2084 The End of Days (33 page)

“Thanks, doc. Please look after Ewan for me too?”

The doctor smiled and nodded then floated off to get help to move Ewan into the field hospital area. Back in the cockpit Rajeev had worked minor miracles and he had restored some power functions. He had also managed to get some of the computer systems up and running. However, he and Jack had not been able to restore any radio communications and they had still been unable to make any contact with Mars Control. They had now been
able to ascertain their position in the solar system with a fair degree of accuracy and also where Mars was in relation to them. They could also tell that their current trajectory was continuing outwards in the solar system away from the Sun and away from Mars. Jack took the decision to try and fire up the rocket engines as he felt that he needed to reverse the Oh LII’s direction of travel and start heading back towards Mars. Even if it was going to be painfully slow without the fusion drive. Jack thought, better going towards the Big Red than away from it. They tried firing the retro rockets to bring the ship around and with luck the rockets fired up first time. Jack brought the Oh LII around on a bearing of 170 degrees to bring the ship on a trajectory towards Mars. He then tried to fire up the main rocket engines. Unfortunately, they sort of coughed and died.

“Damn, Raj, it is one step forward and two steps back.”

Jack tried again and to his relief this time the rockets fired up. The LII started heading back towards the Red Planet. Jack took the boosters up to full power. The monitors indicated that the ship was only giving him around 5,000 miles an hour. Jack and Rajeev both knew this was far too slow to get the survivors safely to Mars with the dwindling oxygen supplies. The monitors indicated the oxygen level had dropped to 45 per cent. Jack ordered Rajeev to go and investigate the source or sources of the leaking oxygen and see if anything could be done to plug the gaps and minimise the losses. Rajeev floated out of the cockpit on his mission and Jack turned his attention back to attempting to restore communications. Jack worked furiously through the systems and checklists for about forty minutes but he felt he was getting nowhere. Then suddenly he had a bit of a brainwave. He fiddled around with a few programmes and then suddenly a message popped up on his communications monitor.

LOCATOR BEACON ACTIVE. PRESS F13 TO ACTIVATE DISTRESS SIGNAL.

Hallelujah, Jack thought, it is better than nothing. Jack pressed the F13 button and activated the locator beacon distress signal and it immediately began sending out a slow PING. He was able to play around with the ping sequencing and this allowed him to send out a bespoke ping which made him smile wryly to himself. All he could do now was to keep heading slowly towards Mars and hope that someone out there in that direction was picking up his distress signal.

*

Marsdate: 14:40 Tuesday May 30, 2084 CBT

The Control Director at Mars Control down in Capitol Base had been ranting and raving over the radio waves at Xi Xhu Pan for the last few minutes. The MNET system had been fully restored and radio communication was now crystal clear. Xi Xhu was adamant that he thought that he had had been given full authority by the Shift Controller to conduct a forty eight hour search for Jack Crossan’s missing Oceanus. The Director insisted that he had not been given any such instruction and Xi Xhu stated that he must have misunderstood as a result of the comms glitches two days ago. The Director ordered Xi Xhu to turn his ship around immediately and head back for Mars orbit. The Director’s view was that he had already lost the Oh LII and he was not about to lose the Oh Two on his watch as well. Xi Xhu pleaded over his radio.

“Oh-Two to Mars Control. Only have about four hours left of the forty eight. Request permission to complete search then return Mars. Over.”

As they waited in radio silence in the cockpit of the Oh Two for the Director’s answer an unusual sound suddenly came through their comms link. Ping-ping-ping-PING-PING-PING-ping-ping-ping.

Xi Xhu looked at his co-pilot Verne Andriessen and both their jaws dropped simultaneously. The Director’s voice cut through their shocked expressions.

“Mars Control to Oh-Two. Request denied. Orders are to return to Mars immediately. Repeat immediately! Confirm. Over.”

Xi Xhu and Verne ignored Mars Control for the present as the signal came through again, loud and clear. Ping-ping-ping-PING-PING-PING-ping-ping-ping.

“That must be the Ell-Eye-Eye, Xi! But what kinda signal is that?”

“It’s an old 20
th
century distress signal. Morse code. SOS. Save our Souls. My God, Verne, they’re still alive!”

Xi Xhu replied in the negative to the Control Director about returning to Mars and that they had now picked up a distress signal from the Oh LII. Mars Control were soon able to confirm that they too were receiving the locator beacon ping. Xi Xhu and Mars Control did not take too long to triangulate the LII’s position, which was worryingly further out than they would have hoped for. They could also quickly compute that the LII was travelling back towards Xi Xhu and Mars but it would take about twenty six days to reach them. Xi Xhu requested authority to embark on the rescue mission and after a few moments left hanging in anticipation, the Control Director ordered him to proceed post haste to intercept with the distressed Oh LII. Xi Xhu took the fusion drive engines up to the max, but he still wondered if it would be enough. Hang on, Jack, hang on, buddy.

Chapter 26

Marsdate: 23:20 Monday June 26, 2084 CBT

T
wenty six days had now passed since Jack managed to send out the locator beacon distress signal from the Oh LII and unfortunately the ship had not heard a peep or come into contact with any rescue mission from Mars. Jack was also well aware that he was unlikely to hear anything from Mars Control. The Oh LII had no viable incoming communications functioning. Only the outgoing ping. The Oh LII had only managed to sail just over three and a half million miles towards the Red Planet in that time. Jack reckoned they were still at least seven million miles away from their goal and safe haven. Rajeev had identified some of the oxygen leaks and a small engineering team under his command had been cobbled together to try and minimise the leakages. The team was only partially successful and oxygen supplies were now sitting dangerously at just over three per cent and the atmospheric levels on the cockpit monitors were flashing up ‘CRITICAL’. Even with strict rationing Jack and Rajeev knew the oxygen would run out in less than a day. In fact, Jack had been unable to allow the doctors to give any additional or enriched oxygen supplies to the injured patients in the field hospital. Partly as a result of that decision there had been seven more deaths in the last three weeks. Jack felt awful, however, Dr Maqbara assured him that the deaths would have inevitably occurred anyway. It felt to Jack that his main duty these last three weeks had been on conducting the funerals of nearly one hundred and sixty of his passengers. The loss of so many burdened Jack deeply. As each vacuum-sealed wrapped body was jettisoned out into space it felt like a dagger in the heart to Jack. Rajeev could see that everything was really taking its toll on his commander. Rajeev had volunteered to take on the duty of conducting half of the funerals but Jack had barked back at him that as Space Commander it was his solemn duty to perform them. Rajeev backed off. Jack knew within himself that he was beginning to crack under the strain but he felt that he must try to protect Rajeev from the stress of this most awful duty. If Jack was to lose the plot he felt that he needed his co-pilot to be in a better place than he was mentally at present. The only good news story in the last three weeks was that Dr Maqbara had brought Ewan Sinclair out of the medically induced coma after seven days of unconsciousness. Ewan had been slowly responding well to treatment. He was still confined to bed or sometimes allowed to sit in a seat. Ewan’s his legs were temporarily paralysed. Gradually he was showing signs of feeling returning to his lower limbs. Ewan’s speech was slurred and his thought processes were impaired, but again as each day had passed he showed signs of improvement. Maqbara had diagnosed a likely minor blood clot on Ewan’s brain, although without a CAT or MRI scanner he could not be conclusive. His prognosis was that Ewan should make a full recovery given time and healing. Jill was now just short of five months pregnant and again the doctors were happy that the baby was still developing normally. The doctors did not want to risk an amniocentesis test in space as it was an unknown or unrecorded procedure. There had never been a pregnancy in space before. However, blood tests did not show up any abnormalities. The doctors were fairly certain that her baby did not have Downs Syndrome or the homozygosis which had caused Jill to terminate Khan al Ahmed’s baby. Jill and Ewan were elated at the news.

“Let’s get married Ewan – now.”

Jill felt the need to marry Ewan imminently. Jack Crossan had not spelled out to the passengers the critical situation that the ship was currently in. However, Jill’s newshound nose had been able to sniff out that the oxygen supply was now at dangerously low levels and ultimately all on board the Oh LII might not survive to see Mars. She did not let on to Ewan that they were in danger as she did not want to cause any set back to his recovery. Ewan slurred his loving response.

“Yes – let’s – get - married, Jill. Ah - love you - so - much.”

Ewan and Jill were married at noon on Thursday 22 June 2084 on board the spaceship Oceanus LII. The wedding was legally performed by Space Commander Jack Crossan. All the passengers were invited to celebrate the wedding with the happy couple, apart from those patients still in the field hospital, tended by one doctor and one nurse. Now four days after the wedding Jack and Rajeev sat idly in the cockpit. There was nothing more that could be done to speed up the Oh LII or repair any of her crippled systems. In fact, Jack had ordered everyone on board not to conduct anything of a strenuous nature in order to conserve every last ounce of oxygen. Jack looked at the ‘CRITICAL’ message continually flashing on his monitor and thought that things were beginning to look futile for everybody on board. Rajeev seemed to be reading Jack’s thoughts.

“What do you reckon Jack? It’s not looking too good?”

“Ya know what ah’d like to do, Raj?”

“No, but I’m not sure I’m going to like it.”

“Ah’d like to turn my ship around an’ just head for home.”

“But Jack, we are heading for home. Mars
is
home now!”

“Nah, Raj, Mars will never be a real home to me. Earth is ma home. Ah wanna go back to ma boys an’ ma lovely Peggy Sue –“

Rajeev Subhinder was now getting increasingly concerned about Jack’s state of mind. He thought that the stress and lack of oxygen was beginning to play tricks with Jack and Raj was not quite sure how to deal with it. So the two of them fell back into silence. The Oh LII slipped on silently through space inching ever so slowly towards Mars, with just the intermittent ping-ping of the locator beacon breaking the silence. Too slowly to save them all. Jack seemed to have slipped into a sort of trance and the worry of it made Rajeev find it difficult to concentrate. He looked across at Jack who seemed to have fallen into a deep sleep. Rajeev’s eyes also started to feel heavy and he urged himself not to fall asleep, but he could not help himself. He slipped into unconsciousness.

Dong-dong-dong-DONG-DONG-DONG-dong-dong-dong.

Rajeev’s eyes half opened but they rolled shut again.

Dong-dong-dong-DONG-DONG-DONG-dong-dong-dong.

This time Rajeev came to with the metallic knock-knocking ringing in his head and he scanned his functioning monitors for any developing fault message. He shouted across to Jack to try and waken him.

“Jack! Jack! I think we might have something going wrong, JACK!”

Slowly Jack started to come around.

“Whassup?”

“We’ve developed some sort of a knock. Maybe the ship’s starting to break up?”

Dong-dong-dong-DONG-DONG-DONG-dong-dong-dong.

Jack’s head shot bolt upright and he started to unstrap himself from his seat.

“That’s not a knock inside the ship, Raj. That’s a knock
outside
the ship. It’s SOS – my God, Raj, there’s someone out there!”

Jack craned his neck to peer out the small porthole on his side of the cockpit and then he turned around and smiled broadly at Raj.

“Fuck me, Raj, if the Oh Two isn’t sittin’ on our starboard bow.”

An astronaut outside with a jetpack on and attached to a long white umbilical cable had hauled himself around to Jack’s porthole and he tapped the SOS on the thick glass. Jack and Rajeev waved wildly back to indicate that they had seen him. Raj floated over and began hugging Jack with relief.

“HALLELUJAH! We’re saved!”

Jack gave the thumbs up to the astronaut and then quickly announced to the passengers that a rescue ship had arrived just in the nick of time. Raj smiled broadly at Jack as they listened to the raucous cheering and rapturous applause coming from the passenger cabin. The relief on board was palpable, although Raj thought that he could still detect a glimpse of sadness in the back of Jack’s eyes. Out in the passenger cabin Jill hugged Ewan and swore that she loved him to bits.

“Oh, Ewan, ah love you - ah love you - ah love you!”

Ewan joked that the feeling in his foot must be getting better as Jill seemed to be standing on it. Jill joked back that it must be something else because how could Ewan feel her weight on his foot in zero gravity. They both laughed and cried at the same time with utter relief. Jack floated past them on the way to the main air lock and he gave them both a thumbs up which they gladly reciprocated. Ten minutes later Jack returned through the passenger cabin with the spacewalking astronaut, who turned out to be the Oh Two’s co-pilot Verne Andriessen. Verne and Jack were mobbed by cheering passengers floating around them, welcoming them like returning heroes. Jack had to firmly remind everyone that the oxygen supply was critically low and that at present everyone needed to conserve their energies. Jack and Verne joined Rajeev in the cockpit and after much back slapping they sat down to listen to Verne’s account of the tale of Xi Xhu Pan ignoring orders from Mars Control to give up the search. Then Verne related that they had received Jack’s SOS just as they were about to be forced back to Mars. Jack nodded sagely.

“Ma ole pal Xi Xhu. Ah trained him well.”

Jack detailed that it was critical that they started transferring the passengers as soon as possible to the empty Oh Two as there was now only two per cent oxygen left on the Oh LII. Verne outlined that the two ships were cruising parallel to each other at five thousand miles an hour on the same course for Mars, sitting four hundred metres apart. Xi Xhu was arranging a space tender on the Oh Two to shuttle between the two ships and it could carry twenty five passengers on each trip. The whole transfer would take a good
few hours to complete, which should leave more than enough oxygen on the Oh LII in order to complete the rescue mission. Verne would stay on board the Oh LII to co-ordinate the transfer. Once they had finished discussing the plan in detail Jack announced to the passengers to get fully suited up for their imminent transfer to Xi Xhu’s ship. Initially, the able-bodied women would be transferred in batches of twenty five, then the men would follow and finally the injured, the medical staff and crew members would be last to transfer. Rajeev was assigned to select the groups for transfer. Jack would continue to maintain the ship on a parallel course with the Oh Two and Verne would organise the transfers through the air lock on to the space tender. Jack looked purposefully at Raj and Verne.

“Okay, let’s get the job done.”

About half an hour later Jill was selected to go in the first group of women on the space tender which had docked safely and was connected to the main air lock. She protested to Rajeev that she wanted to transfer with Ewan who would be in the last group of injured passengers. However, Ewan with his quiet Highland manner insisted that his new wife and baby must go on without him and Jill tearfully relented. Jack also assured her that Ewan would soon be joining her. Reluctantly Jill disappeared through the air lock and stepped onto the small cramped space tender. Once Raj and Verne had initiated the transfer process the space tender was able to do a round trip in about fifteen minutes. In about three and a half hours most of the passengers had been safely transferred. Verne had switched back to steer the Oh Two and Xi Xhu had come over to oversee the last transfer from Jack’s ship. When Xi Xhu had stepped on board he and Jack hugged each other like long lost brothers. Jack could not thank him enough for saving his ship and especially his passengers.

“You would’ve done the same for me, Jack Crossan!”

The final transfer would consist of about ten of the most seriously injured passengers, including Ewan. Followed by Dr Maqbara, three nurses, four of the remaining cabin crew, Rajeev, Xi Xhu and lastly Jack. As Ewan was passed carefully through to the space tender Jack offered him a handshake.

“You look after Jill for me, Ewan. You’ve a great wife there.”

Ewan looked at Jack quizzically as he entered the air lock.

“Hey – Jack – you can – help me – look after – Jill too. See you – in few minutes?”

“Yeah, yeah, sure Ewan.”

When Ewan was placed safely into his seat in the space tender a strange thought occurred to him. Ewan slowly thought back to the night of the friends’ End of Days last supper at Lex Kosloff’s house in Robindale Drive in Houston. A dawning thought struck him about something that Jack had said. Jack had said he would rather stay on 3R with his two boys. An involuntary tear ran down Ewan’s cheek. As the last of the injured patients were being transferred on board the space tender Dr Maqbara quietly pulled Jack aside. One of the injured patients had taken a turn for the worse with certain fatally rupturing internal injuries. Maqbara told Jack that the man was unlikely to survive more than an hour or so and certainly not the four week trip to Mars. The dying man had asked to speak to Jack. Jack went over to the field hospital area where the young man, obviously in agonising pain, still lay strapped on a bed.

“Hey there young fella – an’ what’s your name?”

“Jorge Mendoza, Commander –“

“Jorge, just call me Jack. So ya wanted to speak to me, Jorge?”

Jorge squirmed and grimaced in pain and a trickle of blood came out the side of his mouth, which Dr Maqbara wiped clean.

“Y-yeah, Jack. You see - I’m not going to – to make it – to Mars –“

“Whoa there Jorge, don’t talk like that. Sure ya are – issat right doc?”

Maqbara surreptitiously shook his head almost imperceptibly from side to side to indicate that it was in the negative. Jorge carried on speaking through the pain barrier.

“No need - to kid me, Jack – I know – I’m – dying. I – want to – stay here – and – you just – send me – home – Havana –“

Maqbara shrugged his shoulders at Jack. Xi Xhu was floating across towards the air lock gesticulating his hand in a circular motion to indicate that it was time to hurry things up. Jack indicated silently for the doctor to go on ahead. After Maqbara reluctantly moved off towards Xi Xhu and the air lock, Jack turned his attention back to Jorge. Jorge was fading fast.

“Jack – promise – me – send – home –“

“Ah promise you, Jorge, you’ll see the sun rise on Havana again.”