Deep Space Journey - 2. DSJ Chapter 2

Shortly after the two-year anniversary of leaving Earth, they came across their first piece of space junk, it looked like a large cargo craft, but it was badly damaged, and with great caution, Quinn and a search team of five others, went aboard the cargo ship, their monitoring equipment told them there was oxygen on board, and the reason that it looked abandoned, soon became apparent, when they noticed large sections had been damaged by fire.

The cargo ship was about nine times bigger than the shuttle, and after finding some control panels, they were able to get the power running on the auxiliary power supply, to get lights and some systems going.

The control panel showed a map of the ship which has 12 decks, and it was showing 65% of the ship had been damaged by fire or explosions ripping holes in the sides, exposing those sections to open space.

Quinn was able to get to the main hanger bay which was the main area not affected, along with the auxiliary engineering room next door, and he found a number of bodies, some with major or minor burns, some with impact injuries and some were fine, but all were dead because of dehydration and lack of food. Quinn estimated that they had been dead for a few months at least.

The cargo bay was big enough to hold the shuttle, so he suggested to the senior pilot to land in the cargo bay to save fuel, and oxygen, as there seemed to be plenty of that in the undamaged sections of the ship. On further investigation, Quinn worked out that the main engineering, the recreation areas, and some science and research areas where the most damaged by the fire which looked like, it had started in engineering.

The 12 crew members spent three whole weeks carefully exploring the whole ship, with breathing gear required to explore the damaged areas, a lot more human bodies were found around the ship. Quinn was able to get access to the ship's computer to work out that there was a crew of 116 onboard, but only 82 bodies were found.

Quinn was able to find solar system mapping on the computer which was transferred to the shuttle's computer. It even showed their home solar system, and with the data, they collected from the planet they explored they were able to predict where they were, and that they were just a few weeks travel away from the home planet of the cargo ship.

Since the cargo ship has lost the capability to move with no propulsion available due to the fire damage, the shuttle crew decided to try towing the cargo ship back to its home planet. This would take a few extra weeks to complete due to the extra load, but it would give them more time to study and understand the new technology and information that they had available to them.

Commander Chaney assigned Quinn, the job of collecting as much science and navigation information as possible, while Lucas would gather as much information about medical advancements. The other team members worked on engineering and electronic technology.

Finally, after six weeks of hard towing, the shuttle was in the orbit of a planet two times the size of Earth. It didn’t have large oceans just a few seas and lakes. Their arrival was noticed and because of the difference in technologies, they were not able to be in contact. So, three shuttles were sent up to investigate.

The exploration commander and the shuttle pilot were at the front of the team of 11 crew when the shuttles landed, and humans like themselves stepped out, some were armed. After a bit of silence and looking the visitors over from head to toe, the leader of the group spoke, saying his name was Tomah. He was the defence deputy chief of the planet Sahndrol.

Then the Exploration Commander, Dennison Chaney spoke saying they were from the third planet known as Earth, in the neighbouring solar system, they were the very first from the planet to begin exploring beyond their solar system, and they were funded by a private consortium, and not by any government of the many countries on the planet.

Commander Chaney said they stumbled across this damaged cargo vessel two earth months ago by their time, and have spent that time learning from it and transporting it back home after learning where it came from. The crew of the Space Voyager were invited down to the planet as their special guests, as this was a momentous occasion that needed to be celebrated. They were led onto one of the shuttles.

Over the next eleven months, the crew learnt a lot about the Sahndrol people, their different cultures, their different customs, various languages apart from English, which appeared to be a universal language.

They also learnt about their more advanced technologies, which were not far ahead of that from Earth. The crew members were given the opportunity to learn a lot more in their specific fields of expertise, and when they were invited to appear before the Sahndrol Executive council, the crew of the Space Voyager were not sure what to expect.

Firstly, they were informed they had the salvage rights to the cargo ship that they found, and that an offer was being presented to them for the wrecked ship plus the shuttle, in exchange for a near new cargo ship half the size of the one they found, with all the latest technology, including planetary mapping.

It was 4 times the size of the shuttle with 5 decks, and able to carry a crew of 32 and 20 passengers/guests. It had a more advanced fuel system. The engineering was far more ahead of that on Earth, and the living and recreation facilities were a lot more spacious.

Commander Chaney and Quin had decided to keep the ship they found and repair it, which is what they set out to do. Although their calendar system was different, it did tie in exactly with the international calendar system on Earth, so when it is the 11th of November 1945, Armistice Day for the end of World War 2, the Space calendar day is 1945.315, that being the 315th day in the year 1945.

Now approaching three years since leaving Earth, the crew were now wondering about what to do. For the past eight months, Quinn had been training hard as a fighter and cargo ship captain, and he had gained his qualifications a lot faster than the trainees usually took. All of the crew had been kept busy with the repairs of the new ship, and as the repairs are been made, the crew learnt more about the advanced technology.

Commander Chaney called a meeting of his crew to discuss their future. During this meeting, Commander Chaney announced that he had been invited to become a member of the Executive Council on Sahndrol, and he was seriously considering accepting it. Quinn and Lucas announced they wanted to continue exploring space in their new ship, and with additional crew, before returning to Sahndrol briefly to restock before returning home.

Two other members announced they had found their life partners and wanted to remain on Sahndrol, but may return to Earth with Captain Lenegan if their partners decided to go. Another crew member had accepted a permanent position as an Engineer at Sahndrol, while the remaining 5 crew members announced they want to remain as crew under their new captain and explore space more.

The outcome of this meeting was passed onto the Executive Council, who gladly accepted each person’s decision, and the council offered a committee of five experienced defence executives to assist Quinn in choosing additional 39 crew, as a minimum of 46 is required to operate the new ship, which had been refitted to provide research and exploration as its key object. So, it was reclassified as such and renamed “Perseverance”, which is the name of the harbour on the Campbell Islands, South of New Zealand.

During a busy eight days the Executive Crew of the new ship, consisting of Quinn, Lucas and the Chief Science Officer - Franklin Traer, and the selection committee interviewed 68 interested people who wanted to be part of the new crew. After the first interviews, the committee brought the list of candidates down to 56, and the second series of interviews were held for those 56, and another discussion with the committee, brought the list down to 48.

From that point, the 48 candidates were presented to the Executive crew, with 9 positions to be dropped to bring it down to a crew of 39. After speaking to all of the candidates, the executive crew selected the top 39. Two of those selected are the new life partners of Quinn and Lucas. Quinn’s partner - Natihya, had already given birth to their son - Maenyl before they had selected the final crew.

The successful 39 candidates were brought before the Executive crew and congratulated in being selected, many of who have been working alongside Quinn and Lucas since their arrival, and have become good friends. The remaining people were told that when they return and if the positions have not been filled during their journey, they would be eligible to take up the vacant positions.

Over the next five months the ship was stocked up with provisions, spare parts for anything that may breakdown, and research and exploration equipment, including two 5-person transport shuttles, two 5-person enclosed land buggies, and a 5-person enclosed hovercraft, which Quinn designed and helped to build. Finally, the day came for the departure of the space explorer “Perseverance” and its total crew of 46, with 39 new crew of 21 men and 18 women; all very skilled and ready start their new adventure, along with the original 7 crew and one baby boy.

Quinn who had just turned 24 years old, was now the owner and captain of the ship, and he was looking forward to this next stage of his journey in space. He had with him all the samples and data collected from the planets they had visited, plus they now have detailed planetary maps to guide them in their journey.

Quinn had already been educated in diplomacy and negotiating skills and was aware that there will be other species of life forms at places they will be visiting in this solar system, with an estimated two years before returning to Sahndrol.

Before restocking for the journey home to Earth where he planned to use his skills and knowledge to assist the leaders of Earth; possibly via the United Nations, to work on issues that are putting the planet at risk.

Over the next two years, Quinn and his crew explored the solar system and visited many new planets, most have very similar human features, some differences in a lot of ways, but the one common thing was that English was the common language. Quinn liked the native language of Sahndrol, although Drol is a difficult language to learn. But it had a nice sound to it, which encouraged Quinn to learn it during his time on the planet, as it is a language spoken on a number of other planets also.

During the journey, Natihya had given birth to a second son - Suamyl, who is just three weeks short of being exactly 2½ years younger than his brother. He was 18 months old when they arrived back at Sahndrol. During their journey, they had only recruited two more crew members from different worlds.

During the journey in deeper space, some remodelling was made with 6 living quarters to create three family living quarters, of which Quinn and his family took one, Lucas and his family took another, leaving one family living quarters free, which was decided to keep as a VIP living quarters.