Quoth the Universe

Quoth the Universe

by

Margareta Tommos

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2010 Margareta Tommos

Smashwords Edition License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only and may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person with whom you share it. Thank you for respecting the author's work.

CHAPTER ONE

His lungs felt as if they were on fire. As he coughed, he closed his eyes and tried to turn away from the acrid smoke. Then he landed on his hands and knees on the cold, hard floor, jarring him awake. The slab he had been on was above him. His mouth hung open and he stopped breathing as he slowly surveyed the area. When he tried to open his eyes, he discovered that they were open and stinging. The corridor was pitch black. None of the lights, people, emergency lights, and emergency alarms that should have been there were present. He waited, ticking off seconds mentally, and wondered what had happened. Along with 300 other people, he was a colonist sent to another planet in another solar system. A supply ship with a dozen engineers and a dozen soldiers along with most of the supplies for the colony had been sent ahead of them; those people would start putting buildings up and secure an area. Most of the colonists were on this ship. A third ship with a contingent of soldiers was coming behind them. Then it would be a year before any more ships would be launched. The colonists had been put in stasis chambers in this ship to keep the need for supplies down during the trip; there was a small crew maintaining the ship and keeping it on course.

Logan looked around, trying to pierce the darkness. He could hear movement and coughing near him and further down the corridor. There was the sound of gas escaping somewhere. Something had obviously gone wrong. Backup systems and an emergency system should have kicked in by now. Crew members should be shouting and running down the corridor. As the place continued to stay pitch black, he tried to stand and bumped into the slab he had been on. Fumbling around, he felt for the latch to the safety box that was under his chamber; he laughed at himself when he noticed that now he had his eyes shut.

Aha! he quietly exclaimed when his fingers opened the safety box and found the flashlight.

As he shined the beam around, all of the panels that should have had lights, both solid and flashing, were dark. Some of the chambers had ejected their slabs as his had and partially filled the corridor. But further into the ship, it looked as if the corridor were clear. His mind was not accepting what his eyes were telling him.

There was movement and coughing beside him, then a hand touched his arm. What happened? a female voice asked. Where are the lights?

Startled, he pointed the beam at the person's face as he answered. I don't know. Whatever happened caused a complete power failure. The light revealed Keira, a woman with dark blonde hair, blue eyes, and a familiar scowl. He smiled as he remembered the first time he had seen that scowl. He was head of a research team and the camp's generator had just died. He had chastised her for not fixing the generator fast enough; she had scowled as she informed him that she was not the maintenance technician and she was simply fixing the generator because she did not want to wait. He was glad Keira was one of the people awake. If anyone could figure out how to get things back online, she could, even though she was the zoologist.

Keira grimaced as she pushed her bangs back up over her forehead. Hmm. She looked around as well as could be done with just his flashlight working. What didn't go wrong? She sighed. Control room. I'll check the control room. You check the rest of the chambers. Without power, people are going to die. Leaning down to open the safety box under her chamber, she grabbed another flashlight and headed to the control room.

He saw the light beam bouncing off dark walls and floor before turning to head in the opposite direction. As he passed each set of stasis chambers on both sides of the corridor, he found the other flashlights and handed them out to the people who were waking up. There was a lot of coughing and a number of thuds as other people rolled off their pads the way he had. Of the three tiers of chambers, none of the upper tier were open. He passed about 30 people before not even the lower chambers were out of their casements. Trying to get one chamber to open, he entered the security code on one keypad but nothing happened. He could not get it to slide out; not even hitting it with his flashlight when he could not find anything heavier worked. Giving up after a couple of hits, he slumped against a wall in frustration. Without power or the ability to open the chambers, most of the 300 people on the carrier pod were dead. He kept going until he reached the rear of the pod but could not find anyone else alive. All the lights were off and from what he could see when he peered through the windows, the people in the sealed stasis chambers weren't breathing. Why? What happened? he asked the air around him. He sat that way for a short time, marshalling his emotions. Then he stood and headed back the way he had come.

As he returned to the front, a hand stretched out to stop him. Streams of light were bouncing off the walls as people were using the flashlights to find their way.

Where are we? Did we make it? a voice demanded to know.

My wife. My wife's chamber isn’t open. Someone, help me.

Why are the lights off?

Where is the crew? another voice asked.

Have we made it?

What happened?

The questions were coming at him faster and faster. He wanted away. I don't know. As you can see, we've lost all power. Keira is at the control room and I'm going to go see what she has discovered.

There were gasps around him as others heard what he had said. There was a rising crescendo of sound as everyone started talking and then tried to talk over everyone else.

He took a deep breath. HEY! Quiet! We do not know what happened. There are no crew members on the pod. We need to stay calm. Having made a break in the din, he continued, Check the safety boxes under and next to the chambers for any tools and any more flashlights and let's take stock of what we have. And try to open the other chambers. He left them behind as he walked toward the front of the pod.

Up in the control room, he found Keira frowning at a dark control panel. Only thirty-one of the pods opened. Find out anything?

She stared at him; eerily outlined in the light. It isn't as simple as stories would have you think. Just reattach a wire. Just move a plug. Power back on. No. This is real life. Can't reconnect power when there is no power. Might as well put a new light bulb in a socket that doesn't work. She turned to lean against the control panel. I can't reboot the system. We have no external sensors. At least we are on a planet but I doubt it is the one we wanted. It doesn't feel right, and I don't know if it has a breathable atmosphere. The wake-up sequence had obviously not started automatically. We should all be awake not just 10%.

He smiled wryly. Keira was always going by feelings. She wasn't always right but she also wasn't usually wrong. So, opening the door would be a bad idea?

Her eyes opened wide as she stared at him. Yes. For right now.

He inhaled deeply trying to wrap his mind around the situation and then exhaled slowly. Options.

Care to join me while I check out the generator to see what happened to it? And I would like to know what happened to all the backup systems. Putting her hands on her hips, she again looked around at the dark panels. The emergency system should not have collapsed. What happened to the carrier ship and crew that this kind of catastrophic power failure would occur?

Crashed? Logan was glad that he wasn't the only one running through all the questions.

Possibly. If we did, let's hope it has a breathable atmosphere and is not hostile to life.

Pessimist.

Realist.

Isn't there an access panel to the power generator?

Dead. First thing I checked after trying to reboot.

So, we’ll have to go to the generator and then we will open the door. He headed for the trapdoor to the generator room.

Keira gave one last look around before following him. Crossing her fingers, she hoped that things started looking up for them. Logan was already in the generator room when she caught up to him.

What the hell happened? He glared at the generator as if he could make it answer him.

It was off. The lights were off. The room was quiet. Nothing was working and their flashlights were the only light in the room. Keira knelt down and examined all sides of the generator. Logan could hear switches being flipped; then he heard soft swearing. No luck?

Whatever happened sucked all the juice. All the components are dead. She shrugged. It's as if we ran into a magnetic storm that zapped everything all at once.

Like a massive electro-magnetic pulse?

She went to one of the walls and opened the panels. After flipping more switches and checking wire attachments, she answered, Yes. And not only a massive EMP but a massive power surge at the same time. Kill the components and fry the circuits. A saboteur couldn't have done a better job.

You don't think this was deliberate? Logan had not even considered sabotage.

No. The backup systems were built to handle that. This was more like the universe saying, 'Gotcha.'

Keira, will you stop it?

She looked innocently at him. Random. Luck of the draw. I'd say if we could find the crew or any logs from the ship, we'll find that it was a purely random encounter with a massive natural force and we drew the short straw.

Logan stared at the walls and slowly turned in a circle. He was hoping that an answer would appear.

Keira watched. Logan, get back to the others and let them know what has happened. I’ll do what I can to check the batteries and solar panels from here. I’ll catch up with you.

Nodding, Logan headed out of the generator room. As he walked out of the control room, he could see the beams of many flashlights in the corridor. People were gathering by the hatch to the outside.

Those who saw him coming toward them nudged the others and soon everyone was gathering near the exit hatch. With several flashlights on, the corridor was dimly lit. Some had brought a few of the things they had found; others just gave Logan a list.

Logan waited for everyone to settle down and all faces were aimed in his direction. In the dim light, the colors were washed out and he couldn't tell what color the jumpsuits were. He smiled to himself as he remembered the argument about whether the different groups should wear different colors. Keira had already shed her jumpsuit and was in her T-shirt and jeans. He was planning to do the same thing as soon as he had time.

There is a lot we don't know and things we do know, he started.

Yeah, like most of us are dead, one person interjected.

Logan nodded. That is one of them. There was what looks to be a catastrophic power failure. Keira and I have been trying to get systems back online but there is no power. And without power, there is no life support. And no way of telling where we are.

What do you mean 'where we are'? Aren't we on the planet we were going to colonize?

We don't know that. Probably not since the wake sequence was activated on only a few of the stasis chambers. It may not be safe to assume that. Something happened to the ship. None of the crew members have shown up so we may have to assume they are all dead.

We assume they are all dead but we don't assume we are on the right planet? What? We are hand-picking which assumption we want to accept? another colonist retorted.

Logan replied, It's a matter of what's the safer assumption. Things have gone very wrong. The safest assumption is that the crew is dead and we are on the wrong planet. The crew had time to open some of our chambers which means they had some warning. And we know there were other planets on our way to the chosen one, but there was some reason why they were not picked.

The same colonist went on, So how do we know we are on a planet at all? I mean if we don't have any way of telling which one.

Coming up behind Logan, Keira used her best sarcastic voice, Hit your head on your way up to the floor, did you?

There were a couple of snickers.

Logan hid his amusement.

Another colonist piped up. How do we know if the air is good? I mean if we aren't on the right planet?

Keira laughed without mirth. Open the door.

Logan shrugged. If we can't get the sensors back online, we will have to manually open the door.

Another colonist tentatively raised her hand to speak, It won't open if there isn't an atmosphere outside, so we'd be safe, right?

Safety protocols should prevent it; but without power, we don't know how many of those are functioning. Logan was glad Keira let him answer. Turning to her, he asked, I take it you didn’t have any luck getting things back online? No luck in putting two wires together and having everything turn on?

She stared from under hooded eyelids. No. Everything is fried. You can safely stick your hand into the middle of the mess that should have killed you if you did that. No burnt out wiring. No broken connections. No damage. Just. No. Power. She rubbed her forehead. We are stuck here. And unless the crew managed to get a message out, no one knows we are here and we cannot get a message out. No emergency beacon. No emergency signal. No emergency life support. Nothing.

Chances are good that they did though. They had enough warning that they started waking us up. Logan tried to look at the bright side.

She nodded. With even only 5 minutes they could have started the sequence for everyone but with the power failure only 31 chambers were activated. In that case, she ticked off her fingers, total power failure occurred maybe 10-15 minutes after they started the activation. She bit her lower lip. We were lucky there was a planet nearby. Whatever needs fixing is beyond my abilities. She grimaced while scanning the faces of the others. Do any of you know anything about the power systems? Or where we might find the tools to do anything?

One man in the back raised a hand. The tools would have been with us – on the ship that was ferrying us to the planet. The technicians responsible for maintaining them were part of the crew.

Keira rolled her eyes upward. Well, cross your fingers that we can find some tools when we open the door.

There’s an observation hatch in the back. We could check the area out before opening the door. My name is Simon, by the way, a man said.

And to conserve the flashlights, we can put two flashlights up on the walls every ten feet in the front half of the pod, one colonist suggested. I'll put them up. My name is Stan.

Another colonist came to stand in front of Logan. My name is Jason. And your name?

Logan.

So, let me get this straight: you think we have crashed, on the wrong planet, and now we are supposed to risk our lives on your say so?

Keira mumbled under her breath.

Logan answered, Chances are if we are out of power, then the ship has crashed. The ship's core was the primary power for us. And as I have said already, without power, there is no life support. We will be running out of breathable air soon.

A woman’s voice asked, What are we going to do about supplies? If we aren’t on the right planet, then none of our supplies made it. I'm Beth.

Once we have determined if the air is breathable, food and water are the next concern. We'll split up into pairs and search the pod. I know you've already looked but we need any supplies you can find. Any possible tools you can find would be helpful. Put them in organized piles up here so we can access them easily. Give the flashlights to Stan so he can put them up on the walls.

Another colonist raised a hand. Evan here. I found some food supplies. It looks like it may last us awhile. It was supposed to last a month for 300 people, so for 31, it should last even longer.

What about water?

There was only a small amount of fluids back there. Again, it was supposed to last three days for 300 people so for 31, longer.

Okay. Any tools?

No, not anything more than what is in the safety boxes. All of that stuff was supposed to be on the ship and not with us on the pod.

Then we are so dead, another colonist said.

Logan rounded on him. No, we are not. We are not dead until we have run out of options and, right now, we don't know what all our options are. Until then, we are not dead and I would appreciate it if you kept your cynicism to yourself.

Keira didn't see the man's face but she heard the silence.

I’ll come with you to the observation room, Beth said.

Simon said, I'll come with you too.

Logan, Keira, Beth, and Simon headed toward the back. The hatchway was there; the ladder slid down easily. At the top of the ladder, the bulkheads supporting the room blocked the view. One bulkhead that faced the front end of the ship was badly dented. The other three were intact, but not without some minor damage. The control panel was black and cracked. But after checking behind panels, release levers were found and two of the four walls moved out of the way opening the platform to the outside air.

Logan sniffed the breeze. Well, that answers that question. We landed on a planet with a breathable atmosphere. The outside air smelled sweet and fresh. The sun was shining into the opening. And the temperature was comfortable

Keira chuckled.

Logan knew what she was thinking. The atmosphere may not be toxic enough to kill them right away but it could still be toxic. She was very good at pointing out the worst things that could happen and this was not one of the times he wanted that. He looked out at their new world. The sky was cobalt blue. The trees that he could see had leaves that seemed to be striped with hunter green and raw sienna.

If they leaned out, they could get almost a 360 degree view.

They were on one end of a long meadow and on the left side of center between two lines of trees. A narrow opening to the meadow lay to what they assumed was north. There was the sound of what could be