Paws and Planets Read online

  The separate hull area that housed the livestock and the fresh agricultural produce had disappeared completely, attached as it was to the main hull via two large shafts at the rear of the vessel. Something must have sheared off these access shafts but he knew not what. He made a mental note to assign someone to find out what food and water stocks remained in the main sphere.

  As Jim Cranston ploughed his way through the data recordings he found out what had caused the disaster.

  Although he and the Chief Petty Officer had been calling the phenomena a space storm, this description was not scientifically accurate although Jim believed that the words summed it up pretty well.

  A distant star had gone nova and instead of imploding had exploded. The blast had spread outwards with immeasurable speed and force, gathering up whatever space flotsam and jetsam it met in its path. The computers had recorded the moment of the explosion and indeed the visual recordings displayed a miniscule pinprick of light, impossible to see with the naked eye. It was only when the petty officer magnified the recording over twelve times that he managed to locate it.

  They had been lucky. If the convoy had been any closer, nothing would have survived.

  The rating assigned to communications began to speak into his voice-mike, like Petty Officer Cranston making notes on his keypad. After some time, he transferred his report over to Chief Lutterell, who read it with a look of almost magical surprise on his face. Communications were working between all the surviving sections. He began to feel a little better. Jim Cranston caught his eye and gave him the thumbs up, indicating that he was in control of the situation and that the ship was not in any immediate danger.

  Leaning back, CPO Lutterell surveyed the bridge from the command chair. They weren’t finished yet. Not by a long shot.

  All the commissioned officers bar Commander MacIntosh and two junior engineering lieutenants were dead. The officers’ quarters had not survived a direct impact of a large something, he presumed a chunk of space rock. Of the ten thousand colonists aboard, at least two thousand had perished; the inhabitants of sections five and nine. Section six was in a critical state but the rescue teams were reporting survivors.

  Over two thirds of the crew had survived. CPO Lutterell was relieved. He would need them all if they were going to get out of this alive.

  The engines were damaged but reports from engineering were encouraging. The power-core was undamaged. The WCCS Argyll would be able to move under her own power within twenty-four ship hours. EVA reports said that the port side of the ship was in good condition. Damage control parties were busy making the starboard safe. The air locks continued to hold but food stocks were at a low level, there only being enough for two weeks and that with strict rationing. Water was marginally better, there being enough in the ship’s central vats for approximately four weeks.

  They had to complete the repairs, get the WCCS Argyll moving and find a viable planet on which to land before they died of thirst and malnutrition.

  Robert Lutterell turned to Rating Rybak who had to his great astonishment, found himself in complete charge of navigation, having in recent months received training in this department.

  “Any sign of the other ships?” he asked.

  James Rybak gulped and shook his head.

  CPO Lutterell pursed his lips together and nodded, this news was not unexpected. He looked the curly-haired Rybak straight in the eye.

  “You need to find us a planet. A viable planet is our only chance.”

  The young man gulped again then raised his hand in a half salute to show that he understood. Taking a deep breath he pressed the buttons that would reboot the navigation computers.

  * * * * *

  In colony section six, as on the bridge, there was no warning of the disaster.

  One minute Tara Sullivan and her family were sitting down to their evening meal, their usual occupation at this time of day, the next there was a violent shudder and all the lights went out. The ship’s alarm klaxon blared out.

  There was no time to lose. Tara’s father grabbed her round the waist and thrust her without ceremony into one of the emergency cabinets before turning towards her little brother.

  As the door whooshed shut she caught a glimpse of her mother, little Mark in her arms, dashing towards the cabinet to her right. Mark was frightened of the cabinets. Last time they’d practised emergency drill he’d kicked and shouted, refusing to go in.

  The perspex misted over and Tara saw nothing more. It was as if she was in another world, full of unexplainable noises and movement. Her cabinet turned upside down, then back again. It continued to do so again and again.

  It was during one of these upside down periods that Tara passed out.

  * * * * *

  A ship hour after the computers rebooted, Tara became aware of her surroundings once more. She existed in a world of silence. A gregarious youngster, she found the situation particularly trying. She was not afraid, at least not yet, knowing as she did that all life support facilities on the ship, even this small one, held enough air to keep her alive for twenty-four hours. There was even a small container of water. Papa would come and let her out soon. She started to count to pass the time and then recited every line of poetry she knew.

  She took a small sip of the water. Wise beyond her twelve years, she had no way of knowing just when her father would come so she thought it best if she eked it out.

  Where is Papa? How are mother and little Mark? What happened? Why did the klaxon go off? There was no one to answer her; alone, she fretted, counted, recited and worried, then fretted, counted, recited and worried some more.

  It seemed like a whole ship day but in fact was in reality only half that time when she became aware of noises outside her cabinet and through the misty door she spied movement. Screwing up her eyes to see better, she made out two indistinct figures. She could not hear what they were saying. The emergency units were not designed for ease of listening from within.

  “This one has been activated,” said Winston Randall, ship’s vet and pressed into this rescue mission five hours before. He was tired, heart-sore and weary. Not all of the colonists in section six had made it.

  As Leading Rating Laura Merriman, in charge of this rescue and repair party had said as she detailed him to her squad, “I need someone who can cope with major injuries. You’re a vet. Humans have bones that break and tissue that gets damaged just like our animal friends. Come with me.”

  She looked up from the bodies she was examining.

  “Wait until I get these covered,” she said. “The roster says this cabin held two adults and two children of twelve and four.” Looking down at a very small body, she added, “this one’s the younger.”

  Laura dragged Tara’s mother over to lie her beside her dead husband then lifted young Mark and laid the little boy on top of his parents. An untidy bundle of bunk coverlets became their shroud.

  Laura stepped back and checked that the makeshift shroud covered all the bodies.

  “United in death,” she whispered, closing her eyes for a few seconds in respect before turning to Winston. Mark was not the first dead child she had come across this fateful day. Youngsters were less able to cope with the multiple stresses of pressure changes and other space accidents; these were assured facts. In consequence, a high proportion of the three hundred or so dead in colony section six were children.

  “It’s the living I’m more worried about,” Winston grunted as he turned towards Tara’s cabinet.

  He busied himself checking the cabinet’s external readings. Inside, Tara saw his silhouette through the Perspex and braced herself for the compression exchange as the cabinet readied itself for opening. She had practised this, although nobody had thought she would ever need to do it for real.

  Laura moved with careful steps towards Winston. Although the gravity had been restored, it was not yet stabilised to normal levels and was apt to fluctuate without warning.

  “Well?”

  “No
rmal,” was his terse reply.

  “Get on with it then.”

  There was a whoosh as the door opened. Tara tumbled out of the cabinet with a low groan. Winston caught her in strong arms and lowered her to the floor. The girl looked up at him, a dazed expression on her face. Laura knelt down beside her.

  “How are you feeling pumpkin?”

  “Bit woozy,” was the reply then Tara started to retch as a prelude to losing whatever remained in her stomach.

  The two adults turned her into the recovery position. Too late Laura realised that Tara was now facing the covered bundle that had been her family.

  Tara’s eyes opened wide as she began to comprehend what she was seeing.

  Through another bout of retching she cried out, “Mark?” She began to sob.

  Laura looked over. To her horror she realised that she had not been quite as efficient with the body-coverings as she had thought. A pitiful little hand was peeking out of the covers nearest Tara. Laura wrapped her arms round Tara, trying to give what comfort she could.

  It was not enough.

  The cries got louder. Tara screamed out the loss of her father, her mother and her little brother. Tears poured down her cheeks. She began to choke and to thrash about as the hysterics took hold.

  Her rescuers looked at each other.

  “Better give her a shot.”

  Winston pressed the hypospray to Tara’s right arm. Her eyes fluttered once then closed as her body went limp in his arms.

  * * * * *

  EPISODE 3 – SEARCH

  On the bridge, Rating Rybak was struggling with the star maps. An earnest young man, he had the reputation of being meticulous in his duties and was a brilliant mathematician. The son of a colonial farming couple, at the age of sixteen he had decided that farming was not the life for him and had asked to join the Argyll’s crew. Without that sense of adventure and independent spirit, he would probably have done what his parents wished and remained with them in the colonial sections studying farm technology.

  James Rybak had without knowing it, become one of the most important, if not the most important member of the ship’s company. Nobody realised it yet, some never would. He would be the one who would save all their lives.

  He coughed now to get attention.

  “Chief?”

  The exhausted Chief Petty Officer looked at him. It had been a very long day and it wasn’t over yet. His eyes were red rimmed with tiredness and his mouth was set in a tight line. There was so much to organise and bar the engineering officers who had quite enough to do in the engine room, nobody else able to take temporary command. At least Commander MacIntosh would be well enough to take some of the load from his shoulders in a few hours; at least that was what the medics were telling him. He would get some shuteye then.

  He squinted at Rybak who saw this as an invitation to proceed.

  “I think I know where we are sir!” he said, his eyes blinking excitedly from behind his gold-rimmed spectacles. James Rybak was one of the few people unable to wear optical lens implants.

  Robert Lutterell heaved himself to his feet and walked the five paces towards the navigation console. Hooking a mov-chair with one foot, he placed it to his satisfaction and sat down with a grunt.

  “Right Chief,” James Rybak began, his fingers flicking over the keypad. On cue a star map came up on screen.

  “This is where we are.”

  Robert Lutterell looked at the map but was none the wiser. Long ago he had decided that the technicalities of star navigation were beyond him.

  There was a pause. Rybak was waiting for a reaction. Glancing at him, the Chief realised that the young man was looking inordinately proud of himself, as if he had achieved something that merited a great deal of approbation.

  “That’s good Rybak,” his superior encouraged, nodding at the screen, “and where exactly is that?”

  “Not where we should be Chief, in fact, er, quite far away in fact.”

  With an increasing sense of foreboding, the CPO asked the question again.

  “Where exactly?”

  James turned his head to speak to him. He spoke in a low voice. He knew that Robert Lutterell wouldn’t want this news bandied about.

  “Light-years Chief. Unexplored space. Even unmanned probes haven’t been this far out.”

  “Light-years? You sure about this?”

  “Yes I am. I have checked and double-checked the calculations. I am right.”

  He sounded so sure and confident and Robert Lutterell believed him.

  “How did it happen?”

  “Dunno. I only know where we are, not how.”

  The CPO took a deep breath and looked at the lad.

  “I don’t want anyone told just yet.”

  I understand. I won’t say a thing.” He looked his Chief straight in the eye. “Will we ever get back to our home system again?”

  A sombre shake of the head was James’s answer but he had known it already. It would not be possible to get home.

  “I’ll be getting on with looking for a likely planet then,” he said and turned once more towards the console, touched the save command on the keypad and started to bring up more information. He screen began to display a rippling mass of data, incomprehensible to the CPO. The older man stood up stiffly.

  “I’ll send you over one of the evaluation technicians if I can find one,” he said, placing one hand on James’s shoulder and pressing it down to emphasise his next point. “I say again to keep quiet about this. I don’t want a panic if the crew and passengers find out before we have some answers to give them.”

  He went back to the command chair; temporarily his command chair and sat down.

  When James looked over twenty minutes later, Robert Lutterell was fast asleep.

  Stuart MacIntosh left him there when he re-entered the bridge some hours later.

  James repeated the devastating news to the man who was now the ship’s commanding officer.

  Stuart MacIntosh nodded, barked a few orders and the senior surviving evaluation technician arrived on the run. Two assistants followed a short while afterwards.

  James went for a rest in the anteroom adjacent to the bridge where temporary bunks had been set up. The technicians began the tedious task of checking all the worlds that they might possibly reach for the features that would support human life. If they felt it a forlorn hope, no matter, human nature being what it was, they would try.

  * * * * *

  Some days later, and on James Rybak’s advice, the WCCS Argyll began to move towards the most populous sector (planet-wise) of this part of the galaxy. Repairs were completed; the dead consigned to their airless grave in space. Some semblance of order returned to both colonists and crew, but none would ever be the same again. They had gone through too much.

  The least affected by it all were the surviving colonists, some seven thousand, seven hundred and seventy six. Life continued much as normal. Two babies were born. Food was prepared and water rationed out. There were less of both than before, but nobody was complaining. To stave off panic, Commander MacIntosh told the colonists part of the truth. He explained where they were and that there was no possibility of their return. There had been no major reaction panic to this news. There was some grumbling, but the colonists, with a few vocal exceptions took the news remarkably well, much to Commander MacIntosh’s relief. He had been prepared for trouble.

  Stuart MacIntosh then told a blatant lie as he informed the colony leaders that they had found a suitable planet with landfall in three weeks. The colonists harangued him constantly for information. Commander MacIntosh was quite naturally evasive in his replies, citing recurring transmitter problems as the reason for the scarcity of available data. With great acumen he managed to answer their questions in a general manner, not giving away any hint of the fact that what he was describing to them was largely a figment of his imagination. With an inward smile CPO Robert Lutterell listened to his CO’s handling of the situation and audibly ch
uckled when Stuart said that he wasn’t sure what the planet looked like, as the visual transmissions were so poor, adding that all he knew for certain was that the planet was round.

  Only a selected few knew the truth. After sober discussion between the remaining commissioned and senior non-commissioned officers, the ship was readied for the worst. A mechanism was set up which would send the entire ship’s complement painlessly and permanently to sleep if a planet could not be found before the remaining food and water ran out.

  Knowing nothing of this, specialists and technicians prepared for their arrival on their new world. Databases were downloaded from the ship’s computers on to temporary clipdiscs for use on the handheld datboxes that would be used on the planet. The batteries on the handheld datboxes would only last three months on the surface; there was no way they could be recharged once the WCCS Argyll’s engines were shut down. The portable solar chargers were not designed for heavy usage on a planetary surface so the data was also transferred on to sheets of durapaper as a more permanent library medium.

  Everything that could be of use was being tagged, boxed and otherwise prepared for transfer from the ship on the planetary surface. It was intended that the ship be stripped of everything that might possibly be of use. Portable cages were prepared and strapped down for the remaining animals to ease both their descent to the surface and their transfer off the ship.

  The crew kept, mostly by choice, apart from the colony sections. They knew or guessed the truth. They were in a sombre mood, preferring to spend what might well be the final days of their lives with their families. They also did not want to quell hysterical passenger riots that might develop if a crewmember inadvertently said something to let the truth about the situation out. It was safer for all concerned if they kept their distance and counsel.