Dominion (15 page)

Twenty-three

The bridge ended up being discovered by the other group.  Two people from the other group had run up the stairs, calling for Hawke to come join them on the lowest deck.  While it confused him that the bridge should be located on the bottommost deck, they had already run out of places he had believed it should have been.

Sky Listener
and his group met Hawke and his people at the bottom of the stairs. 

“From what you’ve told me about this ship and what it’s like to be in outer space, I feel we had been searching all the wrong places before,” Sky Listener said, walking down the passageway next to Hawke.

“But the bridge is typically on the top of a ship,” Hawke said, recalling all the ships he’d seen in movies and on television.

“
And why is that, I wonder?  Could it be that the space ships of your era had evolved from the oceangoing vessels that had essentially preceded them?” Sky Listener asked, “So these starships held onto a trait that was useful in sea vessels but would actually serve as a handicap in space vessels.”

“Go on,” Hawke said, continuing down the long corridor.

“The bridge is high on sea vessels because the Captain and his pilot needed to be able to see far ahead of the ship.  In space, you told me that visibility is useless to a pilot due to the vast amount of nothingness, thus the lack of windows.  In that case, the bridge could be anywhere.  But one could argue that windows could serve a great purpose to an interstellar vessel and especially a science vessel sent to other worlds.  Where then would you install the bridge?”

Hawke kept in step with the elderly man, then stopped suddenly and turned to him.

“You’re right,” Hawke grinned, “You’ve never left your planet and haven’t worked with spacecraft before, yet you saw something that I couldn’t.  I would have the bridge protruding from the base of the ship so that once I was in orbit of a curious planet; I could see the whole world all around me without being limited by cameras and scanners.”

Sky Listener pointed to the corridor branching off to his right.  The corridor only extended about twenty feet before
dropping as a set of stairs leading downward.  Across the expanse to the other end of the corridor was another set of stairs leading down from the passage on the other side of the ship.  Both the port and the starboard passages led down to a sunken bridge. 

Hawke led the way to the stairs and started downward.  After about ten stairs, he noticed that he had dropped into a circular chamber of ice.  The round bridge was
wrapped completely by thick windows and beyond those windows was nothing but solid white ice.  Ship safety being what it was, he was fairly certain there would have been metal covers for those windows while in flight, but while safely grounded, there would have been no need for them.

After turning toward the front of the ship, he took two more steps down to the main portion of the bridge. 
There were many expressions of awe coming from behind him as the others joined him.  He was faced with two chairs in front of him, both with a single six-inch computer screen mounted to the arm of the chair and a small keyboard extending in front of them.  Stationed at random locations around the bridge were chairs with ergonomically rounded control panels before them.

“This is beautiful,” Hawke muttered, “I can’t even imagine what the view would be from Earth or Rain’s orbit.”

“Well, if we can get this thing off the ground, you won’t have to imagine it,” Sky Listener said.

“Seriously, Hawke,” Fire Dragon said, “Do you think it’s possible?”

He shook his head, spinning slowly as he took in the whole room.  He was frightened by the necessity of so many workstations.  Would a ship this size be able to be flown by a group of people who were just winging it?

“It’s all guesswork from here,” Hawke said, moving into what he believed would be the Captain’s chair, “It’s definitely not going to be easy.”

He tapped the keys randomly, bringing the screen to life.  There were a dozen icons offered on the screen, resembling the home page on his iPad.  One of the square icons was made up of the three letters ENG compressed together.  He reached over and poked the icon with his finger.  It brought up six more icons to choose from, one of them being a radiation symbol.  He pressed that one and was presented with the same screen he saw down in the reactor control room.  The upper portion of the screen even had the same sinusoid curve moving inside the safe shaded area of the graph.

“If you don’t mind, I’d like to stay down here and see what all I can learn,” Hawke said.

“Uh, we don’t need you to try flying this ship alone, Hawke,” Light Bender said.

“
For real
,” Fire Dragon added, “We all need to learn what you’re learning if you want to have a crew who is going to help control this thing.  Even that screen right there that you’re changing with your finger - we all need to know this stuff.”

Hawke turned to those around him, amazed at how careless he
had been.  He had been arrogantly thinking of doing it all alone just because these people were from some primitive world.  Yet he had been discovering over and over again how intelligent and adaptable these people were.  He didn’t have to do this alone at all and surrounding him was a crew willing to help him figure it all out.

“You are a hundred percent right,” he replied, “I’ve been acting in arrogance and I
… I apologize.  I really need your help and I’d love to explain everything I’m doing.  I’d really appreciate your input and help in every way possible.  Thank you.”

“Then show us,” Ocean Song said, leaning on the chair behind him, “What is that thing and how did you change what it showed you?”

“Okay, gather ‘round,” Hawke said.

Twenty-four

Everyone
had to meet their beds with empty stomachs that night.  Hawke tried to avoid seeing the expressions of the children when they discovered that there truly was nothing on this ship that could be used as food.  They had plenty of fresh water and everyone was encouraged to drink copious amounts to help keep the hunger at bay.

Hawke introduced Kashuba to modern showers that evening.  What was meant to be a lesson in the water controls turned into a half hour of shared wet passion.  Although they had no soap, they both felt clean and exhausted by the time they retired to bed.

“I love you, Kashuba,” he whispered, holding her to him as they lie in the dark room, “Sincerely.”

“I love you too, Hawke,” she said, resting her head on his chest, “Do you think we will really get out of here?”

“I’m counting on it,” he replied, “I’m confident we can break our way out of the ice with an earthquake like no one has ever seen before.  I believe we can engage the lower ion thrusters and get this beast off the ground.  What I fear however is that we can’t break free from the planet’s gravity and get this thing into space.”

“Why not?” she asked.

He stared up at the ceiling.  He could barely make the outline of the light fixture traced out by the reflection of the dim red nightlights in the corners of the room.

“These controls are made for trained people, so although I can figure some things out, I haven’t been able to discover how this ship escapes the planet’s grasp.  The lower thrusters are small exhausts and only
used for landing adjustments or prelaunch adjustments.  They by no means have the power necessary to thrust a metal city into orbit.”

“Let me ask you this then,” she said, “What if we bust through the ice using your gravitational-reflex engine and
once we get off the ground, we simply land again on the surface?”

“Believe me, I’ve thought of that and I’m holding onto that as a very possible outcome.  The problem I have with that is I fear very strongly that this ship would land at a sharp angle.  In that case, I have no idea how we’d get out of this ship unless we cut our way out like we
had cut our way in.  It would be in our best interest to keep a working ship though because of the power systems and the heating.  And I don’t even want to imagine what would come of the reactor once the ship landed at an angle.”

“Why would it land at an angle?”

“This ship is a skinny long egg with a large metal ring orbiting it near the center.  I can’t even tell you how it’s sitting upright at the current moment or how it ever landed on a planet in the first place.  Basically, I imagine this ship is balancing on the bottom of its ring.  If all the ice suddenly disappeared, what would happen?”

“I’m hungry,” she whispered.

“Really?  That’s what you have to say?” he chuckled.

“Well, it’s true,” she said.

“I’m sorry,” he said, holding her tighter to him, “I wish… I wish-”

“You wish we stayed on the surface?  We’d
all be dead now.  You wish we ran from those Cheronook kidnappers in Hollodale?  You’d be a slave to the Shomani now and I’d be evaluated continually on how happy I’m keeping you while you build them their engine.  I was a slave, Hawke.  A mindless, ignorant slave.”

“But you’re not now,” he whispered, “I gave you your freedom.  You forever have the power to say yes, no, maybe, or I don’t care.”

“But do you see what I’m saying?  This is where we are today and this is better than any place else we could have been right now,” she said, kissing him on the chin, “I mean, I made love to my… what did you call it…
‘wife’
under a hot waterfall.  Twice!  Where else could I have done that?”

He laughed, “No,
you’re
my
wife!  I’m your husband.  The guy is the husband and the woman is the wife.  But I know what you’re saying.  No matter what happens, being here on the ship with you makes it all worth it.”

She rolled onto him, kissing him firmly.  He held her face in his hands, kissing her with equal passion.

“I don’t think I can do this again,” he whispered against her lips.

“Well, I think part of you disagrees strongly with that statement,
sir” she whispered back, “Besides, you don’t have to do anything but kiss me.  I’ll take care of the rest.”

Twenty-five

If Hawke had to guess, he’d say it was five or six in the morning when Fire Dragon joined him on the bridge.  The man looked tired when he ambled down the stairs and stopped at the bottom.

“I thought we agreed that you wouldn’t be going off on your own without tagging us along,” Fire Dragon said, rubbing his tired eyes.

“I probably only slept three or four hours.  When I woke up, I just couldn’t get back to sleep.  I didn’t want to wake up Kashuba, so I just came down here to search through the ship’s systems,” he replied, turning back to the control panel in front of him.

Hawke was seated at one of the control panels near the starboard side of the room.  He had discovered in the early hours that someone would be required to man this particular panel during the launch.  Since it was the only seat where someone could control the lower ion thrusters, he hoped to search through its database to see if there was another option available to launch the ship upward at escape velocity.

“I want you right here when we bring the ring online.  I’m certain that I can operate the
G-reflex ring from the Captain’s seat, but someone else has to manage the thrust engines,” he said, waving him over, “We talked a little about this yesterday, but I’m fairly certain that the thrusters can only be controlled from this station.  Remember what I said about the various thrusters?”

Fire Dragon yawned with the kind of fervent passion that made it contagious.  Hawke couldn’t help but yawn and rub his eyes in response as Fire Dragon made his way over.

“Yes, you said that attitude control is everything and that I need to adjust the thrusters accordingly,” he repeated as though reading a book, “Are you sure the computer won’t manage those?”

“I think it probably would under normal circumstances, but we are going to have icebergs and glaciers falling from various portions of the ship at random intervals.  What do you think is going to happen when a million-ton glacier falls off the forward section of the ship as we rise from the ground?”

“Granted, but the same sort of glacier will be falling from the back to offset the weight issue,” he replied, “Ice is slippery and it’s evenly distributed on the ship right now.”

“Trust me, Fire Dragon,” he stated, “I’m from Ohio and when we get glaciers on our cars in the winter and we
opt to rely on gravity and wind to remove them, we learn quickly that they slide off the car at random times and at random locations.  I know this means nothing to you, but I do have experience in this matter.”

“It’s fine.  I get it,” he replied with a
nother yawn, “I was just hoping you were going to tell me I would mostly be a backup in case the computer fails.  It’s not going to be easy monitoring fourteen thrusters and making sure each one is set correctly.”

“But you can handle it, right?” he asked.

Hawke leaned back from the thruster control panel, waving his hand across the fourteen bars that would increase or decrease each individual thruster. Fire Dragon nodded, then wandered over to one of the other control panels.

“Are we doing it today?” Fire Dragon asked, touching the control screen.

“How do you feel about it?” Hawke asked, turning to him.

“Me?” he asked,
tapping his way through the various systems they had discovered together the previous day, “I’m ready.  It sounded to me that Sky Listener was ready for us to launch last night.  I’d say you’d probably get a positive vote from most on this ship.”

“Sky Listener doesn’t count though,” Hawke said, “His vote to go was based on the fact that he located three of the known radio stars in the navigational computer.  He’s banking on the fact that we are seriously getting off this planet.  I’d say there’s a good chance we’ll get out of the ice, but I don’t know what to say about my faith that we’ll make it into
orbit.  And actually, I wonder how many people here really just want to get out of this buried city and get back to finding their new purpose on Rain.  This planet is their home.  Do they all share this dream of going to the stars?”

“I do,” a woman’s voice came from the stairs.

It was Night Whisper – the woman with the baby who was concerned a while ago that she didn’t belong.  She had her baby cradled in the crook of her arm as she finished coming down the stairs.

“I lost everything and I have to believe everyone else here did as well,” she said, locating one of the Captain’s chairs and taking a seat, “
The Shomani aren’t going to give up until all the Cheronook are gone.  Their histories tell of the Cheronook once possessing such amazing kinds of magic that they subdued all of creation.  The stories are so old that it’s quite possible this so-called magic was simply these advanced technologies we once possessed.  I also wonder if they know this to be the case.

“If you prevent the Cheronook from advancing technologically, then you can ensure the Cheronook will never
again possess the magic they once used to dominate their world.  When your ship arrived, they had to take it and prevent it from getting into Cheronook hands.  Once we had it and then we abducted you as well, they knew they must kill us.  Obliterate all of us.  Think about it.  Why would they try to sink the ship Hawke was on if they wanted him back?  Why would they rain fire on the North, destroying everything, if Hawke was so important to them?  No, Hawke was a threat to them and they wanted to possess him or to kill him.  There was no other option.”

“Dear Lord,” Hawke muttered.

“I thought as much also,” Fire Dragon said sadly.

“They want you dead, Hawke,” she said, her expression as sad as it always appeared, “And if we get out of here, it’s going to be no secret to anyone in the northern hemisphere.  The Shomani will advance with everything they have until no Cheronook remains on Rain.  You must not get us out only to land the ship again in the North.  If you do
, we will die at the hands of the Shomani.”

Hawke rose from the chair and started to pace near the icy window.  He
rubbed the back of his neck, staring down at the floor.

“You’re not making my decision any easier, Night Whisper,” he groaned, “I figured that the least I was going to do was rescue us from our burial and that would have still be
en a good thing.”

“No it wouldn’t,” she replied, “Take us to a radio star. 
Those are some very happy people.  We hear their laughter and their silliness in our telescopes.  There, we will certainly be safe.”

“Radio star,” he muttered, shaking his head, “I think I know what it is you’re l
istening to.  I was once told that they are blaring a bunch of nonsense as though people were talking without realizing they were being listened to.  That’s exactly what it was, except people weren’t talking really to each other.  They were
acting.
  You said yourself that there’s a lot of laughter and silliness.  You looked to the stars hoping that others out there would be sharing technologies, wisdom, and knowledge with the other Cheronook but all they’re sharing is their television shows and that’s not even intentional.  And I can tell you from experience that the other Cheronook out there would have never imagined in their wildest dreams that they would be sharing their televised plays with their own distant relatives in other areas of the galaxy!”

“I didn’t mean to upset you, Hawke,” she said, turning to him with fear in her eyes.

“No, you didn’t upset me.  I upset myself actually,” he said, halting his mindless pacing, “I just feel like the butt of the universe’s biggest joke.  Seriously, it’s nothing to do with you or anyone else for that matter.  I’m just being hit suddenly with a lot of reality I wasn’t ready for.”

“So, what does this mean?” Fire Dragon asked, “Are we still going to attempt a launch today?”

Hawke pressed his head against the cold glass, looking through the thick window into the solid wall of ice.  He rubbed the back of his head, wishing all this responsibility wasn’t dropped onto his shoulders.  He turned back around and looked from Fire Dragon to the woman who was staring down at the now wakened infant.

“Yeah, we’re going to find a way to get out of here,” he said, knowing full well that he
had one option at his disposal that he would have never attempted if he were on Earth.