Offworld (3 page)

The four of them took a moment to right themselves now that the
gravity provided by the ship's turning was gone. It was notoriously
hard to determine up or down in zero gravity, and the strange internal
sensations it caused could wreak havoc on the human body's sense
of balance, even for trained astronauts.

Trisha, in her seat beside Chris up front, moved to switch off the
VOX button.

"No, leave it on," Burke ordered, wistfully cocking an eyebrow.
"It's the last time we'll ever use it."

She didn't reply, returning to her console.

"You know, Trish . . " Terry called from his second-row seat,
a little too loudly. They all knew this tone of voice; it was Terry's
way of trying to relieve tension during an awkward silence. "If Paul
didn't wait for you back home, I'll be happy to track him down and
kick his-"

"I appreciate the sentiment, Terry," Trisha interrupted him. Her
jaw had jutted out before he was halfway through with his sentence.
This had always been her least favorite subject to discuss on the
mission. "Right now, all I'm focused on is getting us home safely,"
she replied in a professional tone, her head lingering a little closer
to the VOX control.

Terry leaned over to Owen, who was beside him in the ship's
second row of seats. "I really don't think he waited," he whispered.

Owen's eyebrows lifted marginally as he considered the notion.
The specialist's large frame was offset by unruffled African features,
a dark bald head, prescription glasses that covered his eyes, and an
even-keeled expression that rarely betrayed emotion. "Statistically
speaking, it is improbable that a male of breeding age would suppress
his hormonal drive for more than two years. But then, I'm not telling
you anything you don't already know, am I, Terry?"

Trisha snorted.

Terry ignored him, pressing on. "Tell us again, Trish, about how
Paul asked you to marry him the night before we left for Mars, and
you said ... what was it again?"

Trisha cleared her throat in a pointed sort of way, but Terry didn't
seem to notice. "It was something like `Not now' or Ask me again
when I get back,' wasn't it? I love that story," he said with fondness.

"Terry .. " Chris began.

"No, seriously!" Terry defended himself. "It's romantic! Like an
old movie. Like Gone With the Wind or Titanic."

"Weren't both of those about doomed romances?" Trisha asked
without looking at him.

"Oh, sorry, yeah ..." Terry replied, his enthusiasm squashed.
"What about you, Commander?" Terry piped up again while he
checked over his own console. The title of commander was honorary; no one could remember if it had been started by the press or by
the crew. All NASA astronauts were considered civilians, regardless
of any past military experience, but it seemed fitting for such a historic mission. Even though Chris commanded the mission, he didn't
encourage the title's use.

"Beech's got his wife and kid," Terry continued. "Trisha .s future
happiness is, well, pretty much dangling by a thread-sorry, Trish.
And the various and sundry affections I'll be receiving go without
saying." He smiled, relishing the thought. "But I don't remember you
ever mentioning anything you're looking forward to getting back to,
Chris."

Chris cast a momentary glance to Trisha at his side. She didn't
return the look, too busy fussing over her controls, readying for reentry.
He turned his gaze straight ahead, pushing all other thoughts aside.

"Mr. Beechum, prepare to uncouple the command module," said
Burke authoritatively.

Owen had opened his mouth to respond an affirmative, when
Terry pointed excitedly at the forward windows.

"Hey, what the-!" he shouted.

Everyone looked up to let their eyes gaze out the windows
into ...

Nothing.

The entire view was black. No Earth, no stars, no anything.

Chris' breath caught in his throat. There, out beyond the nose
of their ship, something seemed to be swirling, churning in the
darkness.

"What ... what's going on?" stammered Terry.

Owen said nothing. Trisha sat with her mouth agape. Chris felt his
mind go as empty and blank as the darkness into which he stared.
He couldn't take his eyes from the windows. It was utterly void; the
stars had vanished.

"Beech?" asked Chris, hoping for an opinion, an analysis,
anything.

Owen hesitated, which in and of itself was alarming. "Well, I
uh ... Commander, stars can't just disappear," he said slowly. "With
the simplest answer most often being the right one-there must be
a problem with the windows."

Terry didn't hesitate. "Right, so who threw a big space blanket
over the ship, then?"

Chris was about to tell Terry to stow the jokes when the onboard
lights flickered out and every monitor and console on the ship went
dead. There was only darkness. Both within the ship and without. It
was thick and stifling. There was a pregnant moment of stillness as
everyone held their breath, waiting.

Waiting for what they knew all too well could come next. A bang.
The ship spiraling off course. The sound of oxygen being sucked
out into space.

"Helmets on!" barked Chris, his voice the only thing audible in
the bottomless night. "Report!"

All instrumentation is down," Trisha replied, and he could hear
her flicking switches and pressing buttons like mad. "Navigation ...
non-responsive. Going for full system restart!" she yelled, her fingers
expertly clicking the controls in the dark.

"Internal lights," said Chris.

Their space suits had helmets equipped with bright internal lighting which, once lit, illuminated their faces so at least they could see
one another. The suits operated off of their own energy source and
so were unaffected by whatever had caused the ship to lose power. The glow the four helmets gave off was enough to give them a bit
of orientation within the cabin.

"Try the emergency batteries, Beech. Terry, make sure the cabin's
secure."

Terry looked up from his console and froze. "What?"

Even Trisha had stopped what she was doing and glanced at
Chris.

There was no reason to assume the command module wouldn't
be secure; it had been pressure-locked before the four of them fastened themselves into their seats. Standard procedure. But Chris didn't
care. There was no reason to assume the stars might disappear from
the sky either. The rule book had just been tossed out the window,
and his military instincts were taking over now. Whatever was happening, they were fighting for their lives; ensuring their survival was
his top priority.

"You heard me!" Chris shouted, his hands clenching the armrests
of his chair. "Lock it down, double time!"

If the amazement and shock of seeing the entire planet and star
field disappear hadn't clued in Burke's three teammates that things
had just changed in a drastic and dire way, his tone of voice jolted
them into remembering that this wasn't part of the mission. This
wasn't part of any mission.

Terry didn't question him again. Instead, the youngest member
of the crew deftly unbuckled the elaborate straps from his seat and
floated to the back of the cabin. There, he checked the two hatches
leading to the rest of the ship that were on both sides of the rear wall.
Next he pushed off, drifting carefully in the dark over to his right,
where the main exterior hatch was located.

As Terry worked, Chris leaned into the VOX control. "Houston,
this is the Ares! We are declaring an emergency! Repeat, Houston,
this is Ares declaring an emergency! And I really hope you can hear
us down there! We have lost all power to the ship. We have a possible collision-"

Terry had just double-checked the main hatch when the Ares
lurched sideways, groaned with a shudder, and then jolted forward.
Without warning, they were moving at tremendous speed. It felt as
if the ship had been launched from a slingshot; Chris, Owen, and
Trisha were mashed into the backs of their seats while Terry went
flying into the back wall.

Chris knew the sickening crunch he'd heard was the young pilot
slamming against the bulkhead.

"Terry!" Trisha shouted over the roar. Along with the speed, the
sounds both inside and outside of the ship were escalating-sounds
of rattling hardware and the ship's turbulence hitting atmosphere.
Chris' eyes darted to his right; Trisha was barely able to move her
head far enough around to look behind, clenching her every muscle
against the rising g-forces. "Terry, sound off!"

All was silent behind them.

Chris turned likewise in his seat to see the dark silhouette of
the young pilot up against the back wall, still pinned there by the
g-forces.

"Permission to leave my station-" Owen began, and Chris saw
that Trisha had fingered the clasp of her seat belt already.

"Denied, both of you!" Chris shouted back over the noise of the
out-of-control ship.

"He's hurt!" Trisha cried.

"Keep your seats, that's an order!" Chris thundered, uttering a
phrase never heard among the informal chatter observed by astronauts. "You'll just end up pinned alongside him, and I need you both
doing your jobs!"

Trisha glanced, just once, back at her teammate and then nodded,
seeming to right herself internally. Chris was in charge. She faced
forward again in her seat and focused on her station.

"If this is reentry, if that's what we're feeling ... then we're too
steep!" Owen called out. His eyes were closed, deep in concentration, and Chris knew he was basing his assertion on nothing but the sensations they were feeling and what he could remember of their position and velocity before everything went dark. "Possibly severely."

Chris' visor light flickered and went out. He looked to his left
and saw Trisha's do the same. Light was fully extinguished again,
consumed by the black nothingness.

He fought to suppress his own rising fear, trying to concentrate on
the mission, his people, his years of training. But this was a nightmare
scenario, and there were no instincts to rely on. Not for this. It was
like spontaneous blindness. He could still hear the terrible, nonstop
roar of the ship ... still feel the increasing gravity pressing him into
his seat ... still sense the unnatural vibrations of the Ares caused by
its hurtling through space faster than it was ever designed to move.

And what about Terry? Was he unconscious? Dead?

As the ship continued to accelerate, the vibrations gave way to
full-on shuddering. There was another sharp jerk, and the ship's bolts
and panels and tiles rattled against the concussion. The noise level
rose to an unbearable metallic monotone.

Something else caught Chris' attention amid the chaos, and he
smelled it before he felt it. The scent of hot steel entered his nose at the
same moment he realized his hair was wet and sticking to his head,
his entire body covered in sweat. His suit's automatic temperature
regulator would have compensated for any drastic change in climate
had it been powered, but even still, it had insulation to protect against
harsh environments. For this kind of heat to be reaching him this
fast, coupled with the burning stench ...

Dim lights blinked to life around them.

"Emergency batteries are online!" shouted Owen over the din.

It wasn't much, illuminating the cabin with something about
as strong as candlelight. Chris looked back over his shoulder at his
mission specialist. Surprisingly, Owen seemed to have maintained
his ever-present calm in spite of their circumstances. He wasn't even
sweating as much as Chris was. Chris stole a quick glance at Trisha, who seemed to be sweating even more, but she had already sprung
to life, fighting the g-forces to pore over her console.

"Give me a full systems check!" Chris called out.

"It's running now," Owen replied, his voice magnified to reach
out over the racket. "02 at forty percent capacity. Power's down to
twenty-two ..."

Owen continued to rattle off numbers, but Chris' mind drifted to
the empty space straight ahead, beyond the windows. Because even
though they were soaring at an incredible rate, even though the ship
was about to shake itself apart, and even though the temperature was
rising dangerously fast, it was what was outside of the ship that disturbed him most. Earth should've been there. Right there. Or millions
of stars had the ship been knocked off course. Or ... something.

But there was nothing. Not even in the black of space between
planets had he encountered such darkness. It was as if they'd been
swallowed....

Then something flashed in the forward window.

Chris blinked.

It was murky, and only lasted a second. But it was right there,
just past the nose of the ship. Something like nothing he had ever
seen before. Enormous. Imposing. The darkest shade of blue imaginable. Moving, swirling, very slowly. Like smoke passing before his
eyes in a blur.

Chris spun to look at Trisha, hoping she'd seen it too. But she was
still focused on her console. A glance at Owen revealed he hadn't
seen it either.

Owen was still reciting system readings when Chris interrupted
him, shouting above the clamor, "What about outside? Are you able
to pick up anything in space?"

A pause as Owen checked. He shook his head. "External scanners
are not responding, Commander. Given this heat we're feeling, which
hopefully is from the ship reentering Earth's atmosphere, it's possible that those sensors have melted off. We expected that to happen upon
reentry, you know."

The ship unexpectedly lurched sideways as if it had been blindsided by a moving object. The sudden motion was powerful and
jarring enough that Terry's unconscious form was slung against the
left wall of the command module like a rag doll, and the others were
pinched and squeezed painfully by their seats' safety belts. The lurch
was accompanied by a profound crack that they could feel, a loud
wrenching of metal, and finally an ear-piercing whine, which remained
ongoing. The ship started spinning in response.