Noah - 3. Chapter 3

Date: 4th December 2418
Location: ‘Bee-03’ Mining Shuttle, Asteroid Belt, Unknown

“Two point one.” I announced as the sensors finished analysing the eleventh asteroid we’d flown to. So far they’d all been less than a four on the mineral analysis, barely worth the effort of mining and refining them. If it carried on like this though we would be forced to settle for the low quality rocks here, anything would be better than nothing.

“We’re down to about one hour of air.” The Lieutenant’s voice chirped over the suit’s radio. “If we don’t have anything good in the next two or three rocks we’ll have to head back.”

“Understood, let’s try this one.” I replied, sending coordinates of another asteroid to his console.

The shuttle shook and rattled as its engines powered up and it made its way over to the marked location. It had been five hours since we had left the Noah and so far we had found virtually nothing of use. From what I could see from the shuttle’s sensors the entire solar system we had jumped to was filled with asteroids and little else.

“Initiating scan.” I said when we entered the range of the mineral scanner half an hour later. The initial readings came back as the asteroid containing more usable minerals than the others we had scanned but still not a really useful amount.

“Four point three.” It had been the highest concentration so far and I was considering whether it would be worth just mining this one and maybe having enough time for a second trip. “I’m going to start blasting, if we’re lucky we’ll have enough air to make another trip and get some more.

The shuttle shook and creaked as the laser cut into the asteroid below. It took twenty minutes but eventually a chunk slightly smaller than the shuttle floated free. I locked onto it with the tractor beam and signalled the Lieutenant to return to the ship. With the four booster engines firing along with the main four the shuttle felt even more like it was going to shake itself apart.

“Argh! Dammit!” The pilot shouted in pain.

Looking over I saw him clutching his left bicep, a few droplets of blood floating around his hand.

“What happened?” I asked, reaching for the small medikit behind his seat.

“Something hit me, I don’t know what.”

I took a length of the cord from the kit and tied it tightly above the wound, forming an airtight tourniquet. Beneath his hand was a chunk of blue metal, most likely blasted from the Noah when the asteroid hit.

“I can seal it in but I don’t have enough here to take it out.” I told him, “This is going to hurt like hell.”

Taking the laser lance, I set it to the ‘cauterise’ setting and fired into the wound. I had to deactivate my suit’s radio while he screamed in agony as the lance burned the muscle and blood vessels. He would need a new arm when we returned to the ship but this would at least keep him from bleeding to death. I deactivated the laser and cleared the smoke from the seared flesh. The wound was sealed and should be fine, but he was unconscious. A shot of Adrenocaffiene quickly woke him up but it was clear that he was in no condition to fly.

“You’ll have to take the controls.” He murmured, even the powerful stimulants were barely keeping him conscious. “Help me over to the mining controls, I’ll keep the rock with us, you fly us in.”

“I haven’t flown since Basic Flight at school, I can’t…” I began to argue.

“Just take it slow and steady, we’re nearly back. I’ll talk you through the approach.”

Reluctantly I helped him into the co-pilots seat where I had been sitting and took his place at the controls. It had been over twenty years since I had been in this position, and I barely managed it back then. Now I had the added complication of a rock the same size as the shuttle being towed behind me.

The shuttle lurched, shook and creaked as I pushed the power up to 20%. With the front window gone I had no heads-up display to guide the ship into the bay and had to manoeuvre the ship by eye, with an occasional word from the wounded Lieutenant.

The Noah looked so large and the opening to the docking bay so small as I eased the craft closer. Scraping the left side along the edge of the opening I barely managed to enter the bay, releasing a breath I didn’t realise I was holding when we were clear.

“Hold position above the chute.” The Lieutenant advised, tapping away on the console I felt the tractor beam disengage with a jolt, then turn on and off as the debris blocking the chute was cleared. One final time the beam cycled as the rock was guided in.

“How much air do you have left?” I asked the Lieutenant when the beam deactivated for the last time.

“Not long, I lost a lot when that thing hit me, an hour maybe, two at most with the reserve.”

“That’s not enough time for another run.” I lied, two hours would be easily enough to make another run but I wanted to get him to the medibay as soon as possible. “We need to find a usable airlock.” The ship had five docking bays; the Construction bay being the largest, the Mining bay with the material conveyor linking it to the refinery, the Fighter/Bomber bay which housed the ship’s fighter and bomber wings, the Cargo bay which housed a number of basic shuttles and the Docking Port, an external airlock to allow external docking of larger ships. Of the four internal bays, the mining bay and construction bay’s airlocks were definitely out of action, meaning we would need to use one of the others, not knowing if either were in one piece.

Slowly I turned the ship around and headed back for the breach. I managed to barely get the shuttle back into space, this time without hitting the edge. Increasing the power slightly I flew the shuttle towards the aft of the ship until I saw the large bay doors. The bays didn’t respond when I keyed in the access code to open the doors remotely but they appeared intact.

“Do you think we could pull the door open with the tractor?” I asked the lolling pilot who was struggling to maintain consciousness; he had lost a lot of blood when he was wounded and the pain from the cauterising had sapped his energy.

“Too…too heavy. Seal too strong.” He murmured, I could tell that if he wasn’t seen to soon then there was a good chance he would die, and with the ship’s energy reserves so low he wouldn’t be cloned any time soon. In our current condition we needed every member of the crew we had.

“Bo..t … Co……r Rich…” The radio cracked. When the asteroid hit all communications had been destroyed. It was only through luck that the Lieutenant was in the Construction Bay when I arrived.

“This is Richter, repeat message.” I replied.

“..git to ………. Richter, resp…” The radio cracked again, I quickly looked over the communications panel and while a number of the secondary systems were damaged, the essentials were still online.

“This is Richter, you’re breaking up.”

“Is that any better?” Ensign Bodgit’s voice cleared and the static faded.

“Much, report.”

“The refinery is processing the rock you dropped off, it won’t be much but it should give us enough energy to get a few of the secondary systems online. The construction Bay is gone and we can’t get into the mining bay.”

“There’s a shuttle lodged in the mining bay’s airlock. What’s the status of the cargo bay?” I asked. We couldn’t open the doors from outside but if there was enough power it might be possible for Bodgit to open them remotely.

“Hang on…” He replied, checking the systems. “I still can’t get any readings, there’s no power to that area. It looks like the fighter bay’s still in one piece if you can make it there. I have green lights on the airlock and doors but there is no power to that area of the ship either. It’ll take me a while to get power rerouted and the systems online.”

“Make it your priority, my pilot has been hurt and needs medical attention ASAP.” I ordered, “Get the bay online and have a medical team standing by.”

“Yes sir.” He replied, “Bodgit out.”

“Hang on Lieutenant; we’ll have you seen to soon.” I said to the pilot, attempting to reassure him but he didn’t respond.

Flying underneath the ship, the underside looked remarkably undamaged. A few sections of armour and hull had been warped or were missing below the asteroid’s resting point but other than that it still looked as rounded and shiny as the first time I had seen it.

“I’m engaging power to the fighter bay now, sir.” Bodgit reported over the radio as the bay came into view. Moments later the doors were illuminated by blue lights and they cracked open, revealing the forcefield holding the atmosphere inside.

I was hit by a powerful blast of wind when the shuttle passed the forcefield as air was blown through the hole which should have held the front window. The Lieutenant was blown from his seat and to the floor with a thump, not moving.

As quickly as I dared I set down on the closest pad to the airlock where I could see the green bended uniforms of the medical teams waiting. As soon as I set down they rushed from the airlock and hurriedly pulled the Lieutenant onto a stretcher. While they carried him out of the shuttle and started working on him I removed my helmet and looked around the bay.

Every other section of the ship I had been in since the impact had shown some signs of heavy damage, but the fighter bay looked nearly pristine. There were a few section of the ceiling on the floor and the control room’s emergency shutters were down, indicating that the windows were either shattered or gone but otherwise it looked fine.

There were 25 landing pads on the fore and aft walls, five high and five wide with both ladders and elevators linking the levels. The middle level on the forward side had the control room, which would have large windows overlooking the rest of the bay contained a large number of tracking and communications systems for launching and controlling the fighter and bomber wings. From both the forward and aft sides on the central level, a walkway ran along the walls to the airlock. The bay was well illuminated by the lighting panels which covered both the ceiling and the underside of the four upper bays, meaning every inch of the bay was lit.

Taking the radio unit from the suit I walked to the control room. While the MNet would be capable of carrying communications around the ship, with the main computer offline there was no way to regulate the system so it was useless. The control room looked to be in excellent shape in the dark blue glow, the same lighting panels covered the ceiling in here but were of a blue colour to be less strenuous for long periods, only the windows were damaged.

“Richter to Bodgit” I spoke into the radio.

“Bodgit here, go ahead sir.” The reply came a few moments later.

“I’m in the fighter control room, do we have enough power to bring the computer systems in here back online?” I asked. The control room had been designed to act as a secondary bridge in times of emergency and while with a full staff it would be cramped it would be a place to organise repairs more efficiently.

“I think so, sir but I wouldn’t recommend powering up anything nonessential, we’ve still not got much power and that rock you dropped off won’t last us long.”

“Can the computer systems in here control the MNet?” If we could bring up the Net, even at a limited level it would greatly increase communications efficiency throughout the ship and allow us to get a full damage report.

“I…think so.” He replied after a moment’s thought, “I’ll send the best computer expert we have to you, if anyone can rig it up she can.”

“Good, I want to activate the secondary bridge as soon as possible. Report here as soon as the Net is up.” A chief engineer’s job was to organise and control the engineers below him and would be much more useful to a ship’s commander in the bridge.

“Aye, sir. Crewman Long will be with you shortly.”

“You have your orders, Richter out.” I closed the conversation and began looking over the computer systems. While I had a very basic understanding of the systems they still all looked like a random jumble of wires to me. The consoles were all offline and appeared dead.

“Crewman Long reporting, Sir.” A woman standing in the door, wearing a uniform with a blue bend announced, standing at attention.

“I need you to get this computer to channel the MNet, can you do it?” I asked.

“Yes, sir.” She replied confidently. “It will only be able to channel communications though, no data or ‘scaping though.”

“That’s enough.” I confirmed and she immediately got to work, pulling wires and moving around chips and cards.

After a few minutes I felt a buzz as my neural interface detected the connection and logged on.

“Communications online, sir.” The crewman messaged me to confirm it was working.

“I’m on my way, sir.” Another message, this one from Bodgit arrived in my mind.

“Good job crewman, I need the bridge controls routed into here.” I requested vocally. Now that it was operational, there was no physical reason that I couldn’t communicate completely over the Net, but I always felt that vocal communications were simply more personal.

She scurried over to the wall and after removing a few panels to reveal more circuit boards began fiddling with more wires.

“Sir.” Bodgit announced his arrival, standing in the doorway.

“Bodgit, what is our situation?” I asked with a wave, indicating he should come in.

“Pretty much the same as earlier, sir.” I would have to speak with the crew about their formality. Most of the senior crew had been on the bridge when it was hit by the asteroid and without enough power to clone them, the new ‘senior’ crewmembers were all juniors, some like Bodgit barely out of the Academy and used to the very strict rules regarding addressing senior officers. “The number three generator is operational, barely, the refinery is working on that rock but it won’t last long, I estimate we have enough fuel for a day if we run in conservation mode. The construction bay has been pretty much destroyed, and we can’t get into the mining bay to begin repairs. The cargo bay is still without power, I’m looking into it but it seems that some of the main power relays to that side of the ship have been destroyed, we’ll have to sequence some new ones once we have more power. On the plus side we should be able to patch that mining shuttle back together, we can use it to ship repair crews to the mining bay and to get a flow of minerals coming in.”

“Make the infrastructure your priority.” I ordered, “Once we have enough power to get the main computers back online we can get a full damage report.”

“Aye sir.” He replied, then appeared to stare into space for a moment as he sent orders to the repair crews. “I’ve got a crew heading here now, they’ll fix the shuttle up as well as they can. Do we have any pilots left? We will need two to get some mining operations going.”

I transmitted an ID request over the net. Everyone who was connected would automatically send back a data packet containing their name, rank and position. Of the fifteen pilots who had docked with their ships before the jump, three were still alive, one of which was the Lieutenant who had been injured while flying the mining operation with me. I ordered the two remaining pilots to report immediately to the fighter bay and turned to Bodgit.

“There are two pilots heading here now. Have your crew board the shuttle once it’s repaired and then begin repairs on the mining bay. The airlock should be their top priority then trying to salvage the other two Bees.”

“Yes sir.” He stared into space once again then promptly turned to assist the crewman working on the computer systems.

Standing in the doorway I watched as a group of crewmen in blue-trimmed enviro-suits head from the airlock and to the Bee shuttle sat on the pad I had roughly landed on. After a few minutes surveying the damage they set to work at repairs.

At the same time as they were beginning work on the shuttle, two pilots stepped through the airlock and headed over to the control room.

“Lieutenants Ross and Walker reporting, sir.” The slightly taller one with red hair announced when they reached me.

“Good, you are to suit up and then pilot the Bee that the repair crew is working on now.” I told them, “Once the shuttle is fully operational you are to drop the crew in the mining bay then commence mining operations in the asteroid field. It will be a squeeze getting everyone inside but you’ll manage it.”

“Aye, sir.” The shorter, black-haired pilot answered and they both jogged to the shuttle.

“How’s that computer coming?” I asked the direction of Bodgit and Long who were both working on the mess of wires on the wall.

“Almost…” Bodgit replied, pushing one wire into a socket, “There, Sharon try it now.” Crewman long pushed a button concealed behind a panel and lights began flashing all over the wall shortly before a number of consoles flashed into life. “Limited computer systems online, sir.” He reported proudly. Looking at a display and occasionally tapping the screen he continued; “We don’t have full access, it looks as if the main core was damaged by the asteroid and the secondary was fried by the power surge from the generators but we do have basic access.”

“What is the status of the navigation systems? Do we know where we are?”

“The sensor systems were destroyed in the impact, sir. We’ll have to rebuild from scratch before we can tell where we are.”

“Make that second on your list once power is restored.”

“Aye, sir. The repair crew is requesting permission to sequence a new window for the shuttle, sir.” Bodgit informed me after a moments pause. “With the power we currently have I think it’ll use three or four hours of fuel but it will mean the pilots can keep mining for much longer.”

“Granted.” I replied after a moments thought. With the window repaired the shuttle’s life support could be reactivated and the pilots would not need to use the enviro suits.

Moments later two members of the repair crew walked over to the pad, a smaller version of the one that was in the construction bay and picked up the curved piece of reinforced glass that had appeared in a blue glow.

While the pilots sat at the shuttle’s controls, the repair crew installed the window and after another walk around to be sure everything was fine they crowded inside.

“The Bee is requesting permission for a test flight, sir.” Bodgit said while tapping at a display.

“Go ahead, have everyone in the bay head to a safe position then clear them for a test.” I wasn’t sure that with the way the ship’s systems were damaged the forcefield would hold when the doors were opened, so it was better to have everyone head to either the outside corridor or the control room, which was sealed.

Once the few crewmembers in the bay had evacuated, the shuttle powered up and hovered several feet above the pad. Testing the controls the pilots spun the shuttle in every direction and moved to the open area in the centre of the bay.

“Bee Two requesting permission to depart, sir.” Crewman Long reported from her current position at the flight control station.

“Raise the forcefield and open the doors.” I replied, watching the green forcefield flicker into place and the massive doors crack open on a monitor. Once they were far enough I gave the order for the shuttle to depart and watched it smoothly fly from the light bay into the black void.

I picked up a silver device that looked like a small remote control, pressing the green button at the top a blue screen the size of an A5 sheet of paper materialised to the right of the pad. Transferring the crew data from my mind to the holopad, where it felt more natural to review it I sat at a chair along the controls by the windows.

Of the 1,630 crew who were aboard when the ship left dock, only 480 were still alive, a handful being Ensigns and the only higher ranked crewmembers being myself and the three pilots.

The main concern was the lack of senior medical personnel. The surviving crew consisted mainly of nurses with just three doctors, only one of them being more than two years in the field.

“Bodgit.” I said aloud to get his attention, “What is the state of the cloning system?” It took a lot of energy to clone a person, far more than we had available now but with the ship running on a skeleton crew it would be essential to fill the more important positions as soon as possible.

“The cloning systems are fully operational, sir.” He replied, “But the main computer crashed and took out the control systems with it shortly after you were mapped. The majority of the senior officers were in the active memory at the time being updated.”

“Meaning?” I asked. The cloning systems were never something I understood.

“Meaning there is a very good chance that the maps of every other senior officer was corrupted when the computers crashed. The captain was corrupted because he was linked directly to the ship when it was hit. It’s only because you were revived quickly that you were saved.”

That could be a problem. With the senior officers’ neural pathway maps corrupted there would be no way to bring them back.

“What about the colonist maps?” Though the ship was crewed by three thousand it had a massive database of colonist neural maps, over three million people were stored aboard. The Noah was designed to be capable of restoring the M Military in the event of a catastrophe and those colonists represented a broad cross section of society.

“With the main computer down I can’t be sure, but they should still be intact. The colonial database has multiple nodes all over the ship to protect it from problems.”

“How long until you can be sure?”

Bodgit sighed then turned to Crewman Long. “I managed to get a look at the secondary core before I came here, Sir.” She addressed me, “Virtually everything was fried from a major power surge, it’s a lost cause. The main core was destroyed by the asteroid so there’s no hope with that. The entire computer core will have to be rebuilt from scratch; even with the sequencers running it would take me at least three months to create the parts and another two to build it.”

“What if you were given more repair crews to help?”

“That wouldn’t help much, sir. It might cut a few weeks from the building time but I have to input the designs for each component into the sequencer manually one by one. Unless there’s someone else who is an expert in computer systems then all assigning more crews will do is keep them from other repairs.”

“Bodgit, do you have anyone else who can assist Long?” I asked. Five months was a long time for a skeleton crew to be running and repairing a ship this large and battered.

“No sir.” He replied, “The only other person capable of designing and building a computer this complex was Commander Lynx, the chief engineer.”

“Very well.” It looked like we would be here for a long layover. “In that case crewman, your sole priority now is to build us a computer. This project has top priority for crewmen and materials, contact Bodgit if you need anything.” I addressed Long.

“Yes, sir.” She replied then moved to a console on the back wall.

I sat in the chair I had commandeered as the Captain’s chair and closed my eyes. This was not how I had envisioned my first command.