Alpha 1472 (26 page)

Each of them was calm and collected and totally in control of their stations. But inside, the excitement of returning home was a source of great excitement. Everyone was busying themselves awaiting the instruction to secure themselves for take off. There was about five minutes left and it was time for final preparations to commence. The familiar pre flight cacophony of shouted commands and status confirmations began from the crew. “Fuel level show constant…” “Flaps and ailerons functioning…” “Hull secured for take off…” “Ready to break moorings sir on your command”

This was one of the pieces of information Daniels had been waiting for. They had left one small camera stationed outside the craft to enable them to see the shuttle from an outside perspective. Daniels could clearly see the ship on his screen and was ready to give the order.
“Mister Hatch, blow the moorings please.” Without hesitation, Marius flipped open the red protective casing that had hidden the detonation button from accidental activation and pressed the red button beneath. The explosive charges detonated simultaneously. An almost inaudible dull thud was heard as the charges went off. From the outside camera the screen showed that all four charges had successfully freed the ship. As Daniels watched he could see a dim flash from the base of each mooring cable followed by a cloud of bubbles that rose to the surface. Some of the bubbles had to find their way around the body of the shuttle as they tried to escape upwards. The ship was now free from its moorings and free to manoeuvre into position for their departure.
The shockwaves from the detonations had sent an unseen reaction through the sub aqueous mountain that rose up from the shuttles position. The effect of this disturbance had dislodged a boulder that had been precariously teetering on an upper ledge. It was now balancing hazardously over their position. Watkins had been monitoring the surrounding area and had found nothing untoward with their topography that would impede their departure. The captain instructed Mary to get them into position for take off. There was now only two minutes left and all was ready. The only thing they were waiting for was the final countdown from mission control and they would be on their way home.
“Alpha 1472, this is control. Everything is showing green for launch. Countdown commencing. Take off in 30…29…28…”

At the instant the countdown had begun, high above them the boulder started to shift. The sheer weight of the rock had crushed a smaller one beneath it that had held it in its precarious position. As the smaller rock disintegrated under the weight, the larger one, which was the size of a small family car, careered towards them.

“ 9…8…7…6…” The impact was strangely subtle yet violent. The rock had hit them on the wing closest to the rise. It was totally unexpected but was severe enough to throw Mary from her seat, where she was securing her safety harness for take off, over the centre console and onto the floor at Anne Homer’s feet. The entire craft lurched upward in a fulcrum motion before it thudded back down to land firmly on its undercarriage jolting everyone. The debris from the landslide had destroyed the camera that had been monitoring the ship from the outside, so there was no visual available to the captain. The interior of the cabin was flashing red rhythmically to the sound of the alarms that were sounding. It was a piercing loud claxon sound that had started instantly the rock had hit them. “Someone Turn those bloody alarms off.” Daniels shouted. They all knew that this was the worst case scenario playing out in reality. The seriousness of this situation could not be ascertained from inside the ship Daniels ordered JD to take one of the pods out to see what the damage was. He quickly suggested that it would be quicker if he swam. The captain agreed and JD ran into the departure bay and got into a swim suit and exited through the smaller escape chamber. The scene was chaotic as they tried to make sense of what had just happened to them. Mission control was further confusing the proceedings trying to collate information from their readings to see if there was anything that could be done from home. “Stand by control; we will brief you as soon as we can.”

JD had reached the site of the impact and what he encountered horrified him. He spoke to the captain. “Sir, I can see what the problem is and things are not looking too good.
Switch your monitor to my camera and see for yourself.” Daniels changed the view screen to reflect what could be seen by DeVie. The scene outside filled the monitor and everyone starred in disbelief. They all left their posts and gathered around the screen. No one spoke they just starred. Mary was clutching her abdomen where she had been injured during the impact. She began to cry. Nothing more than a sob at first but as she realised the gravity of the situation her sob turned into a cry, the more she thought about their present position the cry turned into a panicked howl and finally she was screaming uncontrollably. Anne grabbed hold of her shoulders and slapped her firmly across the face. This was the jolt Mary needed to snap her back from panic. She was then helped back into a seat where she sat and whimpered. All was quiet and the captain mentally explored the options. The first thing he did was to cut communications between them and mission control. He could see that they were not going to be able to leave the rock had damages the port side wing. He could see from JD’s camera, that the damage incurred had left the craft incapable of flight. He thought that it was not beyond repair but by the time they had effected any restoration the home world would be to far out of orbit for them to have any chance of catching it up. The immediate options available to them were simple. Stay or go. Things were moving at a pace and some serious life altering decisions had to be made within a short space of time. He ordered JD back to the cockpit but told him to remain in contact. He turned to the others and laid out the options to them. They could not think straight under the pressure of the situation and the lack of time to decide. So any decision made would be taken on a majority vote and on impulse. They would consider the consequences later. Firstly he pointed out the obvious to them and that was that the damage meant that they could not fly. He said that although he thought that they could repair the damage there was no way they could catch the planet and they would be lost in space and eventually they would perish. He, however, was not ready to die they were here on a planet that was perfect for their needs and they could start a new more simple life here. In essence, there was only one vote on the table. Live or die. One by one he asked the question of them all. JD re-entered the cockpit and immediately said that he wanted to vote live. Hatch, Homer, Wheatley and Watkins also opted to live. When the question was asked of Mary she said that for her it was irrelevant, she was dead already. The captain had already made up his mind to live, so the vote was in. The captain now had to react quickly, because he was privy to the intentions of the home world to destroy the ship with all occupants. Knowing this he told everyone of their plans and put into action measures to counteract the inevitable.

“Hatch, Watkins I need you to find a way to disarm the core explosive. We cannot let them activate it. Get on it now! Travis, download anything you can find from home, whatever you can find. Fill our databases with as much as you can get. I don’t care what it is just get it. JD, encrypt all signals that we are sending and receiving. Hide them somehow I don’t care how just buy us enough time to save our asses. Come on people lets go!”  He turned his attention to Mary. It was obvious that she had taken this situation harder than anyone else. He knelt before here and took her hands. His voice was full of compassion as he spoke. “Mary, we are all going to loose our loved ones, so we all know how you feel and believe me if there was another option, I would take it. None of us want to stay here for ever but, if this is what it is then I would rather be here than dead. At least our families will know that we are safe. So Mary, I need you now. We all have to do this to survive.” He paused for a while to give her time to think. “Mary, can I count on you?” she considered it for an instant and came to the conclusion that this was a shared plight and her friends and colleagues needed her so she said, through her tears, that he could count on her and asked what it was he wanted her to do. He asked her to work with JD on hiding the signals from the ship. She stopped crying and joined JD who put his arm on her shoulder, squeezed it in a supportive way then turned his attention back to his console. They all knew that from this point onwards they only had each other to rely upon and suddenly it had become a life or death struggle. Now that the hastily hatched plan had been put into motion Daniels ordered the communication with mission control to be re-established. “Alpha 1472 to command are you receiving us over.” They waited for the reply. When it came, the attitude of the voice sounded different. “Err…please hold Alpha, control of this mission is being transferred to Alpha Prime.” While they were waiting for the connection to be made Marius motioned to the captain. He motioned back that he should cut communication. When he had Marius said that they had secured the codes for auto destruct and had changed them so mission control could no longer activate the device. They reconnected the communication just as Alpha Prime was coming online. They now had the upper hand in all ensuing conversations and felt more secure in their own future. But they were not going to tip their hand. The captain had decided to keep secret the fact that they had control of the detonation codes.

“Alpha this is Prime are you reading me, over.” They acknowledged the call and he continued. “Jason this is Lyle here. I’ve got Tom and Peter with me. I want you to put this conversation on the
speakers. This concerns all of you. OK, well we have had our people look at the footage from outside and I have to tell you that it doesn’t look good. We estimate that for you to effect repairs on the ship will take two to three weeks. So in this instance this is not an option. We have a change of brief for you.” Everyone was expecting them to drop the bombshell at this point. “Our historians have begun to revue the data that you sent to us and it has become apparent that our history and that of Epsilon Omega share many similarities thanks mainly to the original members of 106. We feel that their research and documentation of their mission will prove to be invaluable to us here at home. Now listen up everyone. Before you embarked on this mission there was a command placed in your captains higher orders that was only to be activated in the event of highly unusual circumstances. We never expected to have to use this option; it was a last resort instruction. But here we are. We have arrived at that point that no one ever expected or could have foreseen. The order was to initiate a self destruct sequence on board the ship to prevent contamination of the indigenous population. But, the events over the course of this mission, leads us to believe that our descendants could benefit from your presence there just as we will from the presence of 106. And so, it has been decided to rescind this order. What we are proposing is that you continue with your mission and with the mission of 106” Although they were already secure in the knowledge that they could not commit the ship to self destruct, it was comforting to know that their fellow men had compassion for their plight and would assist them until it became impossible for them to do so any longer. With this they relaxed their inwardly hostile feelings for their superiors. “Major Hooton, Peter wants to talk to you for a while now.” “Hello everyone, we are shocked that this mission has come to this. It’s no good beating about the bush at a time like this; we haven’t got the luxury of time, so I will cut to the chase.  Now that we are sure that there is no likelihood of getting you out of there, we are arranging for all of your family to come to the centre here. We will arrange private time for you to say your goodbyes, and give you as much time together as is possible. When they arrive we will let you know.” Harrison came back on line. “So here is your new mission brief. From this point onward you will be our representatives on Epsilon Omega your orders are simple. Observe and record everything you can for posterity if you carry out your orders half as good as 106 did then when we return there should be a lot of data for us to collect. For now, try to come to terms with your position. Travis we imagine that for then foreseeable future you will have your work cut out for you, so to help you we are downloading the entire psychology department library files. For now this is Alpha Prime signing off”

At this the communication went dead.
They all looked at each other. No one spoke, they simply left their posts and tried to find a private place to contemplate their fate. Jason sat at the controls of the stricken ship and starred out into the deep blue of the ocean that held them captive. Under normal circumstances he would have enjoyed the peace and tranquillity. But he felt nothing, no emotions, no thoughts…nothing. He just starred blankly at the sea. The computers were busy accepting as much information from God as quickly as they could. Hatch just watched as the lights flashed before his eyes. He couldn’t help but wish that he was a computer at the moment, simply doing what they did without feelings. He had always thought that all he needed was his intellect, but for the first time in his life he truly felt alone. It was an alien emotion for him and he did not know how he was going to come to terms with this new situation he found himself in. the ship was inharmoniously silent everyone was on their own reflecting.

The silence came to an abrupt end as Mary cried out in pain.
They were all shocked to their senses and given the present circumstances, and Mary’s demeanour all of them expected the worst. They ran to her assistance. Anne was the first to get to her and she found her doubled up crouching on the floor grasping her stomach. The accident earlier had caused more damage than they had thought. She and Watkins gently lifted her onto her bunk as she called out in pain. JD went to fetch Anne’s med kit as she began a preliminary examination. The pain Mary was feeling was intense enough to bring a fresh flood of tears to her eyes. John returned and Anne administered a shot of pain killer into Mary’s arm within minutes the pain had become more bearable. When she could be comfortable moved she was escorted to the medical bay. Anne began a thorough examination to determine the cause of the pain. She started by taking her temperature and her blood pressure. Then she hooked her up to equipment to check her circulation and her oxygen levels. Finally she scanned her stomach. When she had all of the information at her disposal she turned to Mary and gave her the prognosis. The accident has caused minor bruising to her hip and arm. The pain she was feeling in her stomach was due to nothing more than an intense cramp probably brought on by the stress of the situation. She then told her that her baby was fine. This started Mary crying again Anne place her arm tenderly around her shoulder and sat on the bed next to her.