Waiting Read online

  Waiting

  Title Page

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Chapter 70

  Chapter 71

  Chapter 72

  Chapter 73

  Chapter 74

  Chapter 75

  Chapter 76

  Chapter 77

  Chapter 78

  Waiting

  Gary Weston

  Smashwords Edition

  Dedication.

  My humble way of dedicating this book to those who put their lives on the line to protect us all in these dark and troubled times.

  Waiting © 2015 Gary Weston

  All rights reserved

  Smashwords Edition License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. The ebook contained herein constitutes a copyrighted work and may not be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, or stored in or introduced into an information storage and retrieval system in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the copyright owner, except in the case of brief quotation embodied in critical articles and reviews. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  This ebook is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer's imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.

  Chapter 1

  Jarvis Jacobs, captain of the Goliath, hated it when gravity suddenly disappeared. His sleep was rudely interrupted when his head collided with the clothes locker as he floated across his room. He pushed himself away from the wall with his feet, overdid it and crashed his shoulder against the opposite wall before he could wave a hand over the com sensor.

  'Sam, you jerk. How many times do I have to tell you about this? Hey? Hey? People could get hurt. I could be hurt. Sam? Are you...?'

  Satellite Chief Engineer Sam Clifton chuckled unapologetically. 'I had it all under control, Jay Jay. I would have let everyone settle down nice and gently when I'd finished. Besides...Oh, what the hell. My memo? About the monthly systems check? Did you bother to read the bloody thing? No. Of course not. Naturally, everyone else out of their pods strapped themselves in, but not you. So pull your stupid head in and I'll ease you down. Ready?'

  'Wait. Ok. I'm almost over the bed. Nice and...' Jacobs landed with a bump face-down into his pillow. 'You call that easing me down?'

  'Stop complaining, you old buzzard. Nobody else is. Then unlike you they read the memo.'

  Jacobs sat on the end of his bed. 'Is that it? You finally done messing about?'

  'Messing about? Here I am trying...cobbling this damn thing together...'

  'With chewing gum and bits of old wire. Yeah. You really need to get new sayings. Ten years of the same old crap gets damn tedious. I'm coming over.'

  Clifton didn't need that. 'Go back to sleep, Jay Jay.'

  'Not now I'm awake. Get the coffee on.'

  In the two minutes it took Jacobs to weave his way on a scoot through the mile and a half of the vessel's corridors and levels, Clifton had his feet on his consul and two coffees ready to drink. Jacobs got off his scoot and sat in the fixed swivel seat next to the engineer.

  'How are the systems?'

  'Good,' said Clifton with a shrug. 'As good as we could expect. Heck. I wouldn't be surprised if there's a few original parts still working on a ship this old.'

  Jacobs sipped and winced. 'Never mind the ship. This coffee tastes like it's ten years old.' He arched his back to ease his spine. 'Just two more weeks. I am so tempted to miss a pod shift.'

  Clifton ran his fingers through his long grey locks. 'You'll do your pod shifts even if I have to strap you in personally, captain or not.'

  'Yeah. I'm just...'

  'Getting old like the rest of us. Don't mess with what works, Jay Jay. Two hundred and nine of us survive ok the way things are. I'm not about to recalibrate pods just so people can be out of them like they're on vacation.'

  Jacobs sighed, the rebuke from Clifton totally expected. 'I said I was tempted, not that I had any intention of doing it. What's our position?'

  Clifton stroked a yellow sensor and the screen became live enough to have the two men almost believe they were looking through a window, not an image magnified a hundred times.

  'Our usual slow course for Spero. Looks pretty, doesn't she, for a tiny speck?'

  'In a deadly sort of way. That storm could be concealing anything. I wouldn't bet on any probe surviving going through it. Any change in the atmosphere?'

  Although Clifton knew Jacobs could read the figures as well as he could himself, he patiently went through the analysis.

  'No increase in the oxygen level. Still at sixteen percent. Nitrogen at seventy one percent. Argon one point three percent. Carbon dioxide point zero four percent. Various trace elements such as hydrogen sulphide, methane etcetera making up the remainder.'

  Jacobs said, 'Compare the figures to a month ago.'

  'Jay Jay...'

  'Humour me.'

  'Ok. For all the good it'll do.' Clifton put not only the figures from the previous month, but the previous ten months also.

  'No significant change. Except...'

  'What?'

  'That volcanic eruption upped the overall carbon monoxide level up from point zero three percent. Also, the water vapour released and the unusual storm activity partly caused by the heat emitted from the volcano has created that blanket of fog. Any rain would be acidic caused by the sulphur dioxide. Not unexpected. I said that might happen.'

  'We couldn't have predicte
d the volcano erupting. The terraformers should be compensating for the carbon monoxide increase by now.'

  Clifton agreed. 'Should be, I know. But there's certainly no significant reversal.'

  'Very disturbing. They have to have stopped working. Send the results back to Earth. They need to know.'

  Clifton pressed a button in a bank of similar buttons. 'Done. For all the good it'll do. Jay Jay. You'll have to tell the others. Most already suspect the truth.'

  'We don't even know what the truth is. There could be a hundred reasons why we haven't had any response from Earth for the last few months. Technical issues for...'

  Clifton cut his captain's speech short with a glare. 'Bullshit, Jay Jay. Please don't insult me by trying it on me.'

  'Oh? It's strange how you still can't give me an alternative reason.'

  'Not one you'd be prepared to accept.'

  Jacobs said, 'Not without something to back it up. I'm not going to tell our people that it's possible we are unable to contact Earth because of the situation back there.'

  Clifton rolled his eyes to the ceiling. 'Situation. Right. East and West slugging it out. Again. For all we know, they have already killed off Earth.'

  'Exactly. For all we know. But we don't know. I'm not ruling it out, but there's no point in worrying everyone unnecessarily. Damn it, it's hard enough maintaining moral on the Goliath as it is after a decade in space on a ship.'

  'But it's perfectly acceptable to lie to everyone instead? Jay Jay. The crew are highly educated, very bright individuals. Most of us have doctorates in one field or another. And like everyone else, if they know something is wrong and what they don't know for sure, they'll speculate on. That's just human nature.'

  'We haven't lied. They all know we have been out of touch with Earth for weeks. They don't know why, because you and I don't know, either. Same for the lack of progress on the terraforming. That's controlled from Earth and all we can do from here is monitor it.'

  Clifton shrugged and replied, 'Which ties in with the hostilities on Earth hypothesis. If the war has knocked out Base Command, it explains why both communication with Earth is out and the loss of control of the terraforming.' He looked at his old friend and captain. 'Come on, Jay Jay. When are you going to accept the inevitable?'

  Jacobs stood then sat on the scoot. 'I'll not accept your version of the inevitable until you or anyone else can verify any of it with facts.'

  'Fine. So come with me in the shuttle and check it out once and for all. We probably can't land but we'll be able to see for ourselves what the hell is happening just outside of atmosphere. It's time to face our demons, Jay Jay.'

  For almost two months, Clifton had been urging Jacobs to go with him on a reconnaissance mission rather than just sit it out waiting and hoping for Earth to get back on-line to tell them what was happening.

  'Ok. But we'll keep it low key. And we'll take Doctor Lee. She's already up to speed with the terraforming status. Make sure she understands the need for discretion.'

  'She's on her pod shift.'

  'So wake her up, damn it. No point going without her. Let me know when you are ready.'

  Before Clifton could reply, Jacobs pulled back on the scoot's accelerator and the door slid aside to let him out.

  Clifton watched the captain ride along the corridor as the door slid shut again. 'You've finally got your blinkers off, you old fart.'

  Clifton closed his eyes and made a long mental list of all he needed to do to prepare for the trip in the shuttle, then he stood up to get on with the task, the door sliding open then closing again as he passed through it.

  Chapter 2

  Sam Clifton pressed the sensor that opened the heavy double sliding doors and stepped inside, the lights responding to his presence. To call it a room would have been an understatement. Taking up the whole of the third level of the ship, it was a hundred yards wide and one mile in length. And yet, despite its phenomenal size, like everything on any ship, no single inch was wasted. He walked along the central path, hardly glancing at the rows of faces staring sightlessly up at him, a sequence of numbers and letters lit up for each person as he approached it. M P D 0 9. That told him he was up to a male in pod D row zero nine. He continued, finally stopping at F P G 0 3. The face looked up at him with a contented smile on her full lips.

  'Ah! The lovely Anne. Doctor Anne Lee our chief biologist. Sorry Anne. He who must be obeyed, otherwise known as Jay Jay, insists I wake you up for a little ride outside the ship. Wakey wakey.'

  Flipping the safety cover off the control sensors, he poked the code into the panel. Nothing happened at first, and he resisted the temptation to re-boot. Beneath his feet he could feel as much as hear the servos and drivers separating the hermetically joined seals and the cover to the pod slid forwards to disappear under the floor beneath him. One by one, in a specifically controlled sequence, the numerous tubes and electrodes disconnected from the ports along the woman's legs and arms, locking into the sides of the pod. Lee's eyes opened.

  'Don't ask me how I know,' said Lee, accepting his hand to assist her out. 'But I suspect my pod shift has been interrupted?'

  Clifton grinned. 'On the money as usual, Anne. I finally talked sense into Jay Jay.'

  Lee had no need to stretch her limbs, even after two weeks in the pod, but she did so anyway. 'Good. Because if you hadn't managed it, I'd have beaten it into his skull.'

  'I've no doubt you would. But do us all a favour, hey? He's still convinced we don't realise this is more than some technical problem. He doesn't want us going insane with the revelations of what's really going on.'

  Lee walked along with Clifton to the exit, indifferent to the rows of faces either side of her, serene expressions on the faces of her colleagues. 'Don't play into his hands by voicing opinions unsubstantiated by facts?'

  Clifton chuckled. 'Too late for that, I'm afraid. Oh, I'm sure he thinks it is the bloody war, same as everyone else. Just give him the chance to break it gently to us, if you know what I mean. Ok. I've prepared the shuttle for the three of us, and we'll be looking at a three day trip to the Spero's outer atmosphere, say a full day of orbiting and observing and taking readings, then three days to return here.'

  Lee pulled up at the door. 'Any intention to land?'

  'I couldn't entirely rule that possibility out, but this is Jay Jay we're talking about. Caution personified. I guess it depends what we find when we get there.'

  Lee said, 'Caution is not an unattractive characteristic in a captain in my opinion. It has a tendency to keep us all alive. Don't knock it, Sam.'

  'I'll go easy on him. You go shower and pack enough for a few days. We take off at midnight. That gives you a little under two hours. Meet me in the hanger.'

  'All my gear on board?'

  'Yours. Some of mine. More than enough. Go. Midnight.'

  'Gotcha.'

  They split up, Lee off to her room, Clifton to the shuttle bay.

  Chapter 3

  'She'll never make it on time.'

  Clifton slapped Jacobs on his bony shoulder. 'Relax, Jay Jay. Cut her some slack. She's our principal biologist, but she's still a woman. I told her to pack for a week. That probably means a month in her mind.'

  'Great. Like we have an abundance of room on this little bird.'

  Clifton sighed. 'There's a heap of room. Enough for four crew and there's just the three of us going. Are you intending to be this jittery the whole trip?'

  'That depends on what we discover on that rock. I fear the worse.'

  'Of course you do, Jay Jay. It's what you do best. Fear the worse.'

  Jacobs glared icily at his chief engineer. 'It wasn't my choice being captain, Sam. Anytime you want the job, go for it.'

  'Not that again, Jay Jay. I'm just the wrench monkey. You're the creative genius of the whole shibang. Not one of us gets the entire big picture the way you do. Even Joe Friar would make a poor substitute for the real thing and his I Q is off the charts.'

  Jacobs forced a wr
y smile. 'Brilliant but still young.'

  He glanced at one of the cameras knowing Senior Technical Officer Joe Friar and the shuttle bay team were hard at work preparing for the shuttle take off with Friar trying hard to exude confidence as he instructed the others. They were all well trained and highly competent so needed little instruction. Jacobs was Friar's god and he had a natural, barely concealed nervousness about him, knowing that should anything happen to Jay Jay, he would be the one to assume command. That was a responsibility he wasn't ready for.

  'Seventeen minutes and thirty seconds till launch, Captain.'

  'Indeed, Doctor Friar. Perhaps we should deploy someone with a bucket of ice water to hurry Doctor Lee along.'

  'No need, Captain. I'm here.'

  Jacobs and Clifton looked at the biologist weighed down with a dozen large bags, then at each other.

  'A good job we only have a change of underwear with us,' said Clifton.

  Friar said, 'The shuttle will auto-recalibrate for weight once everything is on board. But the flight path has been calculated from midnight. I suggest you all get on board or I might just let it take off without you.'

  Jacobs, Clifton and Lee climbed through the main hatch, secured the luggage, strapped themselves in and the black visors of their helmets blocked out their faces. The shuttle calculated all other pre-programmed factors for the flight and compensated for the weight. The weight could fluctuate all over the place during the trip, but it was calculated to within point one of one ounce for the first seconds of take-off. Get that part right, everything else falls into place.

  'Ready?' said Friar.

  'No, but we'll go anyway,' said Jacobs.

  Take off and the trip was completely controlled from the ship until the shuttle reached the outer atmosphere of the planet and then Clifton would take over.

  'From ten,' said Friar. 'Nine, eight, seven...Good luck, six...' The shuttle bay door opened like a precision built flower as the craft blasted through it with less than one inch clearance, the petals closing behind them.

  'Pressure ok,' said Clifton. 'Velocity ok. Plasma exhaust initial temperature...hot. Very. Oxygen...Ok. Helmets can be removed.'