Published: 21 Feb 2019

After connecting the terminal I moved back to the bridge door and forced it back open again. Without power it wouldn’t open properly so it now stood at an odd angle, projecting out of its wall slot like half an old painting. What I saw was a hallway with vertically mounted hyper sleep beds arranged side by side down the hall, five on either side. These things were truly ancient. I always thought mine were old at 150 years, but these had that beat by over a thousand years. Most likely this was the command crew. They would have been the first to awaken so as to assess the new planet and take the ship in when ready. The rest would have been revived little by little as they were needed for assembling shelters, and also as those shelters were ready for occupation by the settlers. I walked over and peered inside the first chamber on the right out of curiosity. Talk about a systems failure! I knew the guy would be dead, but YIKES! Using my hand scanner I could tell the life signs were below and in front of me now. Moving down the hall, I tried not to look in any more of the chambers.

“I have life signs on both decks below you.” Chip suddenly said in my comlink and I just about jumped right out of my enviro-suit.

“Thanks Chip!” I said in annoyance.

“What’s wrong dad, your heart rate just shot way up?”

“Nothing! I’m okay Chip. I’m going down to take a look now.” I said. I wasn’t about to tell him he just made me piss myself or he would never let me live it down. It’s a good thing these suits are designed to take care of needs like that anyway.

Reaching the end of the hall I came upon a very steep set of stairs that descended to the next deck and were more like a ladder than stairs. As I looked around I noticed a large, square panel set flush in the floor to the right of the stairs. ‘Must be a freight lift.‘ I realized now seeing the control buttons set flush into the wall just behind the platform. Theta One would have been able to activate it with its power packs easily enough, but I was stuck with the stairs. ‘Gee, I’m glad now that the artificial gravity isn’t working.‘ I thought as I deactivated my gravity boots and simply floated myself down to the next deck and started searching for the life sign readings again.

My scanner said there were 70 beds down here on this deck and the first reading was about half way across the room. I couldn’t help myself but I had to know what kind of people these had been. As I moved past row after row of inoperative beds, I was shocked to see men, women, and children. This had not been an advance ship then. Wherever they had been going had obviously already been established for some time. Otherwise there would have been mostly men here. They may have included a few women who were either wives or for entertainment reasons but definitely no children.

Soon my scanner told me that I was only feet away from the first life sign reading and Chip confirmed it also. I felt really odd as I moved towards the hyper sleep chamber. I was about to see the face of someone who had not been seen in over a thousand years. It made me wonder who this person was and what had made him or her take to space this way. I also wondered why this chamber was still working when none of the others on this floor were.

Activating my gravity boots I walked over and rubbed the dirt off the chambers window. Inside was a man that I guessed to be about 65 to 70 years of age, at least by his appearance. He was well built and looked healthy with a thick shock of dark hair and heavy beard which were both immaculately groomed. My scanner told me he had a weak heart though which I guessed he never even knew about back then. Now it’s a simple repair. Sad, really. They made so many advances in technology back then but still managed to neglect their own health care and medical knowledge. I placed a teleport enhancer tag on the front of the chamber and moved on.

“Chip, you better rev up three of the hyper sleep beds over there. We’re going to need them soon.”

“Okay dad, I’ll get them started now. You going to wake them up first or just transfer them as they are?”

“I think it would be best to wait till later to wake them. After a thousand years in one of these beds I don’t think they would be in any hurry to climb back into another one, do you?”

“Yeah, you’re right, probably not.”

As I reached the second sleeper deck (which I could see was just like the first.) I found the second life sign right away. It was a woman of about 35. She was very attractive with red hair and a body straight out of the movies. I had the odd feeling that somehow, this was not your ordinary ‘sleeper ship’. These people had the look and feel of money, and I should know. I’ve dealt with many people of this type over the last 150 years as a freighter pilot. I placed the telepod enhancer tag on the chamber front and moved on to find the last reading. Rounding the comer I came upon Theta One as he worked to repair the circuitry.

“Theta One, report progress.”

“My repairs are proceeding on schedule sir. I’ll be ready to restart the systems in about 15 minutes.”

“Good, carry on.”

I moved on down the rows of hyper sleep beds, following the readings on my scanner and Chips direction. As I drew closer and closer to my last life sign reading I found myself once again wondering who this last person would be. I was only 100 feet away when suddenly all power on the ship failed completely and I was plunged into almost total darkness. Except for my own suits work lights, the only light was radiating from back where Theta One was still working.

“Theta one, did you turn out the power?” I yelled into my comlink.

“Yes sir, I had to do so in order to complete final repairs on the power conduits.”

“Turn it back on immediately!”

“I’m sorry sir, I can not do so. I’m already in direct contact with the power conduit. If I turn the power back on now it will damage my own circuits and I will not be able to complete the repairs you ordered.”

“Damn you idiot! These survivors will die without that power! oh never mind!”

Frantically I flung myself down the row of beds as fast as I could, watching the readings on my scanner which was locked onto the final life sign. I could clearly see that they were failing fast. I had to get these people out and now.

“Chip, are those beds ready over there? We need them NOW!” I almost screamed into my comlink as I continued to push my way towards the last bed.

“Yes, they’re ready; what’s going on?” he responded in a panicked voice.

“That stupid bot Theta One cut the power to the entire ship. I’ve got teleport enhancer tags on the first two beds. Grab them with the teleporter and get them zapped over into new beds on The Aspiration now. I’ll have the last teleport enhancer tag placed by the time you’ve got the other two done.”

“The first bed reads as still having full power dad, I’m going to bring the second person over first” Chip said in an all business voice.

That was one thing I really appreciated about the program that ran Chips hologram and personality, when in a real crisis like this he stopped acting like a kid and stayed in total control. It was only when there was no real emergency that he acted like a scared little kid. His calm demeanor now, helped me to calm down and do the job I needed to do.

“That explains why that first guy’s bed was still working when none of the others were Chip, it must have its own power supply. Okay, this one’s ready now, go ahead and engage the teleporter.” I said as I fixed the teleport enhancer tag on the outside of the last bed without even being able to see who was in it. Immediately the energy wave of the teleporter enveloped the interior of the chamber and then was gone just as quickly as it had come.

“I’ve got the first two safe and sound dad; I’m bringing the last guy over now. Wow, the computer says this guy has something wrong with his heart.”

“Yeah, I saw that too on my scanner. It reads as a simple medical issue, so the medibot should be able to handle the repair easy enough and he won’t even need to be taken out of hyper sleep since it can be done while he’s still in hibernation.”

“I’ll get the medibot going on it right away; it’s down there taking care of the transfers anyway. So are you going to be okay or do you want to come back now?”

“I’m fine here now that the survivors are all taken care of. Theta One should have this place up and running any time now so I think I’ll stay and have a look around.”

“Okay dad, but call me if you need me. Chip out.”

I floated back along the rows of dead chambers till I reached the place where Theta One was still at work. I once again had to resist the urge to blast a big hole through this stupid pile of clanking and whirring parts, since I knew it wouldn’t do any good anyway. The damn thing was programmed to make repairs and went about its task with great efficiency. It just didn’t have much in the way of three dimensional thinking though. I gave it an order to fix things but failed to tell it not to shut off the power. I guess it was my own fault. I just hadn’t even thought of that possibility. To me it was perfectly logical that the power should not be shut off. But not to a one track mind like the repair bot, who followed orders to the letter with little or no ‘outside-the-box’ reasoning. It had a personality that wanted to please but almost always failed because it only followed orders.

“How much longer Theta One?” I asked as I reached the bot.

“Five minutes sir. Uh, sir?” the bot responded.

What is it Theta?”

“I did not mean to cause you trouble sir. I hope all is well.”

“I know that Theta, don’t worry about it, everything’s okay now. It was really my fault. I told you to fix things and you just followed my orders. I never thought to tell you not to shut off the power. Just get finished as quickly as possible, okay?”

“Affirmative sir.”

“Hey Chip, which way do I go to get into that cargo bay you mentioned?”

“You need to go about 100 feet to your right and about 200 feet in front of you to get to the door. Why do you want to go there?”

“Well, lets just call it a hunch, but unless I’m wrong, and you know when it comes to money I seldom am, these people weren’t just the average sleepers. I smell money and lots of it! I’m betting they were loaded, and if I’m right we will have enough to finally pay off all our debts and get those big heavy duty Space Drive engines we’ve been wanting.”

I moved off in the direction Chip had given me but didn’t get the chance to find out if I was right or not. Just as I had reached the big double doors leading into the cargo hold my comlink crackled with a message from Theta One.

“Repairs are now complete sir, bringing main power back on line.”

Seconds later every light, computer panel, and sleep chamber came back to life. After over a thousand years of silence and cold these systems should have been brought back on line one at a time not all at once. Almost instantly there was a cacophony of alarms all over the ship. Even the artificial gravity switched back on. I suddenly found the floor coming up to meet me, or maybe it was the other way around.

“Theta One, Theta One, shut it off, shut it off, now!” I ordered as I scrambled back to my feet.

“Shut off what sir?” it asked in a panic.

“All of it! Everything! Just shut it all down now!”

Seconds later everything went black and silent again and I found myself drifting towards the ceiling until my gravity boots found their balance once more.

“Theta One, don’t do anything else yet, just wait for me to come back to you. I’ll give you instructions when I get there.”

“Yes sir, awaiting your orders.”

I made my way back to where Theta One was waiting for me and all I could do was kick myself and curse that stupid bot. “Okay, now let’s walk through this together Theta.” I said as I walked up to the bot.

“Yes sir.” it replied.

“We’re going to have to turn things back on piece by piece, not all at once. We will not turn any of the hyper sleep beds back on at all. If we did that it would destroy the bodies in them if their revival sequence started up. They would simply disintegrate into nothing and I don’t want that to happen. Even the bodies on this ship are worth money to scientists and medical researchers. I can’t afford to lose out on the money I can make from them. Now, I’m going back up to the bridge. I’ll contact you from there and we will walk through a restart process together, okay.”

“Affirmative sir, I’ll await your orders.”

It took me several minutes to get back to the bridge and then I had to disconnect the power unit from the computer systems there.

“Okay Theta One here we go. I want you to turn on the power to the bridge and main computer systems only.”

“Activating power to the bridge and main computer systems now sir.”

I watched as one by one the workstations, control panels, and displays came back to life and the lights came back on. Suddenly the door behind me righted itself and hissed back into the wall pocket then reset itself and slide smoothly closed for the first time in how long I did not know. It took me almost five minutes to find the override systems to shut down the automatic piloting and mission controls so the ship wouldn’t suddenly start trying to get back on course for wherever it had been heading. It took several more minutes to find the program that controlled the emergency wake up systems for the hyper sleep chambers and to shut them down for good.

“Okay Theta One you should be able to go ahead and restart the rest of the systems now. I’ll watch the computer from here and take care of any problems that come up.”

“Yes sir, I’m proceeding with the reactivation sequence now.

It was an eerie feeling to see this long dead ship come back to life deck by deck and system by system. I checked each one as it came back online and only found a few odds and ends that needed fixing.

“Theta One there are a few control circuits that read as bad from up here. Please check the list I’m sending through the scanner. I want to know if those circuits will affect a restart of the main drive systems.”

“Yes sir, I’ll look at them right now.”

A few minutes later Theta One sent word that the drive systems were not affected in any way and that he was proceeding with repairs of those circuits.

While he did that I decided to take the chance and restart the engines.

“Chip, I’m going to try a restart of the main engines and drive systems, stand by.” I said into the comlink so he would know what was happening.

“Okay dad, standing by. Everything reads as good to go from here.”

We hope that you are following this story. You might want to let Jared know by emailing him at: Jared at CastleRoland dot Net