further than the limits of their own system.
Now…soon…they would reach the end of their long journey home. In a few sol’s* automated programming on the ship would begin the process of waking the crew. The forerunner* ships were already deep inside their home system, having survived the various perils of outer sol travel. In a few ticks the first phase of breaking thrusters would fire, altering the course of the four craft that made up the forerunners. This initial trajectory adjustment would be enough to avoid the greater part of the intense gravity well surrounding the fiery sphere. A few more preprogrammed thruster bursts further altered their course in favour of their planned approach to Alta*. The approach vector the fleet had taken on the return loop had coincidentally kept the fleet behind the sol for most of the back half of the return journey. It had made it impossible for their sensors to scan Alta in any way up till now. Adding to the difficulty with the scans was the outer hue of the sol. The radiation from the hue acted as a partial screen to their scanning technology. The interference, along with the extreme range made the whole process a waste. No attempt was to be made until all four ships performed the breaking maneuver and emerged from behind the sol. As the ships finally emerged from behind it, the sensors got their first clear look at their home in over thirteen thousand cycles.
Originally the plan had called for the on-board systems to wake the command crew when the ships were only a few sols away from entering orbit around Alta. This pre-programmed flight path would only be interrupted if something went wrong. As the ship's scanners finally finished its initial scan, the onboard computers lit up in reaction. The various displays above the main console began to come alive, registering a cacophony of radio and assorted light rays emitting from Alta, a planet that was supposed to be semi barren and abandoned. This triggered another automatic response from the onboard computer programs. Suddenly lights all over the command deck turned on. A section that had remained particularly dark up till now suddenly came alive. Machines began whirring and there were several audible beeps as a different set of computers turned on and ramped up.
In the corner of the command deck, a large rectangular light turned on, bathing what looked like a table with a transparent plastic dome over it in a bright light. It was difficult to tell what was under the dome at first, the plastic was fogged with a heavy crust of frost. Lights along the edges of the table began blinking in and out as it’s functions began to be carried out. The dome started to clear enough so that the darkened shape of a man, about six feet tall or more, could be seen laying under it. As it cleared some more you could tell he was dark skinned, with sharp elfin like features. He had close cropped jet black wavy hair and a rugged, well defined, musculature.
Shortly, there was a different whirring sound as internal pumps turned on. In a few seconds a red liquid appeared in a tube running along the length of the table leading into the subject's right arm. While another liquid, purple in colour, started traveling down another tube on the opposite side of the table, quite obviously coming out of the subject’s left arm. The technology used to keep everyone under for ten years was entirely new and relatively untested before launch. They utilized hypothermia and delta brain wave manipulation to keep the entire group in a sort of suspended animation. The hypothermia almost completely stopped the metabolic rate of the subject. An aspect that required the blood to be evacuated and replaced with a special mixture of preserves and thermal protections that served as a safeguard against cellular decay and vascular wall degradation. That process was reversed just before waking. The original blood once extracted from the subject was now heated and returned to the body, while the preservation liquid was removed, simultaneously.
It was then that the first signs of life returned to the subject. It was small, just an involuntary wiggle of a single finger. Next a small dose of adrenaline and a mild electric charge are sent directly into the heart, this facilitates the restart of the heart's normal rhythm. This caused his whole body to convulse in a spasm. Following that, the temperature in the dome and in the room was raised ever so slowly as to prevent shock. Now different tubes connected to the man’s arm began humming. These delivered vital nutrients and electrolytes to a starved system. The man’s eyes fluttered as the adrenaline began to take full effect. They opened fully revealing his light brown eyes, then shut reflexively as the harshness of the first light seen in ten cycles tried to burn a whole through his head. Which consequently caused the first noise uttered onboard in the same time period. A low, tortured groan and a loud initial exhale of stale air, followed by a ragged intake of breath and a short coughing fit. The automated program, sensing the subjects successful regaining of consciousness, reacted by opening the dome.
Now fully awake, and more prepared for the glaring power of the command deck lights, the occupant of the table swung a leg out letting it drop to the stepped platform he remembered was there from when he first crawled into the machine. He was pleasantly surprised when his assumption proved correct and the bottom of his foot met the vaguely familiar metal platform. It was shockingly cold to the touch, providing another little jolt to his system to help get things going. Swinging his other leg around while grabbing the edge of the dome he managed to get himself into a sitting position.
He noticed the tubes that reversed the delta sleep process had left his arms of their own accord and begun to retract automatically. He felt awful, his mouth was bone dry, his head hurt as if it had been struck. He noticed right away that his legs didn’t feel right yet, he didn’t think he should try walking. He seemed to recall that it would take a few minutes for the small devices embedded in his muscles to do their job. Right now he could still feel the tingling of the microelectric charges going off all over his body as the devices stimulated his long dormant musculature.
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As this was going on he took a moment to look around the room. Everything seemed to be activating in their proper sequence. He could see the telemetry display working hard to map out the path they would take to Alta. Taking a moment he placed both hands together palm to palm and closing his eyes he reached down into his subconscious to build his Sacra. Using its flow he extended it out looking for any signs of disturbance. All that came back was a steady solid vibration, nothing was altering the flow. Confident there was no danger he set about the task of confirming his physical wellness.
He looked down at his body and started feeling the major muscle groups with his hands, checking for hotspots that would indicate damage from the prolonged sleep. He found nothing. Next he tested his reflexes using a standard light phase emitter pad that was laying in wait for his use on a table beside his delta pod. Tracking the lights in position by tapping them as they appeared on the board. He didn’t miss one, proving that his mental acuity and reflex action were still intact. It appeared that he hadn’t suffered any cerebral degradation or ill effect due to prolonged, lower than normal brain function over the last ten cycles. He was about to do the air test when something caught his eye.
One of the panels on the control center on the far left was suddenly lighting up. But this panel was one that shouldn’t have been lit at all. Forgetting his earlier caution he jumped from the table, pulling out his feeding tube and almost falling on his face on the deck. He ended up catching himself on one of the nearby console chairs. Using it and the others lined up beside it as crutches he staggered from chair to chair until he was at the main dash. He sat down heavily onto the seat in front of it. He started manipulating the screen to see what the sensors had found.
This particular section of the main command deck control dash was the very last thing he had expected to be activated. This was the ship's communication and detection suite. It was installed for communication use between the ships of the fleet. With the other ships still asleep according to the display readouts, this panel should have stayed dark. He read the readings being displayed in rapid succession, not really believing his eyes at first. Alta and the tine were in the correct position, yet there were several other things wrong right away. The onboard sensors seemed to be indicating that there was upwards of four thousand pieces of debris in orbit around Alta. And something else that was very strange too, there seemed to be some sort of station? Or a permanent orbital base hanging above Alta.
Behind him he heard the command deck door slide open, someone else it seemed had awakened and managed to get themselves up and walking in a relatively short period of time.
“It’s been a long time since I’ve seen you, yet still not long enough for me, how was your sleep Cabba*”. He immediately knew who stood in the doorway.
It was an old joke between the two of them, from their shared childhood. Truthfully he was the only person on this ship who would talk to him this way, or use that title. The one person he could truly depend on. Turning in his seat he looked and found his friend Cursan standing awkwardly, leaning against the opened door frame looking at him. A friend and trusted companion since his earliest days. He turned back to the screen before replying.
“And looking at you I can tell that despite having got the proper amount of rest you are yet prepared to gripe about it still. How did you fare in your sleep, old friend?” Delta sleep was not a settled science in any way.
In the years leading up to the launch there had been extensive tests done on animals. Studying the process of intentional Hypothermia hibernation. The data indicated there was a high degree of success possible. If the subjects were young enough and strong enough. It still stood that while it did succeed most of the time there were still rare instances where the process didn’t quite take in animals.
One of the problems that occurred in a tiny fraction of instances was that a select few of the subjects suffered acute damage to the brain. No one knew why it happened, it just did, and it was completely arbitrary. Given the lack of time, it had only been tested on a small group of animals before being used on the last people of Alta in their desperate attempt to survive. Having no other choice had forced their hand. Therefore, they had anticipated a certain small percentage of the survivors would not successfully complete their delta sleep cycle.
The other possible side effect when it didn’t work as intended was instead of putting the subject to sleep temporarily, they were instead put into an irrevocable deep sleep that caused eventual brain death. He was glad to see his friend had also come out the other side alive, suffering niether malady. He would need him now more than ever by the look of the readouts.
“I’m stiff in places I did not know existed on my self. Other than that I feel fine as fin* leaves. You look worse for the wear, why didn’t you give the modules more time to revive your muscles?” Cursan could see the wreckage left behind by his friend leading away from his sleep table and ending at the dash.
But he could also see his companion was entranced by what he saw on the communications display, completely ignoring the discomfort he must be experiencing. It was then that it occurred to him why his old friend had acted so. There should be nothing coming in through that console. Looking at the other displays he could tell the other three ships still slept. So what was the console detecting? Slowly walking up behind the Cabba he started reading the data streaming across the screen. It didn’t make sense. They were in the right sol system, all the other planets were in their correct positions but Alta wasn’t Alta.
“What’s going on here Cabba? Why are we awake early? Why does Alta look inhabited?” Cursan suddenly felt confused, this wasn’t how it was supposed to happen. Had someone else invaded their home while they were gone?
“It’s the reason we were woken early old friend. I’m going to have to make some course adjustments for our ship and the others as well. I’ve slowed the main fleet's approach down somewhat to buy us more time to figure this out. It looks like we may have already been detected by the devices of whoever now occupies our home. We’re not entering orbit as planned, I’m taking us to the dark side of the tine, it should shield us from further detection, we’ll land and wake the others. We need to figure out what’s going on here” He didn’t know what had happened while they slept, whatever it had been, it had not gone to plan as they had supposed it would.
Oddly what he thought about now was Cursan and the ancient title he used in addressing him. Something that hearkened to the old days of Alta when there had been rule by ascendency. Alta had been many separate enclaves* back then, each one ruled by a single person called a Cabba, which meant leader. Each year the enclave leaders met, to discuss disputes, borders and resource boundaries, and to perhaps arrange a joining or two. Eventually populations got so large that the enclaves naturally evolved to include more than one person per enclave making decisions. The title of Cabba was discarded and replaced with Capi, which meant counselor. Although the term Cabba had long since been discarded by the people of Alta in their growth as a civilization, for Cursan, whose family had served his family for over a hundred generations, some things never changed.
His real name was Vinnor, son of Ehnor, son of Drinor. He had been born on the fifth day of the full tine during the latter part of the fourth Bactun on the planet Alta 13,500 years earlier. He was the commander of the forerunners and the chosen leader of the survivors of Alta……..