* * * *
An air of almost hysterical excitement gripped the entire space center community as the UNSS
Nostradamus successfully docked. Expelling a collective sigh of relief as control announced a successful docking, everyone almost instantly burst into wild jubilation, laughing, crying, jumping up and down, and hugging each other exuberantly. The Nostradamus, the prototype for the first colonist ship, had successfully completed its maiden voyage to Earth's prime target planet and back with flying colors! The hyper-drive had performed beautifully, taking the ship to the target planet in less than six months and returning in three!
Kate suspected that even the engineers who'd designed and built the new hyper-drive had had their fingers crossed when the decision came down to test the ship at full speed on the trip back. She certainly had!
All she could think about was their specimens and whether they were going to make the trip to earth in one piece! But then, that was part of the reason for the decision to start with. They had living things aboard on the trip back. Not only were they anxious to get them back while they were still living-or at least had some chance of it-but the project leaders had thought it would be a good thing to see the effect the hyper-drive would have on living things-if any.
Hopefully, they weren't going to have to scrape their specimens off the walls and view them under microscopes, she thought uneasily as soon as the first thrill had died down.
Kate didn't realize everyone else was as uneasy as she was until the sudden, piercing alarm sounded and the computer announced a level red lockdown.
"Containment breach aboard Nostradamus," the computer announced calmly. "All stations-Warning!
Alien biological hazard. Executing protocol five-seven-one-one-zero-station lock-down in five, four, three, two
… Lock-down executed. Doors sealed. Potential biological hazard contained."
Kate's ears rang in the dead silence that followed as someone managed to shut off the warning Claxton.
Her heart took the place of the ear-piercing screech, pounding against her ear drums in a deafening tattoo.
Emerging from her shock a few moments before the majority of the scientists who'd gathered to watch the docking of Nostradamus, just returned from its historic voyage to the first Earth-like planet on the agenda for colonization, she dragged her gaze from the image on the viewing screen and looked at Bill Warner, who was manning the controls. "What happened?"
As if the question she'd voiced had unlocked everyone else from frozen stasis, shouted questions began to ping back and forth across the control room-shouted, no doubt, due to a combination of consternation and temporary deafness from the Claxton-but as disruptive as that had been.
"Hold it down!" Warner bellowed from his console.
The order jolted Kate and she stared at the back of his head with a combination of surprise and indignation. The bellow effectively silenced everyone, however, and for a few moments silence reigned.
"The breach is aboard the Nostradamus. As far as the computer can ascertain, the seals on the docking station are holding."
The scientists, Kate included, breathed a collective sigh of relief.
It might well be premature, but at least they had the illusion of safety for the moment.
She still felt as if invisible bugs were crawling all over her and it took an effort to convince herself it was purely imagination.
Howard Keel, who was in charge of the scientific expedition, moved to stand directly behind Warner, leaning over him to read the monitor. He straightened after a moment and glanced at the communications officer. "Execute Protocol One. Notify ground control that the space station is in quarantine until we can complete an investigation."
There was an immediate rumble of voices as everyone began speculating, aloud, as to what had happened and what needed to be done.
Keel rounded on them. "Clear the control room. You'll be notified once we have a better idea of what's happened and a plan has been formulated. Group leaders should plan to meet in the conference room at 2100
unless otherwise notified."
Dismissed, everyone simply gaped at him for several moments. Finally, a few of the scientists in the rear ambled toward the lift. When they did, it created a general exodus from the control room.
Kate lingered. "We aren't going to sterilize the Nostradamus, are we?"
Keel glanced at her a little absently, his mind obviously elsewhere. "You'll be notified once a decision is made," he said dismissively.
"Yes, but …."
Keel's lips tightened. "No one wants that."
Slightly appeased, Kate nodded and turned to follow everyone else from the control room. She was only minimally reassured, however. If they'd lost everything they'd collected it could have more disastrous repercussions than anyone wanted to think about. Teams had already been assembled to re-outfit the Nostradamus for the first colonist venture, at which time it would become Eden I-the first, hopefully, of many colony ships that would carry the children of Earth 'back to Eden'.
* * * *
As anxious as Kate had been to retrieve their specimens intact if possible, she was cold with fear as the airlock opened and she, Simmons, and Carter stepped cautiously into the Nostradamus, flashing their portable lights around to examine the Nostradamus' airlock before Simmons moved to the manual control to open the door to the ship's interior. To everyone's surprise, he didn't have to. As soon as he moved within range of the motion sensor, the door opened.
Simmons whipped a grim look in their direction and Kate felt the hair on the back of her neck prickle.
"Now that's just creepy," Terry 'Sissy' Carter muttered. "How would the door work if the computer's malfunctioning? It's almost like … we've been invited in."
Chill bumps crept up and down Kate's spine at her friend's comment.
"Obviously it's just some kind of short," Bill Simmons muttered, doubt threading his voice and making it clear he was trying to reassure himself as much, or more, than he was them. "Micro meteor damage?"
"The computer didn't detect any hull breaches," Kate pointed out.
Simmons sent her a tight lipped glance and turned to train his flashlight on the area beyond the airlock.
Kate noticed he had his stun gun in his free hand, however, when he waved it in an attempt to activate the lights on the other side. Switching her own portable light to her other hand, she grappled to pull her own stun gun from its holster. Sissy dropped hers as she struggled to juggle her light and get her weapon out at the same time.
The sound as the weapon struck the deck was like a gunshot in the eerily silent ship and both Kate and Simmons jumped, whipping around to search the area immediately around them for any kind of threat.
"Sorry," Sissy muttered, dropping to a crouch quickly to retrieve her weapon.
"You scared the shit out of me!" Simmons muttered sullenly. "It's for damned sure if there's anything in here we aren't going to surprise it now!"
"I said I was sorry!" Sissy snapped.
"Let's just get on with it, shall we?" Warner said testily over their com units.
Kate, Bill, and Sissy exchanged speaking looks.
"Easy for him to say when he's sitting all safe and comfy in there," Sissy muttered with a complete disregard for the fact that Warner was monitoring the conversation.
Amusement flickered through Kate. "Let's get to the bridge and see if we can get the lights on. I don't like the idea of stumbling around in the dark with nothing but a flashlight if I can help it."
"It's probably a waste of time, but you have a point," Bill agreed. "I'll take lead. Weapons ready-you two watch our backs. Let's keep it close until we know what we might be up against."
"We didn't pick up any higher life forms," Sissy pointed out shakily as they started down the corridor.
"That we know of," Bill retorted.
"There shouldn't be anything in here big enough to worry about," Kate said reassuringly.
"There could be a big difference between shouldn't and isn't," Bill pointed out.
"Are you trying to scare the piss out of us?" Sissy snapped, her flashlight wavering along the floor, walls, and ceiling and crisscrossing the beams from Kate's and Bill's lights as they made their way through the cave-like interior of the ship.
"I'm just saying we can't afford to make any assumptions. Keep your eyes open and your weapon ready-and quit walking on my damned heels, Sissy!"
"Sorry," she muttered, but she continued to follow him as closely as she could, bumping into him when he stopped to examine the controls on the lift.
Bill flicked a glare at her when she jostled him and then focused on the panel. "This is probably a waste of time, but I don't see taking the stairs without trying it."
It should've been reassuring when the lift doors opened instantly in response of Bill's touch on the screen. Instead, it sent another wave of uneasiness through Kate. When they'd carefully examined the cubicle, they stepped inside and Bill pressed the level the bridge was on.
Kate continued to flick her light around the compartment as the lift rose swiftly to the level they'd chosen, trying to convince herself that she was jousting windmills. The ship had responded to everything up until it docked with the space station. There was no reason to suppose the malfunctions they'd discovered were anything more than some sort of glitch with the onboard systems, possibly shorts due to some smaller life form getting into the electronics, or even nothing more than human error. And yet the anomalies almost seemed …
premeditated. She couldn't shake the sense that something with intelligence had set a trap. The ship had docked without a hitch. All of the life support systems appeared to be functioning on par. The door to the airlock had responded as it should. The lift appeared to be working just fine. Why weren't the lights working? And why was it that only selective doors, those that should have contained the specimens, were malfunctioning?
The bridge was creepier than anything they'd encountered thus far. A vast room filled with equipment and consoles, it seemed empty of any kind of habitation and yet was cluttered enough that, with nothing but flashlights, there were deep shadows everywhere, creating 'caverns' of darkness where anything might be hiding. Struggling with her uneasiness, Kate flicked nervous glances at the shadows as she followed Bill and Sissy to the main control console. Once they'd reached it, she and Sissy took up guard positions while Bill focused on the console.
Kate had been trying her best to dismiss from her mind the fact that it had been she who'd argued for the retrieval of what had appeared to be eggs from the surface of Sirius. As unlikely as it seemed to her that they might actually have hatched, she knew it had to be a possibility that they had and knew also that those eggs represented an alien creature of a size substantial enough to be dangerous if they had hatched. The measurement and weight of the eggs suggested a creature roughly the size of a very large human baby and with animals of the Earth variety that could spell trouble.
If they actually were eggs and had hatched soon after the ship had left Sirius, how big might they be now? Twice as big? Four times? She would've liked to have been able to convince herself that they'd picked up something relatively harmless and that, even if they were eggs and had hatched, they were only going to find some small, weak baby something on the ship-or dead something. They hadn't actually detected any odors of decay, however.
And they were dealing with alien species. As closely as Sirius resembled Earth in many ways, they couldn't count on anything being like beasts they were familiar with.
"This looks like ...." Bill didn't complete the thought and Kate and Sissy both flicked a questioning look at him.
"What?" Warner barked impatiently.
"Well … the only thing I can see that's been tampered with is the lights. Doesn't that seem … odd?"
"Tampered with?" Warner demanded. "You're saying it looks deliberate?"
"Oh it was definitely deliberate," Bill responded.
"As in … intelligence?" Sissy asked in a quavering voice.
"We didn't see anything," Warner said dismissively. "You're suggesting something of intelligence managed to bypass security and hitch a ride?"
"I'm saying it's damned strange that nothing else has been touched. Could be a fluke. Could be that whatever switched the lights to manual override didn't actually know what it was doing and it frightened it off when the lights went out."
He was tapping furiously at the key pad while he spoke and it still startled the hell out of Kate when the lights abruptly came on. Sissy sucked in a sharp breath and whipped a frantic look around the bridge, blinking against the sudden illumination. The lights dazzled Kate for several moments, as well, and her heart rate shot up as she struggled to adjust her vision. Her hand was shaking when she switched her portable light off and shoved it back into her utility belt.
"Well, now that we have some light it should make the search a little easier," Bill said with a touch of satisfaction. "I'm betting Kate's eggs really were eggs and they've hatched."
Kate glanced at him sharply, feeling guilt waft through her.
"It would be something reptilian or amphibious, though, most likely," Warner said pointedly. "Possibly bird-like--highly unlikely to be very intelligent-certainly not intelligent enough to have deliberately sabotaged the lights. Most likely, it was a fluke, as you said. Let's not jump to the conclusion that we've got anything dangerous on our hands."
"If it's reptilian, it could damned well be dangerous!" Sissy said testily.
"I'm not jumping to any conclusions," Bill responded almost at the same time. "I just pointed out that the eggs were the only thing that might have contained something that could present a physical threat-beyond something viral. We need to keep our eyes open for anything that might attack."
"It would still be a baby, whatever it is," Kate argued.
"Baby snakes, if they're venomous, are still deadly," Bill said pointedly.
"We aren't going to know anything until you find whatever was responsible for the breach," Warner reminded them.
Bill's lips tightened. "I say we set the stun a little higher. We don't know how it might affect … whatever it is."
"It could kill them!" Kate objected.
"Better them than us!" Sissy snapped.
"The idea was to capture whatever it is for study," Kate reminded her.
"So we fucking study the corpse!" Bill said tightly. "I think, since we're already here and we know something breached containment, we should work our way back to the specimen lab room by room, closing it off."
"I think we should stick together," Sissy whined as Bill left them.
"It'll take less time if we split up," Bill responded pointedly.
"It won't be as safe, however," Warner countermanded him.
"Fine! Let's just get this done!"
Kate followed Bill and Sissy, torn between the fear that Bill or Sissy would shoot the creatures on sight and eliminate any possibility of a true study of the species and the fear that it would turn out to be some kind of monsters and attack them. Images flickered through her mind as she searched the places where something might be hidden-beneath chairs and consoles-alternating between visions of cute, rounded babies with fluffy feathers, and monsters that bore no resemblance to anything in her experience. As it turned out, her fears weren't entirely unfounded.