Part II – Final Flight
“Last flight Sokoth and it’s on to the next big thing right?” Jennifer’s voice came through his helmet with a bit of crackle. “Don’t wreck this one ok!”
“But where is the fun in that?” he said as he stepped through the open airlock in the side of the craft. “This thing has done surprisingly well.”
“And you had your doubts.” She said over the open channel.
He nodded to one of the flight engineers as they departed the craft as he went in toward the cockpit. He settled into the seat and belted himself in, he began running through the diagnostics for pre-flight humming a soft tune to himself. “Any idea what is next?” he asked as he continued to work.
“Um, I do believe it’s called an escort class right now. No official designation.” She said calmly.
He stopped a moment. “I thought they already started that.” He started back into his process.
“Yeah,” the comm channel flared with static suddenly causing him to whence. “Let’s not talk about that right now!” she said her voice changing tones.
“Lieutenant Qul’tuq!” an all too familiar voice suddenly came over the intercom.
“Yes Admiral?”
“Stress test today. I want you to run it for fourteen hours.” His voice was flat as it usually was.
“Understood.”
The comm channel flared again with static and it sounded as if he could hear down a very hollow narrow corridor. “I want you to run Gambit on him.” He could hear the admiral’s voice it was faint and somewhat hard to hear over the static but he clearly heard that much. What came next was discernable but he was certain it was a protest from Jennifer.
Everything went back to normal and Jennifer’s voice came back on over the open Comm channel. “Tarmac is clear for taxi and take off So’koth, clear to sky when you’re ready.” Her voice was off, he knew she was not happy.
“Understood, on the move now.” He said as he activated the vessels thrusters and started to glide the craft out of the hanger. He could see the Admiral standing outside the control center by his vehicle watching him. The man was grinning at him as he passed.
So’koth did not like this, it was peculiar. He knew the Admiral was going to celebrate the success of this newly completed craft, it was going to be a big help for planetary defense forces and small interplanetary patrols. He pulled back on the stick and the craft’s nose responded coming up. He pushed the throttle forward and the craft responded leaping toward the sky.
“Clear to twenty thousand.” Jennifer’s voice came over the intercom. “Let’s spend about an hour bouncing around between there and about forty thousand, then do some orbital maneuvers ok.”
“Sounds good!” he shifted in the chair watching the altitude tick off as he climbed, then suddenly felt lightweight, which followed by an alarm. “Ut oh…” he said feeling his stomach tumble.
“You just lost thrusters and impulse power!” her voice called in a panic.
“Stand… by!” he said feeling the g-forces suddenly. His hands few across the control panel and he felt the sudden surge of the engines and the craft was climbing again just as quickly as they had cut out.
“What the hell was that!” she said.
Sokoth took a moment to compose himself. “Standby!” he pulled up a diagnostic report. It showed a spike in computer activity then an abrupt shutdown in all active programs including the one for the engine management system which had caused them to literally stop not knowing what they should be doing. “Uh, looks like a hiccup with the computer.”
“Yeah, I see it too.” She said.
“Let’s hope that does not happen again, why don’t you log that specifically and send it to the engineers. I’m sure someone’s watching but just in case let’s go by the book.”
“Already done,” she sounded distracted for a moment.
About four hours later…
“It’s a bit cold up here!” he said watching his breath create a cloud of vapor across the cabin. “I cannot believe this is happening on the last day of testing.” He glanced into the panel looking for an ODN line he was trying to locate. He found it after a few moments and grabbed another and used a joining tool to bring them together. He watched as lights came alive on one of the consoles. “Flight Control this is Red Stone One can you hear me?” he waited a long moment.
“Sokoth!” Jennifer’s voice came over his suits speakers.
“Yup!”
“What happened?” she asked her voice was hurried.
He glanced out the forward viewport at Earth’s South Pole. “The computer shut down and everything followed. I’m still working on getting it back up and running. I got basic life support online but just barely and maneuvering thrusters just enough to maintain my position in orbit.”
“Good, can you give us your location.” Her voice seemed to distort toward the end of her comment.
“Nope, navigational sensors are down, but I’m over the South Pole I can tell you that!” He slowly got down and climbed in through an access panel.
“I’m trying to get the computer to come back up so I may lose you here in a second. I wanted to make sure you knew roughly where I was just in case.”
“In case of wha…” her voice trailed off into some obscure sound as the channel distorted again.
“Well based on tricorder scans I took I don’t have long before the antimatter pods breach from power failure of the magnetic containment field’s they were not meant to be off main power for this long apparently.” He shifted and plugged in another bypass. “So if you don’t hear from me in about fifteen minutes I’m probably floating around up here waiting to freeze to death or get picked up.”
There was a long pause and no response. He shrugged and plugged in the last connection and waited as everything went dark once again. The lights began to flicker to life and the vessel came with it. “Sokoth!” the hurried voice of his friend came through the speakers.
“Yeah, I’m here.” He said as he pulled himself back out of the crawl space and back to the seat. He watched as diagnostics ran across his screen showing that everything was as it should be aside from the new routing he had done to bypass things to get the ship back online.
There was a flare of static over the Comm chancel again. “Ok, get out of their so we can do away with the interference.” She said with a bit of relief.
He nodded and smiled. “Yes Captain!” he said ribbing her a bit, he brought the ships engines online and started flying back toward a standard orbit.
As he did he could see the connection for the data link come back online. “There, now you can see me!’
“Good!” she said. “Everything looks fine from here.” The surprise in her voice was very noticeable.
“I know, it doesn’t make sense.” He said as he started to descend toward the atmosphere for reentry. “I’m coming down!”
“No you’re not!” Admiral Dwain’s voice came over the Comm System. “You may return to the atmosphere but you will complete your stress test. Is that clear?”
“Admiral the craft is having problems, we should bring it down and run some tests to ensure everything is as it should be. We need to bring it in to make sure it’s not systemic. If this is a sign of something that is worse than it should be then we need to get it to the engineers now.”
“It’s part of the Test Sokoth. Just keep running it as ordered.” There was a pause. “You passed the tests, now you just have to finish. If you have any further issues then you have permission to bring the craft down. Lieutenant Hannigan your duties are completed, report to your department head immediately."
“But sir the test isn’t..” her voice came over the comm channel in protest.
“Now Lieutenant, Mr. Qul’tuq can handle circling the field for a few hours on his own I believe.” The Comm channel beeped as it closed stemming off any further argument.
“Sokoth?” her voice came over the channel, the concern was very apparent.
He shook his head holding back his temper. “Don’t worry about me, he’s right I will be fine.”
“Are you certain, I’ll stay if you want me to?”
“No. It’s fine. You should do what he says.” There was a long pause. “Jessica, I’m the one with the marks on the record. Don’t put one in yours for me please. I’ll be fine, go.” He reached over and his finger hovered over the telemetry uplink.
“Ok, but you owe me!” she said abruptly.
He laughed. “I promise I’ll make it up to you, whatever you want!”
Her voice came back over the channel with something he had not heard from her before. “Be careful what you promise flyboy that might be more than you want. Be safe, fly straight!” she said coyly and the channel closed.
He grinned to himself and was lost in his own thought but only for a moment. He came back to reality as the vessel bucked from reentry. He noted his angle of decent and adjusted it slightly. He could see the Eastern Seaboard approaching on the horizon it was actually quite beautiful as night was still creeping in. It was like he was racing the darkness across the US.
A command prompt suddenly appeared on the main screen blinking at him. A very large block of code played quickly past and then came back to telemetry but the intercom came alive. “It’s a shame really.”
Sokoth’s eyebrow rose with curiosity hearing the voice distorted and electronic. “Who is this!” he asked.
“Oh, we’ve met before and we will see each other plenty in the future. You’ve been a thorn in my side enough. Consider this incentive to make a decision to take a different path in your life. Whatever your choice just know that pain and suffering await you if you stay in the fleet. A happier life if you leave now. You could make a life with Jessica. Have kids, be happy.” The craft bucked around him and power began to fade from the primary engines.
“Dwain, this won’t work! You cannot scare me!”
“If you survive, remember you choices. Know I will let you live, and take everything from you, give it back and take it again. But know that you’ll never beat me, it’s impossible. After all you’re only mortal!”
Nearly all the power began to fail, his earlier rerouting save him though, he was able to maintain the flight controls for the craft. He could see that his speed as still too much to put the craft down so he did something he never thought he would have to do. He banked the craft hard to starboard. Several hundred years prior other space men had done this to try and put their flying bricks down in the early days of earth space travel. He banked the craft hard the other way.
He could feel the crafts speed spilling off faster and faster. “Come on!” he could see familiar land down below he grunted as he turned the craft the other direction once again but this time maintained it. The g-forces were pushing him back into the chair. He could see the airbase go past the window, and then again shortly after. He leveled out the craft as the base came into view and he pulled back hard on the stick sending the craft into the sky. He could feel it starting to slow and for a brief moment he was weightless again causing his stomach to turn. He pulled back on the stick and let the craft start to fall, he could see it in the distance. The lake that only one house stood on. After all the lake would be the best place to set it down and it was on the way. He angled the craft pulling the nose up to cause more drag.
The house grew larger and larger in the window.