Alder's World Part One: Mass 17 (9 page)

Alder and a few of the
others of the command crew understood that the question
wasn
’
t just,
“
Will we fly?” it was,
“
Will we fly in time?”
Not wanting to spread panic among the crew,
they
’
d waited. The numbers
said they could wait for some time. By the end of two weeks though,
with the messages coming back from Chief Engineer Mbaka, sounding
more and more like,
“
Maybe
someday if a miracle occurs,
”
Pilton had decided it was time to explain to the crew exactly
what the real danger was. It was also his idea to present the issue
in a somewhat dramatic fashion.
“
No room for doubt, Alder.”
He
’
d
said,
“
Got to say
it in a way that everyone believes the first
time.
”

Crossing the bridge
without noticing eyes of the skeleton crew manning the command
stations tailing him, Alder entered the conference room. All of the
positions were filled. None of the seventy-eight deaths during the
explosion had been among the command crew and most of the firsts
and seconds had been spared as well.
Alder
’
s science team had
taken the hardest hit. All fourteen of the crew in the science bay
at the time had been lost, including Subramanian and
Alder
’
s second Dr. Lowen.
There hadn
’
t been much
cleanup, fortunately. A breech across three levels had pretty much
cleaned up behind itself. Alder would like to have had the time to
grieve for his lost friends. As it was, he mostly only had time to
grieve for the missing equipment.

The conference room was quiet except
for Com Tech Rielly who was trying to confirm that all six hundred
and forty-three survivors were listening in.

Alder moved to his
position but didn
’
t sit down.
He glanced nervously at Pilton who was reading something that
Garson was showing him on a hand held screen. Both Elana and Pilton
seemed to think it was terribly important that Alder lead this
meeting. Alder didn
’
t really
understand why.

Rielly nodded to Pilton who put down
the device and addressed the camera cluster mounted on a tripod in
the middle of the desk.

“Good morning everyone.
Ship
’
s time is 9:36 AM,
112
^th
day of the year 2360. What does that make it, April, on
Earth? I can never keep track. Snowy weather at my home on League
Prime anyway. Good time to be out touring the galaxy.”
He harrumphed.

“You all know
I
’
m pretty fond of saying
that this ship is not a democracy, and
it
’
s not, but we find
ourselves in a pretty mess this time and I wanted to be as open
about what
’
s happening as
possible.
”

He nodded toward
Mbaka.
“
You
’
ve all seen
Mbaka
’
s report.
We
’
re missing one hundred and
thirty-three wave guides on the port side.
That
’
s eighty more than we
can run the framing drive on. Additionally
we
’
ve lost a lot of ion
engines. We can reprint most of the parts for the engines but the
designers never imagined we
’
d
survive a shot this bad and we don
’
t have enough diamond weaves to cover our wave guide losses.
You all know diamond weaves have to be grown. We
can
’
t print them out
here.
”

“Now we all know that
Mbaka is one hell of an engineer and
there
’
s been a lot of talk
that, given enough time, he
’
ll get us flying. I sure believe if anyone could pull it off
its Mbaka and his crew. I really do.
”

He cleared his throat and
pulled his chin in over his jowls.
“
There
’
s
more to it than just the wave guides and ion engines of course, and
that
’
s why
I
’
ve called this
meeting.

“Mass 17 is an odd fish
and there
’
s no doubt about
that. I uhhh.” He stopped, and appeared uncertain what to say,
something that never happened.
“
Well, it
’
s complicated.
Why don
’
t I just have Alder
explain it to you?” He fell silent like a stone.

“Right.” Alder faltered
picking up the ball. He stammered for a moment, stunned by
Pilton
’
s abandonment.
“
Let me just show you.”
If the crew wasn
’
t panicked enough yet, the failure of the normally verbose
captain could not be missed. Alder tapped the screen in front of
him and a ball of grey haze rose up in the middle of the table
around the camera.
“
What
I
’
ve sent to your screens is
the current visual from one of our drones. What I want to you
notice is the block of data in the lower right. The third number
there is the current distance in kilometers from our ship. Right
now, it
’
s hanging at just
over two-thousand kilometers out, roughly straight off our bow.
Watch what happens if I order it to continue away from
us.
”

For several seconds
nothing happened then the distance reading began to move up, slowly
at first but increasing rapidly.
“
What you
’
re seeing is
the dust cloud that enveloped the Duster after the explosion. We
should pass out of it right about twenty-two hundred
kilometers.
”

It
didn
’
t happen all at once.
First there was a glimmer of star light, ripped away almost at
once, then a rent in the cloud, then the probe broke free. There
were audible gasps from the crew around the ship as the video fed
in. The sky broke open, cold, massive, and filled with stars. It
was a stunning sight. Mass 17 was hung before them, transformed yet
again. Where before there had been a seething mass of gas and dust,
a planet had formed. The sun hung over its right shoulder leaving
the surface to the imagination. What could be seen were a series of
fiery red cracks spread around the dark face and a halo of neon
colors that seemed to pulse and whirl around the poles, spreading
out in sheets and bands clear to the equator. Rising with the halo
were knots of color, strange iridescent objects that seemed to pull
the aurora with them.

Alder waited a moment
before going on.
“
What you
are looking at is the crust of the newest planet in the Galaxy.
Once the burn out that hit us passed, the planet collapsed quickly.
A lot of our instruments are offline but we think
it
’
s a little smaller than
Earth. It
’
s only about
two-thirds as massive. It
’
s
hot. The cracks are gaps where the plates are still fusing
together. But, like everything else in this system,
it
’
s strange.
It
’
s cooling extremely
rapidly. Something, you can see them as blips rising with the
aurora, is forcing or pulling super hot plasma out of the poles.
The process started by the nanobots is clearly ongoing. The heat of
the planet is being pumped into space to cool. Specifically, all
the carbon dioxide, water, nitrogen, and other free gasses are
being super heated and coaxed off the
surface.
”

“They
’
re building an
atmosphere?” Someone around the table asked.

“It sure looks that way.”
Alder went on.
“
though maybe
on accident. This process probably
wasn
’
t meant to begin until
all the massed collided far in the future. For whatever reason,
those knots are causing the planet to cool a thousand times faster
than you
’
d expect.
There
’
s no free Oxygen but
otherwise it has all the hallmarks of a terraformable planet. And
that
’
s good for
us.
”

He
didn
’
t wait for any of the
hundreds of voices around the ship to ask why. This was the part
they were all waiting for and dreading. They knew there was an
issue. Only a few had guessed what.

Touching a few keys on the
console, Alder swung the probe around.
“
This is our problem.” He said, as a
great, grey cloud that stretched from behind the probe all the way
out of sight behind the planet came into view. It was beautiful,
gray and purple, full of subtle bands and waves, highlighted by the
blue white of the star.

“Some of you will realize
that this looks something like a small protoplanetary disc. Notice
the bulging center and the bands of dust stretching out of sight.
That ring goes all the way around the planet.”
He paused. The conference room and the rest of the ship were
deathly quiet.
“
Undoubtedly,
after the eruption all the mass of Mass 17 was supposed to fall
back onto the newly formed planet. As it turned out, there was a
large object, us, in orbit and several million tonnes of debris
from the explosion have gotten caught in orbit with us. The reason
we can
’
t wait for rescue or
any other solution is because gravity is pulling all that mass in
on us. As the dust settles, it will put steadily more pressure on
the mobius shields. Each particle is light but
there
’
s more settling on us
every hour. We
’
re carrying
about fifty tonnes already. Just that pressure has pushed the
operating temperature of the shields up three degrees. We estimate
that the shields will hold out for between sixty and ninety days.
When they fail, we
’
ll become
the heart of Mass 17
’
s new
moon.
”

“We have to think about
the children.” Elana moved into the conversation at a jarring right
angle.
“
I
’
m sure most of you
have thought this through but we
’
ve been eating directly from the biodome for almost a month.
That
’
s a full menstrual cycle
without automated birth control. Within the year our family will
start growing. Dr. Thomas tells me that he believes we could have
as many as seven pregnancies on board already.” A ripple ran around
the table and came back over the microphones from around the ship.
Alder noticed Wei and Garson glancing at each other across the
desk.

“And the center of a moon
is no place for children.” Pilton jumped in.
“
Go ahead
Alder.
”

Alder
’
s shoulders
slumped. He let the titter of the staff considering children give
him reason to pause. While he agreed that bringing up the
pregnancies was a good way to prepare the crew to listen to
anything, he still couldn
’
t
believe anyone would go for what he was about to suggest.
“
Our main problem is the total mass
of the dust cloud. It outweighs us by several orders of magnitude
and is leaning on us more each day. If we try to push out of it, we
will, at best, pull it with us. That might buy us a little time
but, in the end, our shields will still fail.

“There is a kind of,
unorthodox, option.” He pressed a button and a 3d schematic of the
ship appeared in the view.
“
As you know, we were the first of the Solo class ships put
into service. Since we were an untested spaceframe with a long
expected flight time, the designers saw fit to back up a lot of our
systems with radio-isotope or other nuclear batteries.” A set of
red boxes flared around the ship schematic.
“
None of it’s bomb grade of course,
but, if we bombarded it, it should enrich up to about a single
twenty megaton bomb.
”

“To do what?”
Treva Garson, the ships executive commander asked
from her place at the table.
“
Blow the cloud apart?
”

“Exactly.” Alder
responded.
“
It will create an
opening. We
’
ll have a few
hours with the cloud off of us to build a little momentum. It would
give us a chance to set down on the planet without bringing the
whole cloud down on us.”
Alder barreled on
not waiting for people to process
‘
set down on the planet.
’ “
We
’
re not built to
land, but we can definitely collapse our orbit and force ourselves
to the surface. In simulation, the ship can survive entry into a
thin atmosphere and the shields can survive impact with the
surface. It
’
ll be the end of
them, but we
’
ll be
alive.