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Sail the Sea of Stars - chapter 2

 
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Bud Brewster
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Joined: 14 Dec 2013
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PostPosted: Thu Aug 18, 2016 1:12 am    Post subject: Sail the Sea of Stars - chapter 2 Reply with quote

________________________________

So much for teasers. Now things get interesting.
________________________________





CHAPTER 2

THE G.S.C. CANDLELIGHT


"Attention! Attention!" A voice blasted from the p.a. system and filled the bridge area. "Combat condition alert! Repeat, combat condition alert! Hyperdrive termination will take place in approximately ten minutes. Combat crewmen, report to your stations. This is not — I repeat not — a drill!"

It was the last announcement a starship crew wanted to hear, but it was blasting all over my ship, and it wasn't exactly making anybody happy. The source of that voice — communications officer Tony Thorn — was just eighteen feet from me as I finished a quick bit of work at the bridge console of the ship's science officer, Hank Leamon. Hank stood beside me, impatiently waiting for me to give his science station back to him in good working order before the battle began.

"That fixed it," I told Hank as I finished my dialog with the ship's computer and then I stood up from his chair. He practically knocked me out of the way as he leapt into the chair and waltz his hands over the controls. Six different display screens on his meter-wide console put on a light show as data and graphics flashed into view and disappeared in response to Leamon's fast check of the system.

"Much better, Newcastle," Leamon nodded, looking pleased. "It seems to be back up to speed. Thanks. You can tell me what was wrong with it later. Kinda busy now."

I just smiled and nodded, knowing that Hank wouldn"t like my explanation of the problem when I did tell him. The ship"s computer had decided Hank might be rushing through the complex science data it displayed for him, causing him to miss important details. So the science station display had suddenly starting deliberately holding data on the screen longer, giving Hank more time to think deep thoughts and appreciate the computer's thoroughness.

I had to explain to the computer why these actions weren't quite as helpful as they were intended. Solving quirky problems like that were part of my job. I was the Candlelight's computer psychologist. It was a new field. Not many folks understood it.

I glanced up at the observation decks which hung over the bridge like two stacked balconies, overlooking the on-duty bridge crew at their duty stations. The lower deck was already half filled with people — technicians, cooks, stewards, and other personnel whose jobs weren't related to combat preparation. The crowd was busy asking each other what was going on. Apparently nobody up there knew. The only reason I did know was because I happened to be on the bridge working at Leamon's science console when the distress call from the G.S.L Rembrandt had come in.

I hurried up the center stairway that split the sloping bridge floor in half, just to get out of the way of the guys doing the actually work. I was standing on the level deck just behind the captain's chair when the head man himself arrived.

"Captain on the bridge!" The executive officer, Lieutenant Commander Sinclair, rose from the captain's chair when a tall, authoritative figure entered the room. Captain Daniel North was an impressive man. Fifty-eight years old and muscular, with a thick mane of sandy gray hair, a heavy brow over pale blue eyes, and a bushy mustache above a blocky jaw. He had always reminded me of Mark Twain, but I knew it I ever told him that my transfer orders would be in my back pocket before I could figured out how they got there.

Captain North walked quickly to the command chair, dropped into it hard, and swiveled it to face the communication console where Anthony Thorn was seated. Thorn was a young man of African descent with skin so dark that his eyes and teeth seemed to glow.

Captain North leaned towards Thorn and seemed to speak through clenched teeth. "Alright, Mr. Thorn, give it to me from the top."

I saw Thorn take a deep breath, and I knew what was coming. Anthony Thorn had the remarkable ability to speak at a tongue-bruising speed without sacrificing a single concise syllable — a handy skill for a communications officer, especially when there was a lot to say and little time to say it.

Thorn answered the captain in a single breath. "Well, sir, about two minutes ago we received a partial S.O.S. from the passenger liner Rembrandt, saying that they were under attack from three medium-class ships, their shields were down, most of their weapons were damaged, their engines were disable — and their passengers where in a panic."

One breath. I'm not kidding. While Thorn rattled off his report, Captain North was scanning the huge wrap-around display screen that stood at the front the bridge area, nearly surrounding it. The curved screen, four point five meters high (13 feet) and eighteen meters wide (54 feet) was a bright mosaic of computer data, divided into shifting patterns of odd-sized inserts. The dozens of color-differentiated squares and rectangles (each one crammed with data) ranged in size from one to three feet across.

Captain North found a two-by-two meter data window which displayed a written version of the S.O.S., and he read it to himself while Thorn took a breath and added, "The Rembrandt got their position out just as the transmission ceased."

North looked back quickly at Thorn. "You mean the Rembrandt doesn't know we're on the way?"

"No, sir," said Thorn. "They've either been destroyed or their com systems have been knocked out."

"Did you try to raise them?"

"No, sir." Thorn was smiling when he answered. I could tell Tony was up to something by his Cheshire cat grin.

Captain North guessed what it was, and he smiled back. "So, the enemy doesn't know we're on the way either"?

Thorn shook his head slowly, still smiling.

"Good work, Tony." Captain North's eyes darted around on the big screen until he found a display of the star system which held the Rembrandt. He noticed that the passenger liner was located near the system's largest planet.

North spoke to the helmsman, located directly in front of him. "Mr. Kellogg? How close is that gas giant to the Rembrandt?"

"A little over three-hundred thousand kilometers, sir. In fact, they're located in among the moons. The luxury liner might have been doing one of those scenic fly-by's of the gas giant to dazzle the passengers when they were attacked by the pirates."

The helm/navigation console was located right in front of the captain's command chair, slightly lower because of the sloping bridge floor which angled down for forty feet to meet the lower edge of the wrap-around display screen. Samuel Kellogg shared the wide double-console with the navigator, Beth Kellogg, an attractive brunette. She was Samuel's wife, which made him one of the luckiest guy on the Candlelight. He knew it, but he never brag about it. Captain North always called her by her first name, just to prevent confusion when speaking to his helmsman and navigator. "Beth, are those moons going be a problem?"

Beth Kellogg's voice held a hint of mischief. "Well, that depends on your definition of a problem, sir. Nine of those moons are currently lined up like an honor guard. Sam thinks maybe we can use them to cover our final approach." She made zigzag motions in the air with her hand, like a fish weaving through seaweed. North got the picture.

The crowd on the observation decks above me grew noticeably more excited when they heard the battle plan. A high-speed zigzag maneuver through a maze of moons was going to put us on top of the enemy before they knew we were coming. That, for obvious reasons, was good. We'd need the advantage of surprise. Tony Thorn had said three medium-class ships had attacked the Rembrandt. Luxury liners were heavily armed against just this sort of situation. And yet, the Rembrandt had lost this fight. The obvious conclusion was that the attack had been well planned.

"How far away is the nearest Alliance starship?"

"The G.S.C. Nightwind is the only ship within a day's sailing, and she's more than four hours away," said Beth. She paused for effect, then added, "If we call her, it will alert the pirates."

Captain North pondered his possibilities; the Nightwind might have picked up the Rembrandt's SOS on her own. That would be good. But the Nightwind might call the Candlelight to coordinate the rescue. That would be bad. The attackers would undoubtedly be listening for any transmissions that would indicate help was on the way.

Thorn's voice boomed from the p.a. "Hyperdrive termination in four minutes." He gave it a slightly theatrical delivery, perhaps to break the tension. Tony was a devoted ham who was fond of his own voice. He glanced up at the observation decks and saw his growing audience. It seemed to please him. Before turning back around, he saw me standing behind the captain, grinning as I watched him work the crowd. He gave me a quick wink.

Captain North caught sight of me out of the corner of his eye. He turned and started to say something, then he recognized me and looked surprised. "I thought you were a steward, Newcastle. I was going to ask you to get me a cup of coffee."

This was about the closets I'd ever been to captain. It was closer than I wanted to be under the circumstances. I smiled nervously and said, "Cream and sugar, sir?"

Captain North gave me a faint smile beneath his troubled eyes. "If you were a real steward, you wouldn't even have to ask." He turned back to the task of preparing his ship of battle.

At the helmsman's console just below the captain's chair, Sam Kellogg leaned towards his wife and said something in a low voice. Beth nodded, dug in the pocket of her jacket, and pulled out stick of chewing gum. Sam unwrapped it deftly with the same hand that held it (a nice trick), then he pushed it into his mouth without taking his eyes off the data windows on the display screen. He handed the wrapper to his wife without looking in her direction. His big, knobby hands had a firm grip on the ship's control yoke. The only part of him moving was his jaw as he gnawed at the gum with a slow, measured chomp, the muscles in his lean face flexing beneath the skin. It was his way of dealing with the tension of his job.

I had heard Beth call her husband "Gumjaw" a few times. It sounded cute when she said. He was Sam to the other officers and Mr. Kellogg to the rest.

Captain North plucked his comset from the recess on the armrest of his command chair and shoved into his ear. His fingers did a little dance on the keyboard built into the armrest as he dialed up a direct line to Chief Gunners Mate Sid McWilliams. The people at the guardrail of the observation decks leaned forward, anxious to hear what he was about to say.

Three decks above the bridge, Sid McWilliams was waddling along behind the row of control stations on gunnery deck one, closely watching the younger men as they scrambled into the skeletal chairs that faced the curved wall of the semicircular room. Each man hooked his feet into the stirrups beneath the consoles in front of them and started testing the feel of the control yokes which maneuvered the plasma cannons on the outer hull. Every station bobbed and twisted in response to the control yokes. Outside the ship, each plasma cannon mimicked the movements of its operator exactly. But the cannons weren't visible to the men yet because the curved wall that surrounded the room was a smaller version of the display screen on the bridge. It, too, was alive with data-filled windows showing tactical information.

McWilliams had a wide, rectangular body that resembled a brick. His weathered old face had a few hundred wrinkles and a short brown beard that squared off his head to match his stocky body. Sid the Brick. Not a nickname, just a description. In a voice like shifting gravel he spoke to the captain when he heard the comset in his ear beep.

"McWilliams, on-line, sir."

"Sid, at this point, all I can tell you is that we're outnumbered three-to-one."

"Not a comforting thought, Captain. How long 'till reinforcements arrive?"

"Too long. Four hours minimum. We don't know for sure, because we're maintaining com silence."
"Understood, sir." Sid saw that each man at the gunnery stations had his hand raised to indicate his station was ready. Sid spoke to the captain. "Gunnery deck one is primed and ready, sir."

As soon as Sid spoke, Captain North heard the same report from the other eleven gunnery decks, received in rapid succession, delivered with a great enthusiasm. Captain North's vessel was now a full-fledged warship. Again he tapped at the buttons on the command chair's armrest.

"Sick bay, report."

"We're preparing for the worst, Captain," said Chief Surgeon Robert Hooper as he wove his way through a noisy mob of white-uniformed medical personnel who were rushing in every direction. Sick bay was being converted into a triage unit capable of handling hundreds of wounded patients. Dr. Doctor Hooper stopped in the middle of the noisy mayhem long enough to say, "But the Rembrandt may be carrying more than two thousand passengers and a crew of — "

"I know, Doctor. Just do your best."

"Hyperdrive termination in two minutes," Thorn's voice erupted from speakers all over the ship. As soon as Thorn finished, the Captain spoke again.

"Engineering, report."

Down in the guts of the Candlelight's engineering section, Chief Engineer Jimmy Lewton poked his head out of a cramped access tube eight feet above a narrow catwalk. He stuck his hand out to catch the comset which a crewman tossed to him from a parallel catwalk nine feet away. Jimmy pressed the headset against his left ear and shouted above the throbbing hum of the vast machinery that surrounded him.

"She's purrin' like a cat after a big dinner, Captain."

The Chief Engineer was a tall, lanky man with a gleeful intensity. He was part lanky farm boy and part technical wizard, with a narrow face and big ears that stuck out past his shaggy hair. He covered his right ear with one hand so he could hear Captain North's reply over the noise.

"Thank you, Mr. Lewton. A very colorful phrase. But we've got three enemy vessels to contend with. You'll need to set up power bypasses for — "

"I just finished doing that, Skipper. Bypasses are set up for all non-essential func??tions."

"Good work, Jimmy." North dialed in another number on his armrest keyboard and spoke again. "Chief Sandusky, report."

Chief non-com Alex Sandusky was watching the Candlelight's combat crewmen storm into Armory Four on deck two as they yanked open their lockers and quickly pulled out their equipment. With practice professionalism, the men and women who belonged to the Alliance Armed Forces Combat Division suited up and armed themselves for the impending battle. Sandusky watched as the combat crewmen strapped on the smooth, light-weight body-hugging armor which covered their torso, arms, and legs. It was constructed of a dark gray substance which shielded its wearer from the impact of a plasma bolt. But it also absorbed the heat of the plasma and distribute it throughout the outer surface of the armor. If the wearer received several hits in rapid succession, the armor would heat up to several hundred degrees. When that happened, a fast striptease was advisable or they'd be cooked inside their own protective suit!

"About ninety-five percent of the combat crew are armed and ready, Captain," Chief Sandusky replied.

"There may be hostages aboard one of the pirate vessels," North told Sandusky. "I'll let you decide whether you should choose the people for your advanced assault teams or let them volunteer."
"It'll depend on who we're fighting, Captain. If the enemy turns out to be something like renegade Dektonsis or Fiyon Fleet deserters or Beltherian mercenaries, I think I should let my people volunteer."

"Agreed, Chief."

"Hyperdrive termination in one minute!" said Thorn from the PA speakers.

On the bridge, Captain North leaned forward to address the bridge personnel directly in the final moments before the ship entered the star system which contained the besieged Rembrandt.

"Mr. Leamon, pull the display screens back as soon as the blue shift is low enough."

"Aye, sir."

"Miss Zambroto, what's the status on the damage control parties?"

"They're all at their stations, captain."

Tony Thorn started counting down the last ten seconds to hyperdrive termi??nation. The computer graphic on the panoramic display screen showed the star system rushing towards us. Standing behind the captain, I had a strong urge to grab on to something.

" — three, two, one. The ship is now sublight! Repeat, we are sublight!"

A strange sound filled the ship, a sound that was partly heard, partly felt, and completely indescribable. The ship's velocity dropped from three hundred sixty thousand times the speed of light to a pitiful 0.897 of light speed, and it all happened in fifteen seconds flat.

Hank Leamon, the science office, jumped the gun when he withdrew the big display screen. The wrap-around screen separated into eight different four-meter wide sections, and they parted like a curtain as they rolled off to the right and left, disappearing into slots on both side of the room.

A blinding blue-white light poured in through the widening gaps as the screens separated. The bridge personnel squinted down at their consoles while the crewmen on the observation decks raised their hands to shield their eyes. Sam Kellogg reached to one side of his chair and pulled out a blue baseball cap, a treasured possession he had owned for years. He tugged the bill low to shade his eyes from the glare. The patch on the front of the cap featured a tiny bulldog and the word Mack.

The high, curved ceiling of the bridge began to roll back into a slot at the rear of the room. All of this disappearing architecture revealed a transparent crystalsteel dome which provided a colossal view of the galaxy. Stars were everywhere — right, left, ahead, and straight up. It was as if the sloping bridge area and the two over-hanging observation decks were perched on the outer hull of the ship, separated from space only by the huge half-dome that covered the bridge.

The bridge was located at the base of a thirty story tall structure that resembled the "sail" on a submarine. The sail sat atop a pair of slender, wing-like structures that were over a 304 meters (one thousand feet) wide. The sail's surface was studded with ports, cameras, plasma cannons, and airlocks.
On each of the twelve gunnery decks, the semicircular wall-screen dropped down into slots in the floor, exposing transparent walls. Mounted on ledges just beyond these wall-ports were the plasma cannons, one for each manned station on the gunnery decks.

All over the ship, similar crystalsteel ports were uncovered. Through them flooded the light of ten million stars, all blue-shifted to an eye-aching brightness by the remnant of the ship's velocity. But the light's intensity was fading quickly as the ship's speed diminished. Blazing patches of blue-white radiance dimmed and separated into individual stars. Some of them faded to red embers, others vanished entirely.

Yet, one star raced towards the ship, growing larger while the glittering background waned. Around this star orbited a gas-giant. Behind the gas-giant was the G.P.L. Rembrandt.

Inside the Rembrandt were two thousand six hundred people. They had no way to escape, and they had no hope of rescue.

But all that was about to change.



_________________
____________
Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)


Last edited by Bud Brewster on Tue Jan 31, 2023 5:50 pm; edited 6 times in total
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Gord Green
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PostPosted: Thu Aug 18, 2016 1:41 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

McWilliams? Perhaps a homage to Alden McWilliams of Twin Earth's fame?
You got me hooked.
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Bud Brewster
Galactic Fleet Admiral (site admin)


Joined: 14 Dec 2013
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PostPosted: Thu Aug 18, 2016 9:28 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

________________________________

Gord, I can't tell you how good it is to receive a few encouraging words from someone I know can appreciate what I'm trying to do, and whose opinion I respect.

Sail the Sea of Stars was originally written in 1983 (and even copyrighted), and I wrote it during slack periods while working as a baggage handler for Easter Air Lines ??? on six big fat spiral notebooks.

But as the years have past and I learned to be a better writer, I came to realize that both the style and the basic plot need a hell of a lot of work.

Chapter 1 was actually created from scratch in 2001 as part of my efforts to fix the story, and chapter two is almost a completely new version of the original chapter that described the Candlelight's battle reparations.

Bits and pieces of the story have been extensively revised over the years whenever I got in the mood to work on it, while others still need to be rewritten. A major change in the plot (a very ambitious concept that will need all my skill to present well without it seeming like a load of bantha fodder), is the biggest challenge I face in getting this novel finished.

As for Sid McWilliams, I lifted that character right out reality and didn't even bother to change his name. He was the boss of a ramp crew at Eastern when I was baggage handler. Very Happy

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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)
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