Fatal Boarding (2 page)

The large view screen at the front of the
conference room was patched in to the bridge forward view. On it
there was an image, back dropped by stars, an image so alien that
my mind had trouble focusing on it. It was a large and tangled
black mass of tubing and rectangular shell and canister shaped
appendages. There were short, fat stacks rising out of its
confusion, and antenna-like structures protruding from the sides,
top and bottom. Strange amber and green beams of light cast eerie
shadows at various points around the surface. There was no question
this was a spacecraft, though its macabre appearance resembled an
asteroid mining facility broken loose from its moors. I had never
seen anything like it and I was certain no one else in the room had
either. It was not of Earth.

The word ‘derelict’ kept popping into my
head. Captain Grey squirmed in his chair at the head of the table
as he flipped through a wad of computer printouts. He is a man very
much the opposite of his First Officer, Commander Tolson. Grey
looks amiable and relaxed but he is famous for verbally beheading
those who mistakenly assume themselves too loftily cast for
disciplinary encounter. Grey tends to slouch back in his seat and
make you wait. He keeps a narrow, guarded stare beneath his cropped
sandy-brown hair, and the age lines in his fair-skinned face tell
stories of missions past that did not always go as planned. He
always wears a formal light-blue uniform with a high collar and
appears comfortable in it. It is a reflection of how equally
comfortable he is in the position of Captain.

He looked up and a barely perceptible nod to
one of his officers brought the room lights down farther. The
overhead projector illuminated over the table and cast a rotating
3-D image of the alien craft. Grey pushed himself up in his seat
and spoke. "What have you got for us so far, Maureen?"

Maureen Brandon, executive officer of the
Data Analysis group, sat two seats down on the Captain's left. At
twenty-nine, she was far too young to be promoted to the position
she held. Chart maker tours are famous as training runs for up and
coming officers, some who have inside pull. Dull cruises are
supposed to make for safe personnel test beds. I have never trusted
people like Brandon. Too ambitious. She always wears her jet black
hair swept back in a tight bun in such a way that it looks more
captured and kept than cared for. Her red lipstick mouth is small
and seldom smiles. She is very attractive--and icy cold.

"One hundred and fifty-five meters at its
longest length, Captain. Using that as a longitude, the girth is
one hundred and five meters. As you can see it is drawing a
respectable amount of space. We make the displacement at forty
metric tons. We show no life signs aboard, no biology at all. There
is a reactor of some sort still active in the core. No telemetry
has been detected, no radiations of any kind, in fact. It has dual
drives located on the underside, type unknown. Clearly not of Earth
origin, and under no registry that we're familiar with."

Brandon paused to let her last statement
sink in, probably considering it favorable to the upcoming
solicitation she had in mind. "It's open to space, Captain. Notice
just below the large embedded dish antenna, there is an open
hatchway. Light is coming from the interior. Power systems are
still active. We are requesting the EVA because without one we
won't get much more than what I've just given you."

Grey gave a reserved look across the room
and waited for a reaction. He did not have to wait long. Ray
Mikels, the Chief Safety Officer, a quiet man with thinning blond
hair and deep set features, who sometimes looked as though he had
signed on for one too many missions, squirmed in his seat and
looked irritated.

"Captain, I wish to go on record right now
as opposing this deviation from our mission directives. We did not
sign up for investigation of unknowns. We are a team on a
sector-graphical charting schedule. We are not explorers."

Grey had no chance to respond. Brandon cut
in. "How can you say that? Everything we document is unexplored.
This is a research vessel, Ray. It's our job to plot everything out
here. How will you label that thing, unidentified floating
object?"

Mikels was too experienced to be
intimidated. "Maureen, you well know that scout expeditions come
out here before us to clear the unknowns. We have a prescribed
mission schedule to follow. Whatever that is out there, it does not
belong to us. Do I need to remind you of the story of Goldilocks
and the three bears?"

Brandon looked insulted, but before she
could reply Grey took control.

"Ray, I respect your misgivings about this.
Consider them duly noted. There are special instructions which deal
with mission deviations such as this. I have interpreted them as
directing us to proceed with an investigation. The EVA is go. It
will be kept short so as to be as safe as possible. This thing may
not be here on a return trip. We need to get what we can now." Grey
turned to Tolson, "Have we got a plan for docking?"

"Yes and its optimum. We're presently at
station keeping. She's drifting laterally away from us right now,
but there is no rotation. We can match her movement with minimum
use of the starboard thrusters. Fortunately there are no imposing
structures around the open hatch, so we can even get close enough
to extend a gangplank and mag-lock to it. We can literally walk
aboard her."

Grey turned his attention to the six of us,
sitting in silent, restrained jubilation. "There is no gravity
field over there. Your shoes will keep you to the gangway, but we
must assume you will get some zero-G when you get inside. Plan on
it. You will work in pairs except for Adrian. He'll be mother hen.
You all know the routine. Any problems at all, you call or go to
him. If he orders an abort at any time, everyone aborts. No
discussions. You will have twenty minutes people, no more. The less
time spent there, the less chance of anything going wrong. Touch
absolutely nothing. Multi-spectrum, hi-res cameras and hand
scanners only. Collect all the data you can. All programming
downloads will be inductive, no direct links. Smith will cover the
airlock, and the containment procedures on whatever you bring back.
We'll use the main airlock on B-deck. Your suit techs are already
on station waiting. Any questions?"

There were none. The few seconds of silence
allowed by the Captain were heavy with anticipation. He turned back
to Tolson and began dispensing detailed instructions of how he
wanted the ship and crew postured for the EVA.

As discreetly as possible, I appraised the
EVA members sitting next to me. They all wore the same dark-blue
flight suit coveralls but the similarities ended there. Little
black nametags over the left breast zipper pockets. Two men and two
women. I knew three of them well. The odd man was new.

Erin Starr sat beside me. Short ivory-blond
hair, cut semi-short with a little curl at the nape of the neck.
Pert little nose with deep, dark eyes. There was a touch of dimple
at the left corner of her mouth that seemed to make most men feel
as though she was daring them to try. Unfortunately, for them, she
had an oceanographer husband back on Earth, missing her.

Next to her, Nira Prnca. Stiff and
business-like. Dark black hair past her shoulders. Dark, low
eyebrows that turned up slightly at the end. Strong jaw. Weight
lifter. Very smart, very quick, very reserved. Trustworthy in a
crisis.

Pete Langly was next. Easygoing electrical
engineer, with an added degree in computers. He was one of the few
people I knew who had logged almost as many EVA hours as I had,
mainly because he specialized in power systems, one of the first
phases in orbital spacecraft construction. He had the Aryan look,
tarnished only by his short, graying, brown hair.

I tried to get a feel for the new guy, Frank
Parker. Blond crew cut, late twenties. Everything looked right
about him except for the permanent smirk set into his artificially
tanned expression. Overconfidence. I decided to feel uneasy about
him.

Chapter 3

For some strange reason, it is very easy for
things to go wrong in open space. It must be that the utter
vastness of it intimidates us, makes us a little less self-assured,
a little more indecisive. Perfect ingredients for promoting a
volatile atmosphere in a place that has no atmosphere at all,
except for the one you bring with you.

I was standing under the surreal canopy of
space on the grated, dull-silver gangplank that had been extended
to one corner of the alien ship. I was the last of five,
white-suited spacemen slowly making their way toward the bright
yellow glow from its open hatch. I was lagging behind.

Something had happened. I could not remember
how I had come to be there. I could not recall the technicians
suiting us up, or R.J. buying off on the suit checks. Nor could I
remember decompression, or opening the outer door. I paused on the
platform with one gloved hand on the frigid, tubular hand railing
and turned to look back at the airlock. At the end of the gangway,
the gray-silver, oval shaped outer door in the belly of Electra was
closed, as it should have been. That meant I had closed it. I could
not remember doing that. Above it, the beady dark eyes of the
B-deck airlock monitor cameras were staring down and I realized
that probably every member of the crew was glued to a monitor
somewhere, watching the team's progress, and wondering why I was
lagging behind.

I turned awkwardly back around to see the
fat, white helmet of the first EVA member tilt down and disappear
into the open hole in the mystery ship. A rush of apprehension
surged through me. I hurried along like a playful albino gorilla
and caught up to the others.

We pushed free from the security of the
gangway and drifted inside, emerging into a place of wonder, an
arcade of lights and instrumentation as large as an auditorium.
There were few familiar points of reference. The hard, uneven metal
floor was an unpleasant shade of dull crimson. The overhead was
low, a domed canopy that radiated olive green light. A fat,
fluorescent-yellow orb hung in its apex. Attached to the base of
it, a cone-shaped, ribbed anode pointed downward. Directly below, a
large, low oval table mushroomed up out of the floor. Its fat base
pulsed displeasing hews of green and gray at slow, regular
intervals.

The chamber was pear-shaped. We had entered
at the narrow end. The walls were covered by a tangle of tubes,
cables, half-spheres and darkened screens. Control stations were
scattered at intervals among them. Functionally, they were just as
incomprehensible as everything else. The room seemed like scale
model, miniature control surfaces designed for preschoolers to play
with. It was an architecture that provided little comfort to its
users. There were no control seats anywhere. No aesthetics of any
kind. I had begun to suspect that the creatures who had once
resided here were 0-G dwellers until I spied a tubular elevator
shaft on the opposite side of the chamber.

We hung together in the weightless, airless
environment, holding on to each other for stability, drinking in
the strangeness of it, the never-before-seen habitat of an unknown
culture, one that seemed wholly incompatible with our own. There
was nothing familiar, no points of commonality to identify with, no
humanoid conveniences, none of the visual or sensual comforts that
humans deem so necessary for even a minimal existence. I allowed
the moment to linger as long as possible. There was no doubt that
the crew back on board the Electra was just as mesmerized by the
views from our helmet-cams. We were all spellbound by what we saw.
I broke the spell. "Electra, this is Tarn. Are you getting
this?"

The tempered voice of Commander Tolson came
back, "It's very interesting, Mr. Tarn. You are cleared to
continue."

Erin Starr and Frank Parker, the new guy,
were carrying the hand scanners. From my position slightly behind,
I could see Erin studying hers. "Erin, anything harmful?"

Even through the sterility of the suit
intercom, there was a touch of hesitation in her voice. "No,
nothing at all that I can find. The place is a dead zone. No
radiations, no fields at all. It's spooky."

"Okay, let's pair up. Erin and Pete, take
the left. Nira and Frank, go right. We'll meet at the other end.
You guys remember, now, hands off."

I pushed myself around in time to see the
bottom of Pete's shoes, as he and Erin coasted away toward a
darkened console mounted against a section of green bulkhead. Erin
led, keeping her scanner held out along side her, running it
continuously in search of life within the control surfaces. Pete
paused and began to slowly drift over backwards in weightlessness
as he fussed with the safety line on the bulky, hi-res, multi-spec
camera. Its black, ribbed surface contrasted sharply against his
light-colored suit.

I squeezed the suit maneuver pad by my left
hip and came around to look at Nira and Frank. Nira had stopped to
set camera field adjustments. Even with the cumbersome challenges
presented by a spacesuit, she embraced her camera as though it were
a lover. She milled over it, fiddling with this, adjusting that,
intent on getting it just so. Had the intercom not remained silent,
I would have been certain she was talking to it. Someone once told
me that the only reason she had joined the space agency was so that
she would have unexplored environments to photograph. Her only
official reprimand since achieving EVA status came about because of
a legendary, unauthorized leap across a deep ravine on the dark
side of the moon, to photograph the fallen walls of an ancient
alien base in the Mare Australe region.

Frank did not wait for her to set up and was
already quite a bit ahead. Poor EVA etiquette.