The Pathfinder Project (43 page)

“Did you make this for me?”
Thomas asked Lucy curiously. She looked up at him with brilliant, excited dark
eyes and nodded with a smile, carefully hugging her father’s leg. Her dark hair
was bound up in a ponytail and she had on a bright blue dress.

“It’s so that you know which
end to
think
with next time,” she said innocently. “You think with the
side that eats apples!”

The crowd erupted in laughter
and it took a few minutes for the commotion to die down. Thomas stood there
with a confused look on his face as Colonel Neeland stepped up to the
microphone. “I know you’re confused, Thomas, so I will explain. Corporal
Henderson told me the tale of your mighty trek across deck four during the
wasteland crisis,” Murray announced, quieting the crowd with the strength of
his voice. “But if you find yourself in a similar situation again, we in the
military would suggest that the
next
time you run across
deck three
all the way to the lifts at the
rear
of the
Pathfinder
. As you
know, they take you directly to the Lab wing, and it’s much safer than flashing
your badge and forcing our marines to escort you down to deck four so you can
sprint across a potential battle zone.” Once again, Thomas felt his face
flushing with embarrassment. He glanced out into the crowd and found Kari, who
was standing at the rear of the group laughing and applauding with everyone
else.

“What can I say?” Thomas
decided, stepping up to the podium and speaking into the microphone. “I didn’t
know your troops had the entire area cordoned off. Tactical strategy is
your
department, Colonel – not mine!” He triumphantly held Lucy’s picture in the
air and Kaufield thumped him firmly on his back.

“Spoken like a true civilian,”
Dennis shouted into the microphone, clapping his hands. He turned and pointed
to both Glen and Thomas who stood side by side with their new medals dangling.
“Congratulations, gentlemen!”

“
Congratulations!
” the
entire crowd repeated, right before the noise became too loud for anyone to
hear anything except for the clapping, hoots and hollers.

“Congratulations indeed,”
Thomas repeated to himself, thinking back to just how far he had come in just a
few short months. With the experience he had gained working on the
Pathfinder
Project, he was now accomplishing
more
by working a
lighter
schedule each day than he ever had while putting in the longer hours. He had
become a teacher, and – although he wouldn’t recognize it for a few more years
– a true leader as well. He lifted Lucy up into his arms and gently hugged her
before kissing her firmly on one cheek. Next he carefully handed her back to
Corporal Henderson to the delight of the cheering crowd surrounding them.

*    
* * *     *

The next morning found Kaufield
sitting calmly in the Command Dome, listening to the activity around him. Mary
was busy scanning the immediate area with motion sensors, quickly locating the
latest Canary Probe to return from yet another of Dr. Markham’s test sites. She
turned and nodded at the Captain, acknowledging the probe’s successful journey.
Across from her, Adam sat at his station carefully monitoring the
Pathfinder
’s
current course alongside the outer edge of Poseidon’s gravity river.

“
All preliminary data from
the Canary probe indicates a successful transit
,” Glen’s voice said
cheerfully from the open Comm-link at the Captain’s side. As usual he was down
in the Lab wing making sure the CAS team kept everything running perfectly.

“Continue the countdown to our
transit,” Kaufield ordered.

“The ship is secure and ready
for PTP,” Adam responded. “May I ask where we’re going this time? Do additional
lengthy, boring gravitational studies lie ahead in our future, perhaps?”

“Good guess,” said Mary,
laughing happily. “Dr. Markham is very enthused about these ‘boring’ studies as
you call them. She’s worked her whole life to find out more about the universe
and I would imagine could care less if the rest of us are interested or not.”

“Well
I
like a little
more excitement in my life,” Adam responded. “That’s probably why I hooked up
with a fighter chick.” He heard Kaufield laughing in the background and smiled.

“The Canary Probe has docked
with the
Pathfinder
,” Mary reported. “We’re all set for a transit to the
new test site.”

“
Coordinates are set and
verified, Captain
,” said Glen from the Lab wing. “
One minute, ten
seconds remain until CAS Drive activation
.”

“So how does Glen like his
medal?” Kaufield asked Mary, chuckling a little at the memory of the prior
day’s events. “Is he letting all of the attention go to his head?”

“No,” Mary replied, smirking
slightly. “He’s got a really quiet, humble personality. Like Thomas, he was
very overwhelmed by the surprise and all of the attention. They both feel
everyone who worked with them day after day deserve the award as much as they
do. That’s why they hung their medals on one of the walls in the Lab wing – so
everyone can share them.”

“Having a hero or two around
for our people to look up to never hurts,” Kaufield decided. “We don’t know how
long we’re going to be out and about traveling the universe, so it’s also
important to keep morale up.”

“
Twenty-two seconds to transit
,”
Glen’s voice sounded out confidently. “
All CAS systems read green
.”

“Thomas has really turned his
life around,” Adam said. “The kid was absolutely destroyed emotionally by the
attack on Earth and having to cope with the after effects. I’m very proud of
him and I made sure to tell him that yesterday evening.”

“He still feels he isn’t always
contributing enough these days,” Mary said softly. “But when he looks back on
the demand
he
was placing on
himself
to perform he can at least
admit now that a lot of it was unrealistic. He was simply expecting too much of
himself.”

“
Ten seconds
,” commented
Glen.

“A lot of people never recover
emotionally from what he went through,” Kaufield said. “Whether he and Glen can
admit it, they
are
heroes.”

“
I can hear everything you
guys are saying up there, by the way
,” Glen laughed heartily. “
The
Pathfinder
is ready for transit in five, four, three
…”.

They had grown accustomed to
the routine, instantaneous CAS leaps across vast distances over the months that
had passed since the attack on Earth. There was the usual quick PTP flash and
then it was over – destination achieved. The CAS procedure used was exactly the
same as standard PTP, the only differences being distance and the amount of
power they could apply to the engine using the singularity’s electricity
instead of the alternative power generated from burning liquid fuel. Short
range trips had become as commonplace as the longer ones, which was why they
were all astonished…

…when this time the ship bucked
wildly from side to side and several consoles in the command ring in front of
Mary and Adam suddenly sparked and began smoking. Kaufield leaped to his feet
and caught Ensign Long, who had lost his balance and was about to fall. He
steadied the young man and then frowned in frustration as the lights in the
room went dark. Aside from a few consoles whose screens still glowed with power
they were unexpectedly shrouded in darkness. Dennis immediately smelled the
acrid odor of burnt electrical insulation, and he could see a small fire
burning inside one of the valuable laptops.

“What in blazes was that?” he
asked, confused by the sudden silence in the Command Dome. Almost all of the
computer systems that provided the normal background noise had stopped
functioning.

“I have no idea,” he heard Adam
comment from across the room.

“The damage control computer is
still working, sir,” Ensign Long reported. Kaufield could see the eerie outline
of the man’s face as he reviewed the computer’s data.  “Aside from the
electrical failure we have minor structural damage to the Garden and Livestock
wings… but the computer reports they
are
still intact and pressurized.”

“Thank God for that,” Mary
concluded softly.

Abruptly the power and lights
snapped back on and everyone quickly busied themselves at their stations.
Dennis watched and waited helplessly as they worked, fighting back a burst of
anger and intense frustration at the unexpected situation.

“The
Pathfinder
is on
backup systems,” Mary reported. “Battery power only… the CAS singularity is
not… I repeat…
not
active.” Swiftly, she put up an image of the wand on
one of the monitors to verify. “It’s gone dark.”

Dennis quickly activated the
closest Comm-link. “Glen,” he said firmly, “This is the Command Dome. What’s
going on down there…? Was there some sort of a problem with the transit?”

“
I’m not… sure yet
,”
came the hesitant reply. “
Please stand by
.”

“There’s nothing out of the
ordinary on motion sensors,” Mary reported. “But I do think you should look at
this,” she commented, putting up an image on one of the overhead screens.

Burning in the center of the
screen was a distant star. In the foreground was a huge scattering of thousands
of small comets, their bright tails all pointing away from the star’s solar
radiation. Several extremely thin nebulae, composed of angry red-colored dust
stretched and twisted their way through the cloud of comets and deeper into the
image as far as they could see. The normal blackness of empty space was
completely gone – instead they were staring at a screen filled with a soft
golden mist. From an astronomer’s perspective it was a spectacular sight and
everyone paused for a moment to simply admire the scene.

“That’s a really remarkable
view,” Kaufield commented, “But it’s most definitely
not
where we’re
supposed to be right now. We were programmed to emerge from the transit trip
next to a trinary star system.” He met Adam’s gaze with a look of puzzlement.
“So that begs the question, where the
hell
are we?”

“
Captain, this is Glen
,”
said Fredericks, his voice momentarily distorted by a burst of static on the
still-open Comm-Link. “
Someone changed our destination coordinates right
before we activated the CAS Drive. We landed in the
exact
center of the
Poseidon gravity river
.”

“Confirm that, please!”
Kaufield ordered.

“
I have… three times already
,”
Glen insisted. “
Instead of our next planned transit alongside the edge of
the river we instead traveled over 73 million light years directly
into
it
.
If you had asked me to put us into its
exact
center these are the
coordinates I would have suggested. I’m not kidding you… the
Pathfinder
is currently sitting no more than 5 light minutes from the center of the
river’s width at this point along its length
.”

“What’s the status of our CAS
Drive?”

“
It’s down until further
notice, Captain
.
We suffered severe damage to our electrical equipment
down here. As expected, the PTP window did not interact very well with
Poseidon’s gravitational force
.
Our carefully controlled singularity
model collapsed from the disruption as soon as we emerged from transit
.”

“Adam, bring the liquid fuel
engines back to full power and place our maneuvering thrusters at
station-keeping. Mary, please let me know if anything dangerous floats our
way.”

“May I make a suggestion,
Captain?” Adam asked. Dennis nodded and walked over to stand next to him as
both men studied the readouts on Adam’s helm console. “I think that we should
leave the maneuvering thrusters
off
at this point – to conserve fuel.
There’s way too much gravity here and everything is drifting toward Poseidon,
so I think we should let the ship float with it and that will minimize our risk
of colliding with anything.” He shrugged, pointing at their fuel indicators.
“That is, unless you want us to expend valuable fuel trying to swim upstream
like a school of salmon.”

“Point taken. We may need that
fuel if we can’t get the CAS Drive working again,” Kaufield said grimly. “If we
are unable to restore it to full operation, we’re going to have to try using
smaller, standard PTP transits at a 90 degree angle in order to move back out
into normal space.”

“We’ll have to begin burning
some of the liquid fuel anyway, Captain. We can’t stay on battery power for any
reasonable length of time.”

“Agreed. Thanks primarily to
the ‘Atomic Nightmare’, we’re almost fully loaded with fuel,” Kaufield said,
taking a deep breath as he activated the Comm-link next to Adam. “Glen,
who
changed the PTP destination coordinates?”