Thursday, The Doc said that I was in shock, Ha. He told me that If I wrote everything down it would help. Bullshit, but orders are orders. He and Bill are the only ones that can overrule me on board. This morning Bill explained that during the second battle we sling shotted around Mars and are headed away from everyone. We don't have enough fuel to get back. This ship is bad. Bill said it was a protector, yet it destroyed those two spacecraft and killed all those people.
This morning the Doc got mad at me because I had not written but a little. It's only been a week. They're still fixing the ship and another is following us.
Friday- I'm afraid we're all going to die. That ship is still following us.
Tuesday, the Doc yelled at me this afternoon about not writing. Well I'm writing. Chow in the cafe was shit. The cook served some kind of crap with hot gravy all over it. All I wanted was some salad.
Saturday, Doc is at me again. Now he is telling me to write anything I see, hear, or think about. Well, I thought he was was a good doctor, but now I think he's nuts.
Sunday, I now know someone around here is nuts. At first I thought they were talking to themselves, but then they said amen. It's got to be some religious nut.
Monday, I heard them again.
Tuesday, they are at it again. I wish I could figure out who it is. Damn air vents and channels distort their voices.
Wednesday. Doc came in on his daily check and then demanded to see what I'd written. I pulled the pages from under my pillow, and all he did was glance at them. That asshole didn't even read them.
Friday. I overheard Abigail telling Doc that another ship was spotted. We're almost to Mars. What now. Is the ship going to kill more men and women? Melissa came in again today and just talked for hours. My poor cousin. She married that fossil from the past.
Saturday. That fossil came in and talked to Doc. I thought that they'd hear me, but they didn't. Bill seems to think that we'll be attacked again when we start maneuvering around Mars to head back to the belt. He said all the women would go to the central chamber in the morning when he expected the attack.
Monday, we were attacked. I guess Bill knew what he had Doc do. Melissa got us out of the chambers. We couldn't get out of the chamber. We were stuck in the central chamber all day. There was pounding all around and there was a long bulge in one of the walls. Another weird thing was that Melissa kept calling for Aderes. None of the crew is named Aderes. I hope she is OK. After a couple of hours she told us to get into spacesuits because the air would go bad. Tuesday morning, according to my suit computer, they got the hatch open and let us out. First thing I heard over the suit radio was Melissa and Bill talking about the computer being broke. Doc and Abigail took me back to my room. I left the door open a little and listened as the crew came in one at a time to be checked. A couple of the guys got banged up. I bet it was the computer that hurt them.
Wednesday. All they brought me to eat was emergency rations and water.
Thursday. Abigail gave me some more paper after demanding to see what I'd written. I just pulled out my writing and showed her the paper. She didn't read it either, just handed me several sheets to put on the clipboard, and told me we were going to breakfast. When I asked what was for breakfast, she told me that I'd have to help cook. I'm the captain, not a mess steward. When I objected she told me all the crew was busy working and Melissa suggested that I help cook. Abigail and I cooked a good breakfast, except for the biscuits, I left them in the oven to long and they were almost black. I had to elbow James just to get a third one. Everyone was grabbing them so fast. He should have been cooking, after all that's what he was hired to do.
Monday. Abigail and I've been cooking all week. I don't know what Bill has James doing, but they all look tired. At supper today Bill called a meeting and announced that the ship was headed out into interstellar space. Then he told us that Susan and the computer could not figure out how to get back. I know it's the computer fault, but they won't let me on the bridge. Then he told us to figure out how to reverse our course because we wouldn't get back for hundreds of years, and we were almost out of fuel. Also something about exceeding solar escape velocity. Hell, that over 753000 miles per hour. Even I know enough that we didn't have enough fuel to even accelerate to that speed. That computer is planning to kill us, just like the others.
Tuesday, when Abigail and I came in this morning there were two pieces of paper on the wall. I read them and out loud and we laughed all the way back to the kitchen. It got me to thinking.
Wednesday. I wrote my idea about magnetizing the hull and using the sun's magnetic field to slow us down. I had just got it taped to the wall when Abigail came in. We read the ideas taped to the wall and chuckled all the way back to the kitchen. After breakfast, Bill read them aloud and picked people to refine them. He assigned Wilbur to the idea I put up. Wilbur is a computer geek, he don't know nothing about magnetic fields. I then realized that Bill was just trying to give us hope, and keep us busy.
Saturday. Wilbur brought up the suggestion about magnetic fields after breakfast this morning and told Bill he needed help from Shannon. Shannon replied that the idea she was assigned was impossible. She'd gotten two others to help refine it and add twist to try, but it kept hitting the wall. Bill told her to write up a brief report listing what she'd done and all the ways they'd tried to modify it. Then she was to give Wilbur a hand.
Tuesday at breakfast Wilbur told Bill that he needed more help. He wanted James and anyone else that knew anything about engineering and electrical circuits, plus he'd need Susan after they ran some test. Then he said, “I think we can do this magnetic thing, but it'll be dangerous. When we start running test, everyone not working on it will need to be in the most shielded section of the ship because it may draw the solar wind right into the ship. I'll write it up and get your approval before we do anything big.” Bill asked him what the chances were, and he replied, “Fifty percent, if we can build or modify our systems.” Bill then told him that he'd brief everyone after breakfast every other day.
Saturday. Wilbur and James taped a layout with some twist to the cafeteria wall. They explained that they could magnetize the hull, hopefully to keep some radiation and ionizing particles out of the ship. However, they wanted to remove all the warheads from the missiles and reverse them in the launch tubes after building a linear accelerator in the tubes. The basic sequence, was that they'd fire the solid propellant rockets. At burnout the missiles themselves would be launched using the linear accelerator. Hopefully that would change their orbit enough so they could use the magnetic fields generated by the accelerators to ride the magnetic field generated by the sun back close to the asteroid belt. Melissa collected the papers and they walked out. Over his shoulder Bill said, “I'll think on it and we'll let you know at supper.”