Past Lives

Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Terran Exploration Vessel: Australia

Deep space exploration sounded exciting until each day the panel walls looked closer, the corridors longer and narrower. The sound of the scummers working in the walls took on the sound of a dentist’s drill, growing more and more shrill as the days passed into weeks and then months in the nothingness.

Deep space. Dust and distant stars. Nothing for the xenology team to do.

Dr. Helen Shaw tapped the lock key on her system, triggering an automatic sync of the Cristobel data analysis. She was thirty-four, fit, with a figure that held up despite all of the time in space. She stayed in shape in anticipation of their destination. A whole new world to explore, still two months out. CY-HC-2347, an Earth-sized world orbiting a super-giant in the Goldilocks zone along with several smaller, possibly habitable moons. A whole system, within a solar system to study. Forty light years from Earth, out on the fringe of explored space. Nothing at this point except a few key images and data provided by a fly-by interstellar probe.

She pushed the heels of her hands against her eyes.

The last thing, the very last thing, that they told you when shipping out was that you’d spend months reading reports of other teams, on other worlds. Knowing that they had gone through the monotony didn’t help. Not one bit.

She groaned and dropped her hands.

“Problems, doctor?” Clay Yeager, fourth generation spacer and barely old enough to shave. Brilliant, but oh, so young. His unruly red hair stuck out in every direction as he lounged, safety belts unfastened, at his station.

They were the only two on duty in xenology right now. The bare minimum. Skeleton crew. The rest all out eating, exercising, f*****g, or sleeping.

Helen said, “No.”

She said. “Give me a nice chiller pod over this, next time. Okay?”

“Company doesn’t like ‘em,” Clay said.

“Yeah, because they expect us to work off our passage. I think I’d rather take the unpaid leave instead of spending my time looking at other xenology teams exploring other worlds!”

Clay grinned brilliantly white teeth. “Isn’t that how we learn—”

The ship lurched and shook.

Clay tumbled free from his chair. She saw him tossed into the air like a rag doll thrown by a dog. He yelled just before he hit the bulkhead with a thud, then fell to the floor. Her own straps held her secure and helpless to do anything.

What the hell happened? The Australia didn’t move like that. Fluctuations in the artificial gravity generators? Caused by what?

Sirens sounded. The lighting changed, a red spot appeared in the heart of each panel and spread outward in a red pulse that spread to the edge, then repeated.

“All hands secure.” That was Command on comm. “All hands secure stations. More hard maneuvering.”

“Clay! Strap in!”

Clay stirred and pushed up on hands and knees. He shook his head. “What?”

Over the comm. “All hands secure! All hands secure!”

“Clay! Move! Strap in!”

Clay scrambled across the floor. Helen held her breath. What the hell was going on? Hard maneuvering? What did that mean? Had they reached the system’s Oort Cloud early? What were the odds that they might actually hit one of those space icebergs?

Clay grabbed his chair. He wasn’t using his left arm. He held it tucked against his gut. His jaw clenched. Sweat beaded on his forehead.

With a sharp hiss of breath, he pulled himself up and dropped into the chair.

“Strap in!”

“I’m trying!” Clay fumbled with the belts one-handed.

The ship lurched again, throwing her against the straps. Clay hung onto his belts, slid in his seat, but didn’t get thrown off this time.

“s**t. s**t. s**t!” He fumbled his arm through the belt. Got it over his chest and clicked the right side in place.

Come on, come on, Clay. Helen mouthed the words, clenching her own belts, her hand on the release. Not pressing it. Couldn’t press it. Leaving her chair to try to help him with the all secure called would be crazy dangerous.

Grunting, biting his lip, Clay reached across and pulled the other strap over his left arm. He used his right arm to lift the left, panting in obvious pain, to get it through the straps. Clicked the belt in place. Snapped the center-piece closed with one hand.

His head fell back against the chair. He closed his eyes and cradled his left arm. Must be broken. “Oh, f**k. f**k!”

“Hang on,” Helen said. “When they call the all-clear we’ll get that arm looked at.”

Clay rolled his head. Opened his green eyes. “Yeah, and I spend the next two months with my arm in a cast.”

“You don’t know —”

The ship shook again. Massive thrust built, throwing her against the straps. What the hell were they doing in command? What was the situation?