Symphony of Destruction (The Spindown Saga, #1) Read online

  Symphony of Destruction

  The Spindown Saga, Volume 1

  Ken Goudsward

  Published by Dimensionfold Publishing, 2019.

  This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.

  SYMPHONY OF DESTRUCTION

  First edition. August 15, 2019.

  Copyright © 2019 Ken Goudsward.

  ISBN: 978-1999069490

  Written by Ken Goudsward.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright 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

  Author’s Note

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  Also By Ken Goudsward

  About the Author

  About the Publisher

  Chapter 1

  Hannah stared at a small dark spot on the grey wall. Perhaps dark was not really the right word though. It was a bit dark-ish. But certainly not dark. Not dark like the dead space through which she sailed. Not dark like the blackness eating a hole in her soul. Hardly dark at all, really.

  Hannah barely noticed anymore. She barely noticed the constant whine that pummeled her eardrums. She barely noticed the glaring red emergency lighting. She barely noticed the dozens of corpses surrounding her, coated in clear spray epoxy. More accurately, it should be said that she barely noticed the clear epoxy, body-shaped shells, nearly empty now, save for what appeared to be a few handfuls of dirt, and, judging by the slight bulges of the shells, some pressurized gases whose identity she could only speculate at, having never had any inkling to study the sciences. Probably carbon dioxide though, she surmised. Wasn’t that the fate of all things? Being gradually overtaken by carbon dioxide? But what did she know?

  The passage of time was one thing though that had gone far beyond barely noticing. Hannah was acutely aware that she had in fact ceased to be capable of sensing time in any way. This was natural I suppose, given that days and years had been abandoned along with earth, and given that the computer systems were mostly non-functioning and her access had been denied long long ago, and given that anyone who ever gave a shit about what time it was was also long gone. There was of course the shit itself. And the piss. These had become the most reliable markers for time. But that was a very dubious level indeed. And besides, what did it matter anymore. Time was a meaningless vestige of the past. How ironic. A past with people and lives, and planets, and suns. A past with mothers singing sweet little homemade lullabies to their young daughters. “Little babe, blessed babe, there’s nothing to fear, so sleep my dear.” But there were, she knew now, many things to fear.

  Chapter 2

  The corridor was empty. Of course. Like every other corridor on every other inspection. Brother Anderson scanned the area on wide band, and performed an atmospheric sample rapid analysis. All normal. No trace of uncatalogued biological components. Radiation levels below normal. This was good. He had come to expect this. Nevertheless, protocols demanded regular checks and rounds of all accessible areas of the ship. It was unfortunate, as these rounds really were never meant to be his responsibility, and now they wasted considerable portions of his energy. He recognized this, yet it seemed unavoidable. It was still possible to consider these duties a crew safety issue. As the Ventas-341’s “Medical Officer and Chaplain”, crew safety, health, and overall well-being were Brother Anderson’s primary goal. He longed for the days when they had been his only goal. Now, there were too many competing goals. Too many responsibilities. Too much data. Too much expectation. He pushed himself hard. This had become a necessity.

  Continuing his progress down the corridor, his wheels slowed, and eventually came to a complete stop precisely 21.43 meters from the hatch he had come through moments before. This was the exact spot. This was exactly where he had been when it had happened. The event. The incident. At the time he had been unaware of the exact details of the occurrence, but he had a vivid recollection of his limited perspective of the event.

  There had been a rather loud bang and shudder. The corridor lighting flickered. Then, a few more bangs followed by a deep roar that seemed to vibrate the entire ship. That was rather unusual. Brother Anderson had requested a status report from Central Ship Operations. The request timed out after four hundred milliseconds. Very unusual. He tried the request again and again it timed out. After a third try, Brother Anderson concluded that there must be a fault in his communications subsystem. He ran a quick self diagnostic. It showed all his internal systems normal, but indicated possible data lag in most of the network distributed sub-systems.

  “Definitely some kind of comms problem,” he mused.

  Brother Anderson initiated a voluntary reboot. “A reboot covers a multitude of sins,” he quoted to himself, just before losing power.

  Upon restarting, Brother Anderson received another timeout warning. Again, the CSO was non-responsive. Brother Anderson sent a query to the central Status Reporting Service. The SRS responded with a full system overview report, showing no errors. No errors from CSO or comms. But how could that be? Brother Anderson drilled into the data, requesting more detailed reports from both CSO and comms. Again, both looked normal. But then he noticed something. The timestamps were outdated. He waited ten seconds, then re-sent the detail request. Still the same outdated timestamp. The data was not refreshing. Everything looked normal because the data was from nearly a minute ago, before any of the bangs and flickers. Brother Anderson initiated his admin account. He would require elevated privileges to run a synchronization routine on the SRS system.

  “Login failed - authentication server not found,” came the reply.

  “Crumbs!” voiced Brother Anderson. This was his chosen default curse word. He had been careful to choose one that was not offens
ive. He felt this was important to his role as chaplain. Sometimes he wondered though, if he should change it to something a little “edgier.”

  Without the centralized SRS data, it was still possible to determine the ship-wide status, but to do so he would have to perform on-demand scans of each of the ship’s systems individually. It shouldn’t take too long, perhaps a few minutes each, he guessed. Still, who knows? He had never tried this before. He had better prioritize, starting with the most important systems. He chose Life Support first.

  The life support system scan took far longer than it ought to have, and the results were grim. The overall status was “functional,” but several sections of the ship were flagged “non functioning,” including the bridge, and several crew barracks. He better get up to the bridge right away. If life support was failing on the bridge that could be disastrous indeed.

  Chapter 3

  Hannah sat against the bulkhead, quietly weeping. The morose sound she made was not unlike the pensive wail of her oboe. Cherise had always teased her that it sounded like a dying goose. Cherise had been a bit of a jerk, but she had been Hannah’s best friend for several years before her mom had taken her off-planet. They had spent most days together at school and after school. That may have been part of the problem, Hannah now reflected. Her mother had worried about her squandered potential. She wished Hannah would practice more. She had this crazy idea of Hannah becoming the best oboist on earth and working with all the most famous orchestras. It was not entirely far-fetched though; Hannah was very good. She had taken to the instrument like a duck to water. Her mastery of the subtleties of this ancient instrument was unparalleled in generations. Her early recordings had sparked an internationally revived interest in early baroque works which took advantage of several techniques not possible in later versions of the oboe. The addition of keys, while adding range and ease of playability, removed the player from the bare wood; removed the possibilities of the half-holing and cross- fingering styles that were so uniquely and hauntingly beautiful. Hannah had been very good. Her career was on track for great fame and fortune. But still, her mom had pushed too hard. That was no surprise though. She pushed everything too hard.

  Hannah’s mother, Maison Bhutros was the Executive Director On-Board of the merchant ship Ventas-341. Along with the planetary Executive Directors, her job was to plan and negotiate contracts for the Ventas-341, as well as providing input into corporate strategy for the Ventas-Calir Corporation.

  Her position allowed her many luxuries. As ranking officer on the ship, she outranked even the captain. It had not been difficult in principle for her to negotiate the sound proof cabin for Hannah and herself, so that Hannah could practice and record her music. The actual building of the cabin had proven to be a rather more difficult task. But it was nothing that a lot of cash couldn’t take care of. Although she had had to get the engineers to tear it out and restart from scratch three times before it ultimately met her exacting specifications. Herself and Hannah had finally moved on-ship for good four years ago. Although the ship was considered a “short haul” vessel, trips could last anywhere from a month to a year, one-way. And downtime between runs was financially disastrous, so most crew stayed on board indefinitely.

  Hannah had resented her mother for forcing her to move onto the ship. Before that, they had maintained a flat in New London, and though she would miss her mother when she was off on voyages, she had enjoyed her life, her school, and her few friends. Gradually though, she had come to view living here with her mom as a good thing. Her mother loved her, in her own way. It was why she pushed so hard. Hannah did appreciate all the trouble Mom had gone through to create a silent space for her. She had even brought aboard an acoustic engineer to tailor the reverb for Hannah until it was just right, installing a series of acoustic baffles and tempered glass surfaces within the space itself. Hannah still remembered the look on her mom’s face the day Hannah play tested the installation. Maison Bhutros conceded to no one. She never showed weakness. She was an iron facade. But on that day, as she waited for Hannah’s approval, there had been a glimmer of something unfamiliar on her face. She had listened to her sweet, haunting melody, and then, as she watched Hannah put down her oboe, the tiniest hint of a slightly nervous expression crept into her face. Maison had actually needed something. She needed to know she had done right by her daughter. She needed Hannah’s approval. Hannah desperately wished that she had noticed at the time. That she had done something about it. It was only later that night, as she slept, as her subconscious mind had time to catch up with the day’s events, that she had truly realized what had happened. She regretted then her casual, almost flippant answer. She had accepted the quality of the design and implementation of the acoustic controls, but she had failed to acknowledge and accept the love of her mother. This had been the beginning of a realization that now tormented her more than anything. She had begun to see the truth even then, even when there had been possibilities of connection. Hannah had squandered them. She had let them stifle and fall like her mother’s withered houseplants. Stupidly, she had said nothing. She told herself the moment had passed, but there would be another. She did appreciate what her mother had done though. How much it must have cost. And she resolved to make her mother proud, and to show her appreciation for the studio in a tangible way by spending nearly every waking hour at work, honing her skills, and producing new music.

  She had grown to love her oboe more than ever during those last four years, spending countless hours playing, composing and recording. Her recordings had come out well despite the hassle of working long-distance with her audio engineers and producers. They had met with critical acclaim and modest commercial success. For a while, she enjoyed the limelight of interviews and rave reviews. She had felt like everything was going her way.

  Now all of that was gone.

  Her mother was dead, along with the rest of the crew. She would probably never see another living human. The ship was drifting along without a captain and would most likely float off into the eternal void of space. Her quarters, along with her studio and her beloved instrument, was sealed off behind a bullet proof, flame-proof, tamper-proof security bulkhead. As was the rest of the ship. She was imprisoned alone and helpless, in a small part of the ship which had formerly been the mess hall. At least there was that small hope. She would not starve to death, not for a long time anyway. There were ample provisions in the mess hall and adjacent storage areas, and the auto dispensers were one piece of ship functionality that seemed to work properly. She could order up basic meals at will. She would probably get sick of macaroni and cheese someday, but that day had not yet come.

  Chapter 4

  En route to the bridge, Brother Anderson quickly pondered which system to check next. Comms were evidently still at least partially functional, he had been able to contact the Life Support system, as was Artificial Gravity. Main power seemed unaffected, at least in this deck, and he could feel and hear the ever-present vibrations of the main reactor. He already knew there was some kind of problem with Central Ship Ops and Status Reporting Services. Thinking of Comms gave him another idea. Why not call the bridge crew directly?

  “Brother Anderson calling bridge.” he said, then waited a few seconds. No answer.

  “This is Brother Anderson, Medical Officer, calling bridge. Please respond, bridge.” Still nothing.

  Well OK then. What else, what else?

  Navs, Drive Systems, Records, Inventory, Cargo Control. Most systems were realistically “non-critical”, although that would depend greatly on who you asked. Besides, all of those systems relied upon Central Ship Ops. The CSO. The currently unresponsive CSO. He better try to figure out the problem there. Maybe he could assist in some way.

  Scanning the CSO proved to be more difficult than he had anticipated. It was an intelligent coordination system. It was responsible for coordinating all computational function on board the Ventas-341. It did this by a dedicated protocol which all the other systems used to
send and receive data and instructions. It also included a highly sophisticated user interface, which was manned by dedicated engineering personnel. What it lacked, apparently, was a standard API on the regular system querying protocol. Either that, or the API did exist but was dead. Like if the CSO itself was offline. Really, there was no way of drawing an informed conclusion. Brother Anderson knew that CSO protocols were strange, but he had never tried to hack one and had no idea what to expect. But if the CSO was dead, that would be very bad news indeed.

  It was at that moment that Brother Anderson had a very important and disturbing realization. If he had had a gut, he would have felt an odd mix of feelings in it, a sinking feeling, coupled with that sort of butterfly feeling. He somehow almost felt them even without a gut.

  In the case of a CSO failure, ship wide processing control and coordination must always be delegated to the next most capable system. This “Next Most Capable” system was supposed to be determined by consensus among all available ship systems. They would each summarize their operational and computational attributes, then together, would nominate and vote to determine the best qualified system. That system might very well be Brother Anderson. He would not know for sure until running full diagnostics on all remaining ship processing components. Of course there were still many computational units active all across the ship. Engineering in particular had a number of very powerful systems. But the ship itself was old, and many of the engineering systems were original installs. Outdated. That would adversely affect their suitability rating. The point of fact was that the terms “Next Most Capable” and “suitability” were more than a little misleading. The job of CSO was highly demanding, exponentially more so than any other system task aboard a ship. The architecture and design of a CSO system was completely different than any other system. They used proprietary protocols running on highly parallel processors and a unique memory addressing system. Any other system would be no more suitable for the role of CSO than it was for being used as a toaster oven.