Chapter 12

Earth bound history has ended. Universal history has begun.

- Earl Hubbard

WarpStar

The stars were just mere specks of light shining in the distance, mapping the skies, guiding the sailors of the old worlds and the new. Currently, John is observing a much different picture. What normally would map a journey is blurred. The stars were flying past him in multiple streams of spectacular rainbow light, blinding the visible spectrum into every color visible, leaving behind trails of color, and bringing the stars to life!

It has been three days out of four since the WarpStar entered faster than light travel. The ship hummed and sang the song of speed. If it were not for the stars screaming by past the viewports, John would not have known the ship was traveling at fifteen times the speed of light. In a normal military vessel traveling under thrust, one would notice the subtle feeling of it. The engines vibrating the skeletal structures of the ship, humming throughout while singing a song. The deck plating transmitting just slightly the vibrations of the thrust into the boots of the sailors. But while traveling in F.T.L, none of that was noticeable. Just the hum of the gravity plating and the ventilation systems. John was enjoying the peaceful bliss of a smooth ride, watching the beautiful show just outside his viewports, as the door to his office buzzed, signaling someone was on the other side waiting to enter.

“Come in,” John said reluctantly, turning toward the door, putting the beautiful rainbow of bent, spectral light behind him.

The hatch hissed open, injecting high-pressure air into the mechanism, forcing the hatch to open. Ensign Carr waltzed into the command office with part of her coverall uniform half undone from coming off a long watch.

“Well, look at what we have here,” Carr teased.

John and Charlene met at the naval flight academy, both prodigies in their own way. Their relationship started from a bitter rivalry, John holding the champion and best pilot crown, and Charlene wanting to take it from him. She succeeded while John tried over and over to get it back, failing at every turn. Their initial hatred towards each other eventually grew into a very close friendship when the two discovered that instead of fighting each other for the crown, if they worked together no task was impossible. Since then their relationship has grown very close, flirting with the lines of duty and loyalty.

“And what’s that?” John asked as Carr walked in and sat on the couch under the viewport, the warped light glowing the full spectrum of the rainbow in the office.

“A dream that has finally come true!” she proclaimed as she removed her boots to get a bit more comfortable.

John walked to the medium-sized cold storage unit attached to the wall, opened it and grabbed a few drinks from the shelves. “Yea, this is a bit different than I had imagined, but I can’t complain. It’s more than I could have ever dreamed!” he teased as he handed a glass to Carr.

“Me too. I always knew both of us would get a command one day, I just thought I would have gotten there first!” Winking, she paused as she drank a sip of the liquid she got from John. “Scotch?”

“Yup. Vintage Nineteen Thirty-Three!” John always had a soft spot for Scotch. One of his few memories of his father, when he was a child, was the vintage bottle of Scotch he always had lying around. John sat down on the couch next to Charlene, removing his shoes and unbuttoning the top of his coverall as well. It was a rare instance when he got to relax on his off time.

John and Charlene had come off from a long shift—seventeen hours for both of them. They had just over fifteen hours left until the reported estimate time for them to reach Orion, they both wanted to relax a bit before hitting the rack for some sleep. Seventeen-hour shifts on the bridge may not be physically strenuous, but mentally they drain even the strongest of officers.

“Did you ever think we would be pioneers? Actually breaking the light barrier in a real manner, not just cutting a hole in space and going through it?” Carr asked curiously, sipping her Scotch. “This is amazing!! Where did you get it?!”

“I found it in my father’s old cellar back home. He still has about fifty of these lying around after I took a dozen.” They both laughed at the apparent misfortune of a man John had hardly known. The man who gave life to the pioneer had left his son when he was only nine years old. His mother never told him the full story, or at least John never believed what she did tell him. Over the years he has grown to accept it and jokes around about it only to his closest friends.

“Your old man sure as hell knew how to pick ’em!” Charlene couldn’t believe how delicious this golden-brown liquid was. Only being twenty-five years old, she hasn’t spent much time exploring alcohol from different cultures from around the Federation, but she has learned to appreciate deep respect for Scotch after hanging around John almost all her adult life.

“So, how is the young girl treating you?” John said with a smile while jabbing her leg with his foot playfully, teasing her. He knew the last thing Charlene wanted to do on her off time, while sipping a fine drink under a colorful display of lights, is talk shop.

“You asshole!” she chuckled, returning his kick with her right foot. John deflected her with ease. She swiftly placed her drink down, grabbed the pillow that was within arm’s reach and smacked John in the chest with it. With an evil grin, John placed his drink on the coffee table and grabbed Charlene by her arms, putting her in a headlock and pinning her down on the couch.

“Really now? How many times have I told you not to mess with the best!” John playfully said as they both laughed and fought each other for control. John had her pinned down almost impossibly well when his playful demeanor diminished. Charlene’s laughter died quickly when she noticed a worried look on his face.

“John, what …” John cut her off with a quick finger to his lips.

John moved his eyes from staring intently into her eyes, slowly over to the large porthole to watch the beautiful aura of the color storm transform into a blend of white, then to a starry background following a large ‘BANG.’ The ship shook forcefully, throwing the two officers violently to the front of the room towards the viewport.

John struggled to get to the comm panel on his desk as the ship continued to shake. Unable to reach the panel, he followed Ensign Carr’s lead and headed right to the bridge, neither bothering to button up their uniforms or put their boots back on.

“Warning! Inertia Stabilizers malfunctioning. Unable to compensate!” The computer was yelling out with the Emergency combat lights on in the Bridge.

“Sit-rep!!!!” John shouted as he made his way to the captain’s chair, and Ensign Carr fought her way to the helm.

“Sir, F.T.L. is down,” Commander O’Connell replied as the computer continued to buzz warning sounds and started to chime in, in a male’s voice; “Warning! External Emergency Dampers offline, rerouting power to compensate!!”

“Sir, reading multiple hull breaches off engine three, and off the port wing!” Lt. Jackson shouted over all the commotion, his inexperience showing his fear.

“Sir, I am seeing engine malfunction off engine three, port engines are trying to compensate. We are unable to maintain course or control!" Carr shouted, fighting the controls of the ship while punching commands into her station.

“Shut down engine three, and two, reroute power to the other engines to compensate!” John ordered.

“Warning, hull breach detected. Deck twenty-three, section five. Re-routing power to emergency forcefields,” the computer read aloud again.

“Sir, I can’t gain lateral control, we came out of F.T.L. uncontrolled and too fast. With the external dampeners offline, the hull could start to buckle and tear the ship apart!” Carr shouted, still fighting the flight controls.

“Helm, flip and burn, all ahead flank!” O’Connell shouted out before John had a chance to say it. Charlene complied, flipping the ship 180 degrees and pointing the engines towards the direction of travel, and punching the throttle to full fifteen g’s of thrust to slow down as fast as they could.

“Options!” John asked the room.

“Sir, we have to make repairs to the engine, but they can only be done in dry dock, or if we land the ship,” Jackson replied.

“Can we jump to Earth?” O’Connell asked.

“Negative, Hyperdrive system is offline, besides if we exited Hyperspace at these speeds we would have absolutely no control. We could hit a ship or, worse, head right into the atmosphere of Earth itself!” Carr shouted over the commotion of the bridge trying to control the ship manually.

“Warning! Coolant levels dropping, nitrogen pressure below recommended safeties,” the computer chimed in.

“Sir, we are venting coolant off engine three!” Jackson said.

The ion-based fusion drives that provide thrust in sub-light speeds need to be regularly cooled, and liquid-based nitrogen provides the engines with the coolant. Without this, the engines would eventually overheat, resulting in a chain reaction that would detonate the Antimatter reactor and everything within a 3 million kilometer distance.

“We land the ship!” a voice chimed in on the other side of the bridge.

“What?” John was taken by surprise at the suggestion.

“Sir, I am picking up a class five planet, bearing two-one-five,” Lt. Heidi Watney reported over the commotion.

“Class five? That’s hazardous!” O’Connell shouted out, remembering planetary classifications from his training.

A class five planet has a toxic atmosphere. Humans are not able to breathe the air, nor are they able to withstand the temperatures and pressure, even in an environmental suit for long. A class zero planet is one that is prime for life, located well within the goldilocks zone of a star, has plenty of water and conditions and is prime for life.

“Warning!! Primary vertical stabilizers offline. Horizontal stabilizers at twenty-five percent. Attempting to compensate,” the computer reported.

“Shit! That just made life a hell of a lot harder!” Carr cursed at the new status update.

“Helm, calculate what’s needed for a brake!” John shouted out over the commotion while crawling back to his command chair and reaching for the 1 M.C.

“All hands, brace for high-g brake burn!”

“ Calculations complete for brake burn.”

“How hard do we need to brake to make the planet?”

“Twenty-g burn for fifteen seconds, five-second recovery, another twenty-g burn for twenty seconds, then a fifteen-g burn for an hour.”

“Bob, can you override safeties on the Inertia Dampeners, increase power to counteract twenty-g’s?” John turned his head, worried about the deceleration pressure.

“I can, but I cannot guarantee it won't cause long-term damage.”

“Do it.”

The WarpStar needed to slow down at a rapid pace, and enough to allow the helm to properly control the ship. To accomplish this, the ship rotates 180 degrees while producing zero thrusts, then ignites her engines at the calculated rate to burn in the opposite direction, producing negative thrust. In order for them to slow down to where they need to be, the WarpStar has to produce several twenty-g burns. Even with the inertia stabilizers pumping anti-gravity fields to the best of their abilities, it would only shed off around 13g’s, still forcing around 7g’s, which the human body cannot withstand at the time intervals needed to properly slow down the ship. The crew had to increase power to the gravity generators beyond their tested safety limits to try to squeeze a g-force reduction of 15 g’s instead of 13.

“All systems report green, all decks report ready,” Robert reported, reading off the panel in front of him.

“Alright, Helm, initiate burn!” John gave the order, closing his eyes and gripping his chair.

“Initiating 20g brake burn, Aye,” Charlene acknowledged the order, setting the ‘burn’ rotating nob just above the throttle to 20g, just about halfway to its maximum setting of 50g, then slowly increased the throttle level from the bottom neutral position, all the way forward instructing the engines to produce 100% of the 20g thrust requested.

The WarpStar’s engines came to life, sending out tons of charged ion particles at an incredible rate in the direction that they were traveling, producing negative thrust relative to their current velocity. Every member of the crew was strapped into a special chair near their post or their quarters. Every chair that is rated for acceleration maneuvers locks into place, facing the forward direction of the ship, which allows acceleration or deceleration forces to push the crewmember against the back of the seat, reducing the effects of the g-forces and allowing the human body to withstand a tad more g’s than it would have without.

John's eyes were closed forcibly as he felt the effects of the deceleration hit him hard. His breathing began to get heavier as it became harder to inflate his lungs against the forces being pushed against his body. With the ship violently shaking in extreme protest to the massively intense 20g deceleration, John had opened his eyes almost five seconds into the first fifteen-second burst, already lost all sight of color, watching as his vision tunneled more narrowly with each struggling breath. The darkness crept up on him, ever so slightly until it finally hit him. He was out.

“I've done it!” a woman's voice, familiar yet unknown, could be heard from the void.

An excited male voice responded, “Quantum-Entanglement? Really?!?”

It was dark. Reality slowly brightened, revealing a building. The research center, some genetic research. Many scientists, yet wearing clothes that he has never seen before, with equipment totally unfamiliar to him.

“Genetic memory can now finally be manipulated! We can proceed to phase one of ‘Seed!’

“HOLY SHIT!” someone shouted from the bridge, and it was all that was needed to snap John back to reality. Taking a large deep breath, John opened his eyes wide to see the rest of the crew recovering in their own ways. “SITREP,” he called out, with a lack of a response. Instead of status reports, he could just hear:

“Three”

“Two”

“One”

Charlene pushed the throttle level back at 100 percent for the final twenty-second burn, five more seconds than the first one. Pushing everyone back in their seats, crushing the life out of them as much as the laws of physics would allow. Loud grunting could be heard from someone, anyone in the crew. Just about everyone was working hard in their own way to counteract the effects of the g-force. No one was able to read the displays in front of them, and Robert missed one of the most important readouts of his lifetime: ‘Inertia Stabilizer system malfunction, rerouting power to compensate.’ No one had any idea the life support subsystem that was negating 75% of the deceleration forces was failing. This single subsystem was keeping every member of the crew alive. No one knew what was happening until a voice could be heard from the male robotic computer:

“Thirteen”

“Twelve”

“Warning: Inertia Stabilizers power systems overloaded, attempting to compensate.”

“Ten”

“Nine”

“Warning: Inertia Dampeners failure, unable to compensate. System overloading.”

“Seven”

“Six”

Everyone became weightless. Gravity and g-force were completely negated, blood was rushed back into everyone's brains. The entire crew was conscious and aware at this point.

“Five”

“Warning, Life Support System Failure. Inertia Subsystems offline.”

“Four”

With three seconds left of the twenty-second burn, the entire 20g force hit the crew all at once. Blood was forced out of everyone's brains and pooled near the heart. The crew quickly fell unconscious, sustaining major damage in their organs.

“Two”

“One”

The computer automatically cut thrust, as Charlene knew she would not be able to, even if the inertia dampeners were working properly. Now producing neutral thrust, the unconscious crew's arms and legs began to float as the gravity systems were offline, overloaded by the surge of power being dumped into the inertia dampeners and stabilizers for the thirty seconds it had the power to attempt to save the crew.