Seeder Saga (2 page)

Awake

Her vision was blurred at the edges. Her ears were ringing. A figure stood before her, dark and ominous. A deep, rattly voice said, "What happened?"

Sarah swallowed the lump in her throat. Where was she? Who was this irate person before her? Her skin itched and her head was pounding. Her muscles felt like they were on fire. She fell to one knee and the pain almost caused her to scream. The dark figure pulled her to her feet and wrapped a towel around her shoulders. His face was close and she recognized it. Then all the memories flooded back like a tsunami.

She said, "Where the hell are we? Why did you wake up before me?"

"Those are my questions too."

"Who else is up?"

"Just us, but we might need to wake the
flight crew to get to the bottom of this."

"How long have we been in stasis? How close are we to the seed planet?"

Jack shook his head. "Sarah, we passed the seed planet a long time ago." Tears welled up in his eyes.

Sarah gasped. "Wake the
damn flight crew."

Lost

As evenly as she could, Sarah said, "Computer, what has happened?"

The computer did not respond at first. Several seconds passed before a handful of panel lights came on, indicating the computer was coming on-line.

She repeated, "Where are we?"

"On board the space vessel
Seeder
."

"Where is the vessel now?"

A few seconds ticked by. "The
Seeder
has veered off course. According to my clock, it has been traveling for eighteen million years."

"Are you kidding me?"

"No."

Sarah started to hyperventilate. Her mind was doing somersaults. She had the sudden urge to stand up and run away. But there was nowhere to go.

Jack came into the command station with Emma and Johnson in tow.

Johnson said, "This had better be good."

Sarah said to the computer, "Tell them how long we've been in stasis."

"You have been in stasis for eighteen million years."

Jack said, "Shit," and Johnson mumbled, "Damn it."

Emma shook her head and took a seat beside Sarah. She was repeating the same thing over and over, "That can't be right. It can't be right."

Jack leaned on the back of her chair and said, "That can't be true. The computer's malfunctioned or something. We don't even have enough fuel or life support for a trip that long, do we?"

The computer said, "Life support is not necessary while all occupants are in stasis. We have reserves of fuel because we have been coasting at top velocity."

Johnson did some quick math in his head, furrowed his brow and said, "Where the hell are we?"

"Unknown. This region of space has not been charted."

"I don't need coordinates, dumbass, I just want to know where we are in general."

"According to my calculations, we are in deep space, untethered to the Milky Way galaxy."

Johnson nodded and said absently, "Then we're screwed."

Jack shook his head. "Not necessarily. We made it out here without depleting our fuel supplies or using up life support. We can make it back."

Sarah cut in, "It'll be another eighteen million years before we get back to our region of the Milky Way."

"So we go back into stasis. We won't feel time pass us by."

Emma said, "It won't matter. To slow this ship down, turn it around, and then get back up to speed will take all the fuel it has left. If we set course for the wrong kind of planet, we'll be screwed. We'll never make it to another one if we're wrong."

"What do you mean, the wrong planet? Just set course for the seed planet."

Emma said, "By the time we get there, almost forty million years will have passed since we set out. When we left, the planet was optimal for human life. But a lot can change in forty million years. The star it orbits might have gone supernova or simply burned down to a weak-assed brown dwarf. The atmosphere will have definitely changed by now. There's no way to guarantee the planet is still hospitable."

Jack laughed. "If you know of another world we should head to, now's the time to speak up. Otherwise we have to go with the information we have. The seed planet isn't just our best option, it's our only option."

Sarah said, "He's right. We need to try. We'll die out here in the black unless we turn this boat around."

Jack was pacing when he said, "Better yet, let's set course for the edge of the Milky Way, have the computer wake us up, and then we'll see what's up. We can evaluate the situation better once we get closer."

Johnson said, "I agree. But can we trust this computer anymore? It didn't wake us up last time. What makes you think it'll wake us the next time?"

Sarah said to the computer, "Computer, what happened last time? Why didn't you revive us?"

"I do not know. Judging by our trajectory, we were thrown off course long before we came close to the seed planet. Perhaps a wandering black hole's gravity well nudged us off course. Maybe there is a glitch to my navigational systems. I do not have enough information to give an informed answer."

Jack said, "Let's hope it wasn't a glitch."

Sarah said, "Run a systems check."

A moment later the computer said, "All systems are optimal. However, there appears to be a problem with the stasis pods below deck."

Gone

Emma was the first to enter the pod chamber. She rushed towards the first pod and tried to peer inside but the frosty glass obscured her vision. She wrenched at the handle but it didn't give. Johnson and Sarah went to the next in line and did the same, all to no avail.

Jack yelled over the top of everyone, "Computer, open this pod!"

The pod hissed and a moment later it hinged open wide. They gathered around as the mist cleared, only to reveal an empty concave space.

Sarah said, "Computer, open the next two."

Both of those were also devoid of human bodies in stasis.

She said, "Are there any life forms aboard this vessel besides me, Jack, Emma, and Johnson?"

"I detect no other life forms."

Jack whispered, "A thousand people are missing. What does that mean?"

Johnson replied, "It means we're screwed."

Emma said, "But where did they go?"

"Maybe they were woken up during a rescue mission and evacuated," Jack offered, with no real conviction.

Sarah shook her head sadly. "Then why not take us too? In fact, why not just tow the whole damn ship to safety? That would be easier."

Sarah yelled at the room, "Computer, what happened to the colonists?"

"I have insufficient data to answer that question."

"Then guess," yelled Johnson.

"I can not. I went off-line when Sarah went into stasis."

"Why didn't you wake us up in time?" Jack blurted out.

Emma added, "And why wake us now?"

"I can only assume that there is an undiscovered glitch in my systems somewhere."

Johnson shook his head and spat on the plastic floor. "Bullshit. Are you saying one of those egg-headed geniuses who programmed you just forgot to carry the one? Do you think we're idiots, you
stupid bitch?"

The computer didn't respond.

He added, "That God damned computer has killed us all."

Emma whispered to no one in particular, "Where did the colonists go?"

Sarah had no answer to that. Even her best guesses were so wild and out of touch with reality that they were useless.

Jack said, "Even if we get to a planet perfect for human life, we're all dead. Our botanist is gone. Our chemists are gone. We needed them to survive."

Johnson added, "And don't forget that a colony is doomed to failure when it consists of only four people. We could never hope to propagate the species ourselves. The colonists were a perfect genetic mix to spread humanity, and they're missing."

Emma said, "Is it out of the question to just set coordinates back to Earth?"

"Of course it is," Sarah sighed. "The Earth had maybe five hundred years of habitability left when we set out. It's a dried up dirtball by now.”

Johnson yelled out in anger and kicked over a supply crate that was nestled against the opposite wall. When it tumbled end over end, the lid fell off. There was nothing inside it.

Jack knelt down and read the label. "This crate should have an air handler in it. Where'd it go?"

Johnson walked to the next nearest crate and popped the lid off. It was supposed to have a dozen water purifiers inside, but it was empty too.

Sarah said, "Those bastards ditched us."

Emma was crying as Johnson said, "No way. Why would they do that?"

Sarah thought for a moment and then said, "Maybe because we're useless to them. They were the colonists. We're just the crew designated with the task of getting them to the colony. Maybe the computer woke them once we touched down on the seed planet, dropped them off with everything they'd need to prosper, and then took us out of the equation by sending us so far away we could never safely get to them."

"But why?" Jack asked, his face screwed up. "We're not completely useless. Johnson's smart as hell and pretty handy, I'm a physician, you're a pilot, and Emma's got six master’s degrees. I barely know any of you but I know enough to say that we're hardly chumps."

"They already have people like us amongst them. We weren't essential."

Johnson shook his head and said, "Nope. It's a stupid explanation for two reasons. For one thing, they'd want as many mating pairs as possible to ensure the colony thrived. And secondly, they'd never let the ship leave just to take us away. The ship has life support systems and hardware that can be repurposed. If they wanted to get rid of us, they could've just told the ship to keep us locked up in stasis, or better yet, just run a sharp knife across our throats while we were immobilized."

Jack nodded. "You're right, but I think Sarah's on the right track. This whole thing stinks of sabotage, or at the very least, deception."

Emma agreed and Johnson said, "I'm not arguing with you there. This is fishy as
hell, and the only thing that has any answers is that lying computer. Emma, how are your hacking skills these days?"

"Probably not good enough to open up that computer."

Sarah asked, "Could you try anyway?"

Jack sighed. "What could it hurt now? The mission failed already."

Before they left the pod chamber, Sarah told the computer to turn them a hundred and eighty degrees and make for the edge of the Milky Way galaxy. She had a feeling the command would end up being a futile effort. It was so far away she had a tough time wrapping her head around the distance involved.

Jack was all doom and gloom, but he probably had the best handle on their predicament. Just because he was negative didn't mean he was wrong.

Reverse Course

Emma had yanked a bunch of wires from beneath the command station and spliced several of them together. Now she was digging into the system commands, trying to figure out how they'd managed to overshoot their destination by eighteen million years and with all of the colonists now missing.

Right away she hit a firewall.

The ship had turned about and was just starting to pick up speed, taking them back towards their home galaxy. The monitor clearly showed the entire Milky Way, distant and foreign. Sarah hugged her shoulders and shivered. They were as far from home as anyone could've predicted might be possible.

Johnson said, "What's the nearest galaxy to the Milky Way? Maybe it would be quicker to try to get there."

Jack smirked. "At top speed it would take us over seventy billion years to get to Andromeda. It's out of the question."

"Just a thought."

Emma motioned for Sarah to come closer. She said, "I got through the firewall, but there's nothing beyond it that makes any sense to me. I opened a couple of rudimentary programs but otherwise this computer is blank. I honestly don't even know how it's talking to us or navigating the ship."

Jack leaned in and said, "Could it have been tampered with?"

"I guess so. But why?"

"To keep us from finding out why we're all the way out here."

Johnson shook his head. "Why gut the computer though? If we were set adrift, and the computer was programmed to wake us eighteen million years later, then whoever sent us out here is long dead by now. They have nothing to fear from us."

Sarah wondered aloud, "Maybe the colonists discovered something about us they didn't like? Maybe we carry disease? Maybe our DNA wasn't up to their high standards?"

Johnson yelled, "I told you already. They didn't need to ship us out of the galaxy to get rid of us. They could've just killed us. Shit, they could've just jettisoned us into the void before touching down on the seed planet."

Jack said, "None of the answers matter at this point. Those responsible for us being out here are all dead. Even if we had answers, they'd do us no good. We need to concentrate on getting to the edge of the Milky Way. From there we'll be better able to ascertain which planet is the most hospitable."

Emma started to rewire the command station back to its original state.

Sarah said, "You're right. Let's go back into stasis until we're closer to our destination."

Johnson said, "I hate the idea of going back into stasis again. The last time we did that, we slept for nearly twenty million years."

Sarah said, "What choice do we have?"

They double-checked the systems, made sure their course was set just right, programmed the computer to wake them in another eighteen million years, and then reluctantly made their way to their respective stasis pods.

Just like before, Sarah was the last to go to sleep.