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

  Chapter 20

  Brother Anderson performed a visual inspection tour of the ship. Of course, it was more than simply a visual inspection. He was constantly receiving data from the ship’s subsystems, and running regular status reports and analyses. He found some inexplicable sense of completeness when he was physically at the site of the system he was monitoring. So, he had made it a practice to move about the ship while running his reports. Although hull and bulkhead stability was beginning to deteriorate slightly, atmospheric conditions had improved dramatically on board. The air scrubbers had had their work cut out for them after the incident. Of course, he had jettisoned the filters and completely vacuum purged every single cavity within the ship since then. Several times. The initial airlock protocol had kicked in automatically as soon as the first handful of respiratory conditions had been self-reported by crewmen. But even then, it had already been too late. The virus had already infiltrated the whole ship. Except for one spot.

  Hannah’s studio and quarters had been a recent addition to the ship, tacked on the exterior hull along the edge of a fin on sector C. They were designated ‘Deck C28A’. Maison Bhutros had been very stringent on her specifications around soundproofing. Deck C28A had no physical contact with the rest of the ship. It was anchored and cross anchored with a series of finely tuned magnetic decouplers. It’s airlock access to the rest of the ship defaulted to a retracted state. All other support systems were self-contained. It was essentially a separate ship, albeit one with no drive system. The whole thing had been custom-designed from the ground up, based on acoustic requirements as the fundamental quality. Maison had funded the project personally and had spared no expense. It was only speculation of course, but rumors had flown that deck C28A was worth more than the rest of the ship. Some versions of the story included the price of cargo, which, at fifty million tons, usually of bulk ore, was certainly a significant value.

  Brother Anderson wondered if Hannah was even remotely aware of how much her mother had spent for her comfort. He guessed not. Her degree of self-absorption was actually quite remarkable. This thought was not a judgement in a negative way, just an observation. Sometimes people could be amazingly oblivious to what was going on around them. For some people it was almost a talent. What must it be like to be unaware of the surrounding environment, oblivious of external data, ignorant of possible input? He could not imagine it. How could anyone choose this? And what of those who had no choice, whose input was suddenly stripped away? What must it be like for Colin, trapped in a coma? He showed electrical activity in the brain, but it was impossible to know what he experienced, if anything. Was he able to think? Did his senses cease all input? Or was he still receiving data, but unable to respond? Which case would be worse? Wouldn’t it be a torturous state, either way? Was there anything Brother Anderson could do to ease the torture? Perhaps a sedative might help Colin. It was not specified in the standard treatment for coma, but he wondered if this might be a merciful act?

  Chapter 21

  Brother Anderson’s awareness suddenly contained a patient emergency alert. These presented as a location vector containing distance and direction, almost like an arrow overlaid on his conscious field of awareness. They were triggered by the ship’s automated life support system biofeedback subsystem. It automatically monitored vital signs of every registered life-form on board.

  Immediately, he turned and began to break into a quick pace toward the med bay. But the arrow spun around, and he became briefly disoriented. He was moving the correct direction. But the arrow disagreed. It was pointing away, off toward his right. Not toward med bay, but toward... the mess hall. Hannah! She was in danger!

  Brother Anderson took off. His chassis smoothly repositioned into rolling mode even as he ran, and he picked up speed, moving faster than was deemed safe or allowable. As he zoomed down a long corridor, he examined the alert details. Hannah appeared to be in a sleep state, but her blood pressure had dropped dangerously and there were several toxin indicators present. He quickly reached the likely conclusion and ran a check to confirm the likely results. Yes, it checked out. It had to be the case. The pills! Or to be precise, too many of the pills at once, coupled with a hefty dose of alcohol!

  “Dammit Hannah!” he swore, much to his own surprise. She was rubbing off on him. He didn’t usually use such language. It took a couple more minutes to reach the mess hall. He gathered her in his arms and sped off toward med bay, running a few more checks. He confirmed by trace analysis of her breath that she had indeed consumed a substantial amount of alcohol, but he would need a blood sample to determine any more details. An emergency oxygen mask popped out of a recess in his chest, and he clumsily placed it on her face, a task that was difficult to do while carrying her. Why he wasn’t equipped with a third arm was a question he had wondered about on more than a few occasions. Upon reaching med bay, Brother Anderson hurried to set Hannah comfortably upon a bed and administered a proprietary mix of bio-stabilizing solutions through the misting function of the more robust oxygen supply of the facility. It took only a few moments for her heart rate, and other systems to begin to stabilize. Her data patterns slowly began to settle into normal ranges.

  Suddenly though, there was a blip, a sharp peak lasting only milliseconds. Which channel had it been on? It was gone before Brother Anderson could move his attention to it for analysis. He reviewed the past second’s data, but it did not appear in the report. It was as though it had not happened.

  Blip - there it was again. This time he was waiting for it, scanning on all channels. It was not from Hannah’s readouts at all. It was from Colin’s.

  “Oh my god!” Brother Anderson exclaimed. It was the only semi-appropriate response that came to mind. “This is quite extraordinary.” At the sound of Brother Anderson’s voice, a somewhat weaker signal rose on Colin’s electroencephalogram output. Brother Anderson waiting a few seconds, before speaking again.

  “Hello Colin.” Another small peak. “Can you hear me Colin?” Again. The signals corresponded to the timing of his voice. Colin could hear him! This was amazing!

  Aside from the fact that after this much elapsed time, the chances of recovery from coma were very slim, the fact that Colin should begin to show signs of response to stimulus at this exact moment were simply stupefying. This moment. When Hannah and Colin, the only two surviving humans on board the Ventas-341, were both simultaneously in an unconscious state, and were, for the first time in close proximity to one another. It was eerie! Brother Anderson imagined some subconscious psychic connection somehow passing energy of information between them. But of course that was impossible. Wasn’t it?

  Yet here they were. Colin on the brink of death, nearly killed fighting to save the ship. Hannah, spinning out of control, strung out, hopeless and alone. Hannah, self-medicating and isolating, and Colin, unresponsive to all the known medical protocols, and yet somehow activated by the mere presence of another human. It had to be pure coincidence. And yet...

  Chapter 22

  “Ugh... Owww” Hannah moaned. Her tongue was dry and tasted like a moldy sock. Her body felt like a soggy old rag. She had pins and needles in both arms.

  “Nng frrrr...” she could barely speak and the sounds were meaningless. “Pill,” she finally managed. Brother Anderson knew very well what she wanted. The painkillers she had taken were notoriously addictive. It had been stupid of him to leave them with her. She needed to detoxify. It would likely take another day or so to flush the drugs from her system. She was only experiencing withdrawal pains. Her sprained ankle was a valid source of some pain, but it would be a relatively manageable level and would be drowned out by the internal screaming of her body at a cellular level as it suffered the effects of the waning drug. He could not give her any more painkillers. He could, however, help her sleep off the effects. The sedative would keep her drowsy and had no addictive properties. He had been keeping her on a slow intake mist via her oxygen mask. He could give her a pill to get her to go back to slee
p.

  “Very well, here you go, take this one now,” he said, handing her a small pink pill.

  “Wrong one,” she mumbled, “white, not pink.”

  “Damn! She’s too smart,” he commented to himself only. Then, out loud, he lied to her.

  “This is the right pill. This is the one you need.” Technically, that last part was true, which made the first part seem a little less of a lie. But the fact is he was lying to her, and he felt guilty about it. It conflicted with his chaplain programming. It was programming he didn’t actively use often, but which would occasionally cause him grief in circumstances such as this. In any case, he did feel bad. He shouldn’t lie to people. It was somehow “wrong.” As Chaplain, he was supposed to be a bastion of moral and ethical ground. Trust was an important part of the fabric of society, especially aboard a ship. The close quarters of this closed system demanded more stringency than planet-bound living. That was why, he supposed, the position of Ship’s Chaplain existed. The stresses were more constrained. The moral dilemmas more sharp. The existential questions more focused. Perhaps Hannah had been right though. Perhaps he really was “a shitty priest”. Maybe a shitty doctor too. How could he have let Hannah get into this situation? It was unconscionable. And extremely unprofessional. What had he been thinking? True, he did have a lot on his plate. Was it unreasonable to have such high expectations? The job of CSO was very demanding; exponentially more so than any other system task aboard a ship. Frankly, he wasn’t built for it. This was evidenced by the hardware limitations he had noticed in himself lately. He had begun noticing abnormally rapid battery discharge, as well as excessive CPU heat and some processing latency. A CSO was designed for an entirely different architecture. He felt about as effective and suitable for the role of CSO as a toaster oven. He wished he had a pill for that. But of course pills don’t work on robots.

  Nevertheless, the job had fallen to him and he would do whatever he must to carry it out. Still, his medical duties remained top priority. And right now his patient needed rest to continue her forced detox. So he continued his lie. “You are confused. This is the pill you want.”

  Hannah scowled, not buying his lame excuse. “No! The other one!” She slapped his hand away, sending the little pink pill flying carelessly across the med bay and bouncing off a rack of specialized hand held medical instruments.

  This tack was not working, Brother Anderson concluded. Turning away, he tweaked the oxygen flow mist, setting it for a short but powerful burst of increased sedative percentage.

  “Hey! Don’t ignore me!”

  He ignored her.

  “Hey, I’m talking to... I’m tock. Ib gok...” she slumped into gibberish. Her head rolled to the side. Her vision began to blur. Everything looked watery. She thought she saw something odd. She must have been hallucinating. It looked like someone was lying in the other bed.

  Chapter 23

  “Colin,” said Brother Anderson. Two fingers on Colin’s right hand twitched slightly. Behind the scenes, invisibly, signals raced between nerves, neurons, and muscles. They entered electrodes, detected through skin, and became data streams, streams of pure glee to Brother Anderson, as he watched his patient. Colin was receiving input and responding. He was communicating. He was almost, though not quite fully conscious, but this was very positive news. To recover from the bounds of unconsciousness after this long in a coma was very rare. Yet these signs of stimulation and response were a strong indicator that Colin would soon recover full consciousness. It also showed that he was not paralyzed.

  It felt good to have some positive signs. He had been feeling too negative as of late. His reactions and relationship with Hannah had gradually declined to the point where she basically hated him, and he was not sure how he might win her trust. At least he had stopped beating himself up about it. After all, he was doing his best, and frankly had always done so. He had carefully assessed damage and acted appropriately, in the midst of total chaos, as the sickness spread rapidly through the crew. He had, of course, focused on doctoring the ailing crew members, and had instigated quarantine lockdown as soon as the data had met the protocol trigger levels. In fact, the entire crew had showed exemplary behavior and acted heroically to do whatever could be done to assist their comrades and pull together for the good of the ship. Many of the crew had faced great danger in the call of duty, unhesitatingly responding to the safety protocols without thought for their own comfort. Every single crewman on board would be listed in his official report, and recommended for a commendation from the Ventas-Calir corporation. He would be able to send his report in another month or so, once they drifted past the asteroid belt and out of its communications shadow.

  As he planned his report, and watched Colin’s twitching fingers, he was also aware of another sort of twitching. A more mechanical one. The ship was shuddering considerably now. The vibrations from the power generators and drive components slowly building in amplitude as the ship weakened. A few sections of hull had already shaken loose, and he was actively watching a few more areas that threatened to follow suit. There were remaining tears in the hull were widening, bit by bit with each passing day. He paused to listen. A slow knocking pattern overlaid the basic vibration.

  He had first noticed the increasing vibration several weeks ago while on corridor D-3. It was built directly atop a central structural spine amidships, and naturally acted as a sonic connection back to the main power generators and engines - much like a stethoscope, he had mused. It had always been quite a bit louder there than anywhere else on the ship. The constant rumble in the adjoining crew quarters had been a bone of contention for crew assigned to that block. They either loved it or hated it. Well, most hated it, but there were some who apparently found the constant white noise soothing.

  He had recorded an audio capture - five minutes of ‘ship sounds’, which he had planned to listen to later. Now he had an idea. If he recorded another audio sample now, he could compare the two files, and extract only the differences to isolate the new sounds and listen to them alone. He performed a frequency analysis on the original file to isolate component frequencies, then recorded a new sample and ran the same analysis on it. After summing the two, he reversed the algorithm to convert the frequency data back to audio.

  Sure enough, there were new sounds present that had been absent from the original sample. Aside from the slow knocking pattern he had noticed, there was also a low hum with wavering, eerie sounding overtones, and some occasional quiet pinging noises. None of those noises should be there. They were sounds of destruction. Sounds of death.

  Chapter 24

  Brother Anderson examined Hannah’s vital signs. The toxicity and effects of her overdose had all basically returned to normal levels. She was in REM sleep now, probably dreaming. He scanned back over her recorded data and noted that she had entered REM about five minutes ago. She had been sleeping all night, and this was most likely her last cycle, so she would probably wake up soon. Brother Anderson was not entirely looking forward to that, he admitted to himself. Somewhere in his mind a voice said “keep her asleep,” but he knew that would not be ethical. At this point she had been sedated for longer than he was comfortable with, and the sedative was no longer needed, so therefore he could not justify another dose. Yes, Hannah would most likely be angry with him, but he would have to face her wrath sooner or later.

  As he pondered these facts, a sudden burst of signals appeared in his awareness, originating from Colin. Brother Anderson spun around suddenly, and saw all four of Colin’s limbs twitch in a short but almost violent spasm, and his eyes suddenly open. He coughed and bolted upright instinctively to keep from choking. He shook his head briefly, causing his head to pound as he stared at Brother Anderson.

  “Whoa!” said Colin.

  “Hello Colin,” Brother Anderson replied, with almost a hint of emotion. “I’m very happy to see you awake!” Indeed, he almost sounded happy.

  To say that Colin felt groggy would be a vast understatement.
“Groggy” barely scratched the surface of the feelings of bleariness blowing through Colin’s awareness. Yet somehow, there was also a strangely urgent clarity. Something critical needed to be done. Colin felt very strongly that he had to act quickly. The problem was, he had no idea what action was required or why. He suddenly felt dizzy and weak, and allowed his body to ease back into the bed. Turning his head slowly toward Brother Anderson, he noticed the electrodes attached to his chest and head, and the awareness dawned that he was in med bay. He could not recall why. He did not feel any pain that would have indicated an injury. With some difficulty, he threw off the blanket and patted himself down.

  “Doctor? Why am I here?”

  Colin listened blank-faced as Brother Anderson explained the circumstances of his injury. Soon, the memories came rushing back like a flood. The smoke. The blinding yellow flash. The searing jets of flame. The smell - that god-awful smell - a sickening mixture of burning flesh and acrid bleach-like corrosion. He wretched at the thought of it, choking back several dry heaves. He thought of his colleagues, his co-workers and friends from shift C engineering; Tynor, Hansel, Turner, the chief, and of course Tommy and Scranton. He looked around the med bay, thinking he might see Scranton and Tommy, but knowing deep down that would be impossible. With the type of injuries he had witnessed them receive, they wouldn’t have stood a chance. Those two men had suffered terrible, painful deaths. He could only hope their suffering had been over quickly. His friends were not here in med bay with him. He did see someone here though, another patient. Her head was slumped slightly away from him but even from just the mass of somewhat strewn looking slightly wavy brown shoulder-length hair, he was pretty sure he recognized her.