Icarus (20 page)

   “Why would they want to keep you in the dark?” Shawn asked.

   “To minimize the security risk,” Melissa replied before Garcia had a
chance. “If anyone in the crew figured out where they were, it’d show a serious
breach of regulations on the part of Sector Command. People would invariably
start asking questions. As you know, Second Earth is off-limits to everyone in
the UCS, from the top of the chain on down. No exceptions and under no
circumstances.”

   Shawn nodded, then looked back to Garcia. “Okay, so you figured out
that you’re at Second Earth. What happened next?”

   The man’s lips curled into a smile. “Like I said, we had gone black.
No visuals. Sensors only. The captain came back over the box, said the
Icarus
and the destroyer
Titan
would perform fighter guard for carrier
operations that were going to be carried out in the morning.” Garcia cast his
eyes down to the deck in contemplation. “The
Titan
. That was a tightly
run ship. One of my buddies from high school was on her. He was a good guy,
always had a funny joke. Now…now he’s gone…all those people.”

   “Lieutenant,” Melissa brought her face into his field of view. “I need
you to focus right now and keep telling me what happened. What happened after
Commander Taggart gave the order? What was the crew’s reaction?”

   Garcia looked to her skeptically. “We followed it of course, ma’am. We
made preparations for moving into position on the starboard-dorsal side of the
Valley
Forge
, then the
Titan
moved to a port-ventral one.” He moved his two
hands into the described formations as if they were large, lumbering fleet
cruisers. “It was like practiced clockwork.”

   “What happened next?” Melissa asked.

   “Nothing.”

   “Nothing?”

   “No, ma’am. Nothing. Everything went fine for nearly twelve hours.
Twelve hours we were there, watching the
Valley Forge’s
fighters and
transports with our sensors.”

   “Transports?”

   “Yeah, lots of them…whole squadrons at a time. They would fly down to
the surface, stay there for a few hours, and then come back up.”

   “Do you know what they were doing down there?”

   “No, ma’am. Not a clue. I’m a junior sensor officer, so I didn’t get a
lot of time in front of the console.”

   “That’s odd,” Shawn interjected. “Normally that would be a good job
for a junior officer like yourself. It’s good training time.”

   “I thought the same thing, sir. But the order had come down from the
Icarus’
executive officer that only senior officers—those ranking lieutenant
commander and above—were allowed to man the sensor sweeps. The only time I got
to sit up there was for a few minutes in between two watches.”

   “And that’s when you saw the transports?” Melissa asked with finality.

   “Yes, ma’am. Two squadrons of heavy logistics craft, along with two
squadrons of mediums, both escorted by three squadrons of interceptors, were
making their way back to the carrier when I peered at the scope. I watched them
for about two minutes before I was relieved by the ship’s operations officer.

  Melissa pondered the lieutenant’s words for a moment before she spoke
up.  “Did he say anything to you? About what you saw?”

   “All he said, ma’am, was that I was relieved, that I would be
debriefed in less than three hours…and that I should wait in my cabin until I
was called. I thought that last bit was a little strange, considering I was
only at the console for a few minutes and didn’t see much of anything, but I
did as I was told…sort of.”

   Melissa looked at him slyly. “Sort of?”

   “Well, I went down to my cabin like I was told, but after two hours I
was getting pretty bored. I figured if they called me to a debriefing they
would use the ship’s intercom, so I didn’t see the harm in leaving my room for
a few minutes.”

   Shawn nodded in understanding. He’d been in a very similar situation
the first time he’d been ‘ordered’ to stay put in his cabin. He smirked at the
recollection. “Where did you go?”

   Garcia looked around the darkness of the space, and when he spoke
after a moment, his voice was distant. “I came here.”

   “Why here?”

   “I needed to catch up on some EVO training. You know, Extra Vehicular
Operations?”

   “Yes, I know,” Shawn agreed.

   “So I came down here. One of the water maintenance techs, I think his
name was Donaldson, helped me put on the suit and walked me through some basic
EVO operations.”

   “There’s a gravity simulator near here?” Shawn said in revelation as
he looked around the space once more with new eyes.

   “Yes sir,” Garcia nodded, then jerked his head toward a closed door
that neither Shawn nor Melissa had seen before. “One of the new ones, too.
Perfect simulation of every gravity field in the Unified Collaboration’s
catalogue.”

   “So,” Melissa expelled the word in an attempt to regain control of the
conversation. “What happened next?”

   Garcia looked away pensively. “I can’t say for sure. It all happened
so…so damn
fast
.”

   “Try, Lieutenant.”

   “Well, first there was this large jolt. I mean
really
large. It
knocked us all flat on our backs in an instant,” Garcia emphasized his
statement by slapping his hands together in a crack that reverberated off the
cold, lifeless walls. “By the time we staggered to our feet, there was another
jolt, not as bad as the first, but still pretty bad. That’s when the ship’s
general alarms started ringing.” He paused as he reflected on those moments,
reliving the fear and horror he’d felt at the time. He shuddered as something
crossed his mind.

   “What then?”

   “Everything shut off, all at once. Everything. Lights, gravity,
environmental controls, door circuits.”

   “Emergency power?”

   “Not yet, because about two minutes later everything kicked back on
for about ten seconds before it all went down again. The shock of having
everything off at once had tripped the breakers for the emergency electrical
conduits on most of the decks, but I didn’t know that was the case until a few
hours later. Once I located the outage I was able to bypass the system. That’s
why I’ve got limited air and gravity in here.”

   Considering the lieutenant’s synopsis to be far from complete, Shawn
jumped back into the fray. “So what happened between losing the power and where
we are now?”

   “Like I said, sir, everything was off. Life support was shut down.” He
turned away and looked toward a distant point on the overhead. When he looked
back to Shawn, Garcia’s eyes were full of angered confusion. “That’s not
supposed to happen, is it Commander?” The pitch of his voice was near-panicked.
“Never. I mean that’s
never
supposed to happen! There are fail-safes,
you know? Redundant backups for the backups. No matter what, you
never
lose your heat or your air. Never, man.”

   “Try to keep calm, Lieutenant,” Melissa said softly. “Just tell me
what happened.”

   With a fine mist of sweat on his face, he nodded briskly, collected
his thoughts, and then turned back to Shawn. “Well, they all just…froze, you
know. All of them. The crew, I mean. Donaldson…the technician that was down
here with me…he was gasping for air.” Garcia’s breathing became quick as he
recalled the man’s face. “He couldn’t breathe. I had my helmet on…I couldn’t do
anything. Then he started…he started clutching at his body. He fell on the
floor…started…started convulsing. I didn’t know what was happening until he
started to frost over. It was all happening way too fast for me to do
anything.”

   “Frost over?”

   “Yeah. I mean, with the life support shut off…well, it wasn’t just the
air. It was the heat, too. While Donaldson was shaking on the deck, gasping for
air, this frost started to form all over him, as well as the walls, the
ceiling…everything. I’d seen holovids of things like this happening. You know,
emergency procedures and stuff. So I flicked on my suit so I wouldn’t freeze to
death.”

   “Your suit wasn’t on?”

   Garcia shook his head slowly, once. “No, ma’am. I didn’t turn it on
until after we’d lost battery power.”

   “You’re sure?” She leaned toward him for emphasis.

   “Yes, ma’am. Is there significance to that?”

   Melissa pursed her lips. “I’m not sure…please continue.”

   “So there was no way I could grab another EVO suit and put it on
Donaldson. By the time I got back from the locker, his body was frozen, stiff
as a board. I knew instantly he was dead. I was sure of it. My suit was reading
near space-normal temperature in the compartment. Considering we were on the
dark side of Second Earth at the time, that would have made the temperature
about minus one hundred thirty degrees Fahrenheit.” He seemed to smile at the
remark he’d just made. “A cold day in hell, for sure. Ain’t nobody gonna
survive that for more than a few seconds. I…” Garcia looked backed to Melissa
as he strained to gather his thoughts. “What did I do next? Oh, yeah. I floated
around in the compartment looking for anything that had power to it. I didn’t
see anything. Luckily I got trapped in the EVO training simulator, so there
were plenty of repair tools here.”

   Melissa nodded, then inclined her head over her shoulder in the
direction they’d come in. “So where did all the food come from?”

   “Ship’s stores. Like I said, there were tools in here. I used a plasma
cutter to open a hole in the bulkhead over there.” He craned his neck over his
right shoulder, Shawn following his line of sight with his flashlight. Sure
enough, a four-foot hole was cut neatly into the wall. “From there, I got to
the mid-deck ladder. That took me everywhere I needed to go.”

   “What did you see when you left here?”

   His eyes went glassy, and Garcia visibly shuddered as he recalled the
imagery. “Bodies, ma’am. Frozen. Hundreds of them. Some were still sitting in
their chairs, but most were just floating around the corridor or the
compartments that I passed by.”

   “No one else was alive?”

   He shook his head. “None that I’ve found. I gave up hope after ten
days.” He looked to the distant wall. “I think it was ten days. I can’t be
sure. Maybe it was eleven?”

   “Where are all the bodies, Lieutenant?” Melissa asked. “We haven’t
seen a single one since we came on board.”

   “I…I moved most of the ones I could find. I mean, you don’t know what
it’s like…walking around a ship full of frozen bodies. All your friends and
shipmates…just…dead. I had a lot of time on my hands. I’d move from compartment
to compartment, looking for survivors. I didn’t find anyone. I did come across
Cooly, though.”

   “Cooly?” Shawn looked at him quizzically.

   “Yes, sir. Ensign Tabitha Cooly. She’d lost ten credits to me in a
poker match a few nights before. She was cute as a button, but couldn’t play
poker to save her life. I wouldn’t have come across her, but the doors to the
microbiology lab were fused open. She must have…floated out into the corridor.
Anyway, I felt bad about the ten credits, so I slipped it out of my wallet and
into her lab coat pocket. She’s down there, with the rest of them.”

   “Meaning what?” Shawn asked.

   “Well, like I said, I had lots of time on my hands. I did what I
would’ve wanted them to do in my place: I moved them one at a time, down the
main escape trunk, to the dry storage compartment on deck twelve. It’s the
largest hold we have. I mean, we
had
. Like I said, I would have gone
crazy…seeing their bodies every day. Crazy, I tell you.” His voice cracked at
the last statement.

   “It’s okay, Lieutenant,” Melissa said as she laid a gentle hand on top
of Garcia’s matted hair. “You did the right thing. What about the power to this
space?”

   “Well, luckily I knew the electrical systems pretty well. I’d
apprenticed in damage control before I moved up to the sensor operations
department. I got to the main DC locker on deck six and took out the portable
generator, hooked it in-line with the power conduits on deck five, and routed
power to this space. Minimal life support came back online, and two of the
gravity generators on deck five kicked on as well. That was…man, I don’t even
know…four months ago? I’ve kinda lost track of time.”

   She nodded slowly. “It’s understandable, Lieutenant. You’ve done an
amazing job of keeping yourself alive.”

   “Thanks. Not long after that, the noises started.”

   “Noises?” Shawn inquired with a raised eyebrow.

   “Yeah. Loud, clunking noises. Like something heavy was being moved
across the deck. I’d hear the occasional bang, or what sounded like…like water
flowing. It went on for a day or two before it stopped. It’s been silent ever
since.”

   “Water flowing?” Shawn asked.

   “Yes, sir.”

   Melissa turned her chin up to peer at Kestrel. He returned a look that
told her that they would discuss it later. She nodded and turned her gaze back
to Garcia.

   “How does the ship look? I haven’t seen an active sensor scan in
months.”

   “She looks…pretty bad, Lieutenant. We’ll talk more about it later.”
Melissa reached down to the recorder and shut it off. “I think I’ve gotten
everything I need for now. If anything else crosses your mind, just say so.”

   Garcia nodded slowly, his eyes wide as he retraced his memory for
anything he’d missed. “Yea, ma’am.”

   “Do you feel well enough to travel?” she asked just as Sergeant Adams
returned from his limited patrol.

   Shawn looked to the dark-skinned Marine, asking without speaking if
any other survivors had been located. Out of sight of Lieutenant Garcia, Adams
only shook his head somberly.

   Looking up to Melissa, Garcia smiled faintly. “Yeah, sure. Where we
going?”