So It Begins (37 page)

  “Mind you, by the end of day six, everyone was involved ’n tryin’ to figure this thin’ out. The CO ordered all nonessential crew to their bunks, while the XO handled it. Of course, by then there were only a few of us runnin’ around.” Patterson looked annoyed. “I understand what they were tryin’ to do, but it backfired; stuff started happenin’ faster than we could fix it. At that point the XO threatened us with court martial.”

  Donovich knew the next part. “And in a time of war, that could have added up to being spaced.”

  “Damn Skippy it could,” Patterson agreed. “As for your bug friend,” he said, gesturing toward the DFC. “We were just ’n hour or so from droppin’ out of drive, when I heard somethin’ shortin’ out. By the time I figured out where it was comin’ from, this big-ass thin’, kinda like a crab. . .”, he put both of his hands together at the thumbs, with fingers spread wide to show the thing’s size, “. . . just came floatin’ along like it was ’n zero-g.”

  “What did you do?” asked Donovich, feeling somehow very stereotypical at having asked that.

  Patterson seemed to take offense at the question. “I didn’t do a damn thin’,” he responded, and lunged his hands at Donovich’s face to make his point about being startled. “I called out over the comm for help. I had to tell that story repeatedly before I could get anyone to believe me; or at least I thought they did. By then we had come out of drive; we spent the rest of the trip tearin’ everythin’ apart lookin’ for it.”

  “Let me guess . . .” said Donovich.

  “Don’t bother,” replied Patterson, cutting him off. “It was just like when pilots made the mistake of reportin’ UFO’s back in the days. Without proof a saucer banged up your plane, you were screwed.”

  “Didn’t the mission recorders pick anything?” asked Donovich.

  “Nope,” said Patterson, “Just me screamin’ over the comm about a God damn bug.” Patterson started to smile, “But I got lucky. They were short-handed for this little invasion of theirs. . .” Without concluding the sentence he pointed at the DFC, “Let’s go have a look at your friend.” and started off for the ladder well.

  “You know, Patterson. . .” said Donovich as he followed him, “. . .if this turns out to be one big catten prank, the quartermaster is going to have to issue me a new pair of boots.”

  Patterson just looked at him for a moment, “Why so, Chief?”

  Donovich smiled, “Because I’ll have lost one up your ass!”

  Now on the main deck, Donovich stepped around Patterson and walked off. “Where’re you goin’?” asked Patterson.

  Motioning at his station, Donovich explained, “I have coffee to attend to; besides, you’ll need to figure out what to put the wee beastie in once you catch it.”

  Without a word, Patterson turned and headed toward the equipment lockers.

  Then the lights went out, dropping the module into a world of inky black, outlined by yellow and green night-glow strips, with pockets of blue-white LED emergency lighting.

  “What now?!” exclaimed Donovich as he rushed to his station; a red icon flashed on the console’s power flow schematic. “Patterson!” he shouted. “Something just tripped the breaker on main bus B!” Thoughts of Patterson’s little friend tearing apart his ship pushed at him.

   Near the ladder well, a work light came on, it was Patterson putting on his head-lamp; its beam playing out across the space. “I’m on it,” he shouted.

  Donovich checked the fault indicator log on the breaker; he anticipated a power spike as the reason—static-electric build up was a common problem under drive—but the read-back told another story. “Patterson, don’t engage the breaker!” shouted Donovich urgently as he left the station. “Don’t engage the breaker; it’s set to failsafe due to a power loss, there’s a break in the line!” Not hearing a response from Patterson, Donovich raised his arm to access the comm control at his forearm.

  An explosion of sparks erupted from the deck below, as fire claxons sounded and their accompanying yellow strobe lights pulsed. “Shit!” yelled Donovich, as he ran for the ladder well; pressing his feet against the outside of the ladder’s rails, he slid down and landed with a jolt on the deck below. Grabbing for his flashlight, he hurried for the nearest fire extinguisher.

  Patterson had just reached the ladder to follow Donovich down when he heard an arcing sound, coming from the life-boat deck; looking up he saw brilliant flashes of blue light dancing off the surrounding metal work. “Not this time,” he growled, as he started up the ladder instead.

  It only took one short blast from the extinguisher to deal with the problem; but now Donovich had to clean up the foam to inspect and repair the damage.

  “Chief Donovich, status report,” commanded the XO over the comm.

  Donovich put down the extinguisher before answering. “Everything is now under control, sir,” he said as he played his light over the damage. “We had a short circuit that set off the fire alarms.” The conduit’s access plate hung open; one of the cables had a clean piece missing.

  “Very well, Chief, please keep me informed; Koenig out.”

  “Sabotage,” whispered Donovich, as he slowly turned, expecting to find Patterson standing behind him; the Starman was nowhere to be seen. “I hope for your sake, that your little imaginary friends are real.” Then it dawned on Donovitch that they were screwed either way. Shaking his head, he walked to the deck’s ancillary control station, and with a tap turned off the alarms.

  Against the ringing in his ears he could hear Patterson shouting. It took Donovich a moment to spot him through the deck grating. Patterson was jumping around on the top deck; his point of interest seemed to be the ordnance bunker. Then there was an arc flash, followed by the sound of metal striking metal, as if something had just been thrown and bounced off onto the deck, this accompanied by more shouting.

  Silhouetted against the emergency lighting, something jumped—no flew—across the void of the gangway some three stories up. Looking like a pointy starfish, it flew with its six legs outstretched; reflected light contoured across its smooth surface. It brought its legs forward, and landed without a sound, disappearing into the deck’s support structure and conduits.

  “Did you see it!?” demanded a voice; it was Patterson leaning over the guardrail. “Chief!” he shouted forcibly.

  “Yes. . .” Donovich squeaked. He cleared his throat, “. . .Yes, I saw it!” he shouted back, not quite believing what he had just said; but yes, he had seen something.

  A few minutes later, Donovich joined Patterson above; the climb up to the life-boat deck had been one of apprehension and controlled fear.

  “Look at this,” said Patterson holding what was left of a spanner; half of its gapped end was missing. “I took a swin’ at the thin’ when it was cuttin’ into the bunker.” He pointed at the deck-mounted drum; four of its six spring-loaded, over-pressure bolts had been cut away.

  Donovich turned and looked down over the guardrail at the mission clock, its four-inch high numbers read 482 hours and 01 minutes, “We have to get this thing contained; we’re only two hours in, there’s no way we can keep this up for three weeks,” stated Donovich.

  “And where you goin’ to put it?” Patterson said, gesturing toward the damaged ordnance bunker.

 
Good catting question,
thought Donovich, as he looked around for both inspiration and the beastie.

  Patterson walked up to him. “So what would they do in one of those sci fi stories you keep readin’?” Patterson asked sincerely.

 
Oh, just great! Now we are relying on the delusions of some writer to save our asses,
thought Donovich. “Well typically, at a dramatically quiet point in all the screaming and running about, they try to blow it out an airlock.” he said.

  “There’s no way we’re goin’ to get that thin’ up the length of the CM and into the axial airlock; we can’t even risk lettin’ it out of this module!” proclaimed Patterson.

  “Yeah, you’re right,” agreed Donovich, “But . . . we could try to get it into one of the re-entry pods; with the CM’s gangway hatches locked, it couldn’t get any farther than the pod-bay.”

  “What’s to keep it from burnin’ through the Can’s hatch?” Patterson asked.

  “What’s keeping it from cutting its way into the CM now; or back into the fuel module, or even the reactor?” said Donovich, waving his arm about to emphasize his point. “Beside, once we get the hatches closed, we depressurize the causeway and it’s trapped on the wrong side of hard vacuum!” he added, smacking a fist into his other hand.

  Patterson paused, “Okay, Chief, I’m with’ya; but first, lock off your comm.” Donovich knew he looked a bit confused. “Remember,” Patterson explained. “The mission recorder tracks all comm traffic. If this works out, then we’ll have proof sittin’ ’n the can; if not . . .”

  “If not . . . were screwed, but at least we’ll have some level of deniability at our court martial,” said Donovich, thinking back to Patterson’s UFO reference; back then a pilot’s radio report proved nothing—except when they were used as evidence against his competency to continue flying—and these logs will prove nothing now; he smiled at Patterson and turned off his comm.

  “So how do we do this?” asked Donovich.

  “Well we know it’s after the peach cans, so we’ll put them ’n the pod, some place hard to get to ’n order to slow it down while I move up and close the hatches,” said Patterson.

  “No. For one thing you’re too big to move around quickly in the pod-bay.” Patterson started to object, but Donovich motioned for him to be quiet. “Secondly, I don’t think it will be stupid enough to just crawl into the pod, after all, it set up a diversion to get at them the first time.”

  “Okay, Chief,” Patterson agreed. “So then we’ll need somethin’ to knock or blow it into the Can.”

  “Maybe rigging a quick valve to an O2 or nitrogen tank, with a piece of pipe big enough to hold one of the cans; when it climbs up, I pull the line on the valve . . .”

  “Nope, too complicated,” Patterson interrupted. “Get me one of those Growlers out of storage.”

  It took Donovich a moment to work it all out, but he saw where Patterson was going with this. “Right, I’ll meet you back here.”

  “Do ya’ll need a hand with that?” asked Patterson as Donovich came up the ladder one-handed, cradling a wastepaper bucket-sized canister in his arm.

  “I’m fine,” he replied and stepped out onto the deck.

  Patterson was busy loading the peach cans into a utility bag; he already had an engineer’s carryall tool-pack over his shoulder. “I was goin’ to pop open one of these cans and. . .” The look on Donovich’s face said volumes about the idea. “Okay, Chief,” said Patterson, while making a calm-down gesture. “I didn’t. I was just tryin’ to figure out what it wanted with them.”

  Donovich had already played with the idea that it—or they—had come aboard in the cans, but somehow it didn’t quite make sense; it was too easy an answer. So maybe it has something to do with the material makeup of the cans themselves; but what was it about an Alluna (Lunar Aluminum) can that made it so all-important? After all, most of the ship was built from the stuff in one grade or other.

  Patterson stood up and slung the utility bag over his shoulder. “You ready?”

  Donovich nodded. “Any sign of our friend?” he asked, looking about.

  “Couldn’t rightly say,” replied Patterson, as he depressed the ‘hatch open’ button on the station’s console. Pulsating yellow lights flared to life and the chirping alert tones seemed louder than ever. Both men looked around, anxiously awaiting the inevitable appearance of the beastie.

  “Go,” instructed Patterson.

  The hatches weren’t even locked back yet and Donovich was up, through, and standing at the pod-bay’s hatch controls.