CHAPTER 14
Two and a half weeks of reading, sleeping, getting to know each other and keeping an eye on the ship and its course; Jarvick almost didn’t notice the small alarm light on the control panel indicating a proximity alert. He was on the bridge checking on the power levels of the Azurite when he saw it; meaning that the ship might be on a near collision course with another object, so he immediately dropped the ship out of hyperlight speed. What he saw on the front screen confused him at first, until he realized what was happening. There appeared to be an extremely large ship, probably five hundred yards long, chasing a faster and more agile smaller ship, closer to the size of his. The behemoth was firing some kind of weapon at the smaller ship as it was trying to get away. Jarvick had to turn the ship sharply to the right to avoid colliding with it, and ended up behind the massive ship. Just as he was about to increase speed in order to get as far away from this scene as possible, he saw a large ball of light shoot past the ship on the right side. He saw it on the front screen as he was reaching for the hyperlight control; so instead of engaging it, he instinctively turned on the force field in case that was a weapon aimed at him. Just as he did so, he felt an explosion that shook the ship so violently he thought that it had come apart and blew up because the lights went out and he felt weightless. After a few seconds of confusion, he could see the dim light from the computer screens that he was still alive. Jarvick then tried engaging the hyperlight drive, but the control didn’t respond, so he bumped the sublight Kalderite speed to as fast as it would go. He didn’t know which direction he was going and didn’t care, as long as he put some distance between them and that big ship that was shooting at them. The lights came back on just as Cindy floated into the bridge and Jarvick was scanning all the controls to see what still worked.
“What happened!?!” Cindy asked as she put on her seatbelt.
“We almost collided with an alien ship, and it was shooting at another one. I guess they saw us and assumed we were with them and started shooting at us. I’m pretty sure the force field took the brunt of the attack but we were still hit. I need to go back and check on the power crystals, the hyperlight drive isn’t working. Keep an eye on that big ship in the middle of the screen and if it starts heading our way come get me.” At that, Jarvick floated off the bridge and started working his way back to the propulsion and power compartment.
As soon as he opened the hatch he was confronted with disarray and chaos. What should have been safely stored away on shelves and locked down, objects were floating around in the air and Jarvick had to push it away as he entered. Hand tools, spools of spare wiring, extra boxes of nutrition tablets, water bottles and other debris of various kinds had broken loose from their storage locations and were floating around in zero gravity. This part of the ship must have taken most of the force from the attack. He grabbed onto the shelves to move about the cabin and worked his way toward the power crystals. When he got there he saw the reason why the hyperlight drive was malfunctioning. There was a piece of ceramic with a power coupling that supplied power to it that was cracked; evidently it was damaged during the attack. Jarvick’s heart sunk upon seeing this, so close to home but still so far. They still needed four more days of travel at light speed, and with the hyperlight drive out, it would take two more weeks to get home.
He began to put away the debris that had gotten loose and started thinking of a way to repair the damaged power plant. When he was finished, he made his way toward the rear cargo room to check on it. Just outside the door to it, he saw a cable that had come loose from its mounting on the ceiling, the connector dangling away from its counterpart. On it was a small label with GRAV written on it, indicating it was part of the gravity control circuit. Jarvick reconnected it, and then remembered he was floating weightless as he fell down hard to the deck and heard other things in the ship fall too. Picking himself up, slightly embarrassed, he opened the hatch to the cargo room and peeked in. Everything appeared normal, so he shut the hatch and walked back toward the bridge.
“Thanks for the warning, Jarvick” said Cindy, she was standing outside the bridge rubbing her elbow just as Jarvick recalled that he had left the ship’s speed at maximum and heading off into who knows what direction. Jumping into the pilot’s seat, he explained to Cindy about the cracked ceramic clamp and that they needed to find someplace to land and try and repair the damage. Cindy pointed at the front screen and said “How about there?”
Jarvick looked up and saw on the screen a fast approaching planet as he slowed the ship; it was blue and green and had what looked like clouds, so it had some kind of atmosphere. There was what looked like a storm on the southern part and a large land mass in the north, with patches of snow on the northern edges. Jarvick moved the ship closer and made some changes on the computer controls so he could do a scan of the planet. There weren’t any radio transmissions and he didn’t see any other ships in the area; and the planet didn’t appear to have any kind of civilization. No buildings that he could detect, no roads, cities or other evidence of intelligent life at all. All he could see on the land mass below was large plains in the north and a lush forest in the south. Jarvick decided to land just on the outer edge of the southern forest, as there was a large river flowing to it from the north. He was thinking that he may be able to find some kind of material that could take the place of the cracked ceramic piece near the river. All he needed was the right kind of stone, and if he could shape it just the right way, they could resume their journey.
Jarvick left the force field on as they entered the planet’s atmosphere, slowly descending toward a spot he picked out in a clearing next to the river. With the landing gear extended, he guided the ship to the center of the clearing and set the craft down as softly and as quietly as he could. Both Jarvick and Cindy looked out the front screen intently, looking for any movement in the area that would signal that their arrival had been noticed. Jarvick had landed with the ship facing east toward the river, and the only movement they could see was the current on the river’s surface as it headed south, off to their right. He kept the force field on as he ran a thermal scan of the area around them, but saw nothing out of the ordinary. The only thing left now was to run an air sample through the computer to see if it was breathable; then he remembered that he was on his Earth-built ship, not his old one. This one didn’t have that, so there was only one way to find out if the air outside was okay to breathe, step out into it. From what Jarvick could see out the front screen, the trees and small plants looked like any others he had seen on Earth and Gavilon. If the air was poisonous, wouldn’t they look quite different?
Jarvick turned off the force field and powered down most of the ships functions, leaving on only the computers. He told Cindy to wait in the crew quarters until he gave her an all clear, then opened the main hatch and climbed down the ladder. After taking a few breaths and looking around, he didn’t feel any adverse effects, so he climbed back up and told Cindy everything was okay. Jarvick picked out a hammer and chisel out of the toolbox in the storage compartment and they both climbed down and began to look around. The air smelled sweet from some kind of flower and the temperature was in the low 80’s.
“I’m going to look for some rocks by the river. Try not to wander too far from the ship; we don’t know anything about this place.”
“Okay” replied Cindy, as she started toward the tree line to the south. She walked about a hundred feet before she was surrounded by tall, large leafed trees that blocked the sunlight. The smaller plants at the base of the trees resembled elephant ears, and she could smell the sweet odor that they had encountered when they first climbed down. The odor was much stronger here in the forest, and Cindy began to crave fruit. She stopped looking up at the trees and started to scan closer to the ground and around her at eye level. There were no trails through the foliage, but it wasn’t difficult to make her way around. The groundcover wasn’t thick at all, just short, small grasses or bare dirt; probably because of the lack of sunlight. She walked arou
nd for about ten minutes, moving slowly and pushing the big elephant ears away, when she found a plant that looked different from all the others. It was like a miniature tree, about four feet tall, with thick limbs and small leaves; and it had some kind of fruit hanging from the end of its limbs. The fruit was round, about the size of a grapefruit, it was bright red with a smooth skin; and it was obvious that this is where the sweet odor was coming from.
Cindy had such a craving for fruit now she decided to pick it from the tree and taste it. She grabbed the red ball and yanked it free from its limb, and a clear sap began to drip from the stem. When she tasted the sap, which was sweeter than any fruit she had ever tried; she began to hear a slight buzzing sound, like it was off in the distance. She tried to open up the fruit by using her fingernails, and the buzzing was getting louder. When the fruit finally gave way, what she saw inside shocked her where she almost fainted, but she dropped it and began to run. The “fruit” dropped to the ground, what was inside began to move and unfold its wings; for inside was what appeared to be a wasp the size of her hand. The buzzing got louder as the swarm of huge wasps came from the south, fifty yards behind her and chasing her. She was running as fast as she could through the elephant ears, and the big leaves were cutting her face as she screamed for Jarvick. He was halfway up the ladder as he looked toward the noise and saw Cindy running out of the trees and entered the clearing; and behind her was a black cloud of buzzing wasps getting closer to her. Jarvick threw the rocks that were in his hand into the ship and reached down to grab her; when he saw one wasp on her back stinging her. She screamed in pain as he slapped the wasp off of her, then he drug her inside and closed the hatch. The buzzing noise was deafening outside the ship, surrounding it, and they could hear them scratching at the hull. Jarvick carried her into the lounge and placed her on the couch where he asked her if she was okay. Her speech was slurred as she said “That hurts like crazy, did we get away from them?” Cindy’s eyes were shutting and she began to fall asleep.
“Stay awake Cindy, stay with me!” yelled Jarvick. He started slapping at her cheek trying to keep her awake, but to no avail, she was out cold.
Jarvick checked her vital signs, which seemed good, so he left her there and went to the bridge. There wasn’t anything he could do to help her because he had no idea what the wasp venom was made of. He thought it would be best to let it wear off and keep checking her vitals as often as he could. The wasps had swarmed onto the ship and were covering it; he could not see out the front screen. After shutting off all the instruments, he went back to the propulsion and power room to try and repair the cracked power coupler. He had chiseled a facsimile replacement for the cracked ceramic piece and hoped it would be good enough to get the hyperlight drive back in working order. After removing the cracked piece, he only had to make a small modification to get the new piece to fit, which took about thirty minutes. He stopped at the lounge on the way to the bridge, where Cindy was still asleep, but her vital signs were still good. Her breathing was normal, as was her blood pressure, and her pulse rate was just a little low.
The wasps were still blocking his view on the front screen, but Jarvick would worry about that later. He wanted to check the power systems first, so he turned on the ship’s systems and began doing checks. Through all the buzzing, all the systems appeared normal, so he turned on the force field to see what would happen. As soon as he turned on the switch, the buzzing stopped and all the wasps fell to the ground, dead.
Not seeing any reason to stay here, Jarvick lifted off and ascended out of the atmosphere into space again. Consulting the Navigation computer, Jarvick saw that they were off course a pretty far amount. Evading that huge space ship had added two days to their journey. He was eager to test the hyperlight drive, so he adjusted the Nav computer and tried powering it up, which it did. Increasing speed on the controls, he engaged the hyperlight engine and it responded with a jolt, then the stars went from dots to streaks, as Jarvick watched the speed indicator jump to the top.
Cindy woke up twelve hours later and told Jarvick about her trip into the forest, and the fruit she had found. He told her she was lucky to be alive, and about the force field killing the wasps, and about the hyperlight repair. He then told her they should be home in about five days.