Dominion (17 page)

Twenty-eight

Their joint efforts to get the ship to the failed terraforming project proved to be a success.  It
required an equal amount of collaboration to bring the ship to a slowed orbit once they arrived.  The entire journey in the system took less than seven hours.

“It didn’t take as much fuel as you thought it would to halt this ship, Hawke,” Fire Dragon offered, rising from his control station, “We’ve got about sixty-six percent left.”

Hawke remained standing at the window, staring down at the world beneath the ship.  He had been totally unprepared for the blue, green, and white globe they discovered.  The presence of water should have been minimal had the terraformers not succeeded, but instead it covered a little more than fifty-percent of the planet.  While that was a much smaller amount of water than that of Earth, it was still a significant presence.  Had the terraformers not succeeded in their efforts, the oceans would have revealed an abundance of green color due to a dangerous surplus of algae.  While he did see a span of green running along one continent, it had definitely not taken over the world’s oceans.

The cloud cover should have either been a hundred percent or none at all on a failed world.  The clouds beneath the ship were spread out
evenly in what could only be defined as “normal”.  Nothing on the planet beneath him spoke of failure.  He almost wished he had those scanners on Star Trek where he could scan for life forms.  While the ship may very likely already have had such capabilities, they weren’t able to locate them.

“I wonder if this is what Rain looks like from above,” Kashuba wondered aloud, standing at his side.

“It probably does,” Hawke said, sidling up next to her and putting his arm around her, “The planet I come from looks similar.  Isn’t it beautiful?”

“Very much so. 
Do you think they came back and finished their project?” she asked.

“Oddly enough, I don’t,” he replied, “I don’t see any signs of technology down there or up here for that matter.”

“Would you be able to see such things from this high up?” she asked.

“Yeah, there would be some signs.  And especially
in a race of people who possess the sort of technologies required to divert icy comets toward a planet’s surface in the hopes of increasing the presence of water.  That’s the only way I could imagine you’d bring water to a planet devoid of it. A race like that would have maintained a presence of some sort up here in orbit,” he replied, gazing down below, “One has to wonder if nature took over after they abandoned all their efforts.”

“I’d be most
concerned with questions like ‘can we breathe down there’ and ‘what’s the climate like?’” Fire Dragon hollered over to them.

“And t
his from a man who lived on a glacier,” Hawke taunted.

“I’
m just saying that it could be one of those tropical ovens that makes your eyes sweat,” he stated, “We have a tropical island on Rain that is always more than 100 degrees Fahrenheit and inhabited by nothing but insects and snakes.”

“Actually, directly benea
th this ship, the surface temperature is eighty-three degrees Fahrenheit or twenty-eight Celsius,” Light Bender stated, “I don’t know if it’s getting the reading on a beach or in a forest or over a body of water, but there you have it.”

“How do you know
the temperature?” Hawke asked, turning to the man seated in one of the Captain’s chairs.

“All I did was hit the orbital icon.  I
t pulled up several other icons, one of which was the same thermometer icon we used to check the ship’s interior temperature.  Even after I hit that, it offered interior, exterior, and the surface below,” he replied, still tapping things on his screen, “And when I go back to the orbital icon and select the cloud icon, it offers to check the atmosphere below.”

“Well, what’s it say?” Hawke asked,
approaching him.

“Unfortunately, all I’m getting is
code.  I hit the option for the surface atmosphere and it shows ‘76% N, 22% O, 2% CO
2
, and less than 1% of Ar, Xe, Ne, and H’.”

Hawke started checking his own control pane
l, searching for the icons he was talking about.  He stopped suddenly at Light Bender’s words.

“Wait, read that again?” Hawke said.

He read it aloud, bringing a wide smile to Hawke’s face.  Light Bender looked up at him and shrugged.

“That’s good then?” he asked.

“Yeah, it sounds similar to Earth’s atmosphere.  I think ours had 21% oxygen and maybe more nitrogen, but that sounds close enough,” he replied.

“So you understand those codes?” Sky Listener asked, approaching the others at Light Bender’s station.

“Yeah, it’s the same codes we used on Earth in my time,” he said, “And the temperature sounds a little warm, but definitely tolerable.  Even if no one is down there to greet us and offer us food, there’s evidence that food would exist.  There’s an obvious presence of plant life and sea life.  If sea life wasn’t present down there, the algae would have completely overrun the oceans.  And all that green foliage that covers the land was once introduced to this planet by man… or Cheronook, so some of it would certainly be food.”

Kashuba and Winter Grass were engaged in a hushed conversation near the window.

“That whole ecosystem may have been
introduced
by man, but let’s not forget that they had given up on it,” Sky Listener reminded him, “What’s to say the food down there is anything we would recognize if it might have evolved on its own?”

“Actually, you probably
wouldn’t
recognize it if the original crew of this ship never introduced any of our Earth crops on Rain,” Hawke replied.

“Why don’t we stop making guesses and assumptions and just go down there?” Kashuba interjected, “It sounds like you said everything is okay, so let’s just stop wasting time.”

Everyone looked their way.   

“I have to agree with your wife, Hawke,”
the nameless paramedic stated.

“Okay, keeping with that thought, we need to come up with a way to land this thing,” Hawke stated, gesturing to one of the side windows.

He motioned for them to follow him to the window near the rear.  He then pointed toward the rear of the spacecraft where the giant metal ring circled the ship.

“We have the
huge problem of trying to land a ship that has a ring in the way,” Hawke stated, “We can certainly land this and allow the forward or rear section to tumble forward, but that would render this ship useless to us from that moment onward.  I’d like us to somehow manage to keep the decks level so we could continue using this ship as a shelter if needed.”

“And continue to use it as a
ship
if needed,” Sky Listener added, “You never know.”

“So, how do we land this?” Winter Grass asked, pointing to the ring, “Can we detach that thing?”

“Why would your people make a ship that couldn’t land?” Kashuba asked, poking Hawke playfully.

“Actually, I’m pretty sure this ship was never supposed to land on a planet.  It also explains why I wasn’t able
to launch us off Rain.  The ship is too enormous and heavy to expend all that energy required for repeat launches and landings,” Hawke stated, “They probably docked these things in space everywhere they went.”

“So they never went down to the planets?” Fire Dragon asked.

“I’m sure there would have been shuttles at the space ports,” Hawke defended, “Smaller craft designed for easier launches and landings.  But there was nothing like that circling this planet.  No space ports or anything for that matter.”

They watched the planet rotating slowly beneath them while they discussed the
ir future.

“Wait,” Light Bender said, rushing back to his station.

Hawke turned and watched the man tapping the panel excitedly.  Kashuba leaned into Hawke as he remained propped against the window.

“What are you doing?” Sky Listener asked.

“The orbital icon,” Light Bender replied, still tapping at the screen, “It also offers a terrain scan.  It measures the sea level, then gives measurements of the terrain based on this.”

“I don’t follow,” Hawke said.

“On Rain, we had this deep ravine that spanned the length of several cities.  In some areas, like near my grandfather’s farm, it was so deep that it took my brother and I a half hour to get from the top all the way down to the creek at the bottom,” he replied, keeping his focus on his screen, “I got to thinking then, what if we landed this ship in a place where the center ring hung down into a ravine or some other form of gorge?”

Sky Listener nodded, rubbing his chin in thought,
“That would be a perfect idea, but how could we land this thing with such precision?”

“I could do it,”
Fire Dragon stated confidently, “I won’t need the thrusters while we’re high up in the atmosphere because we know now that they’re useless beyond a certain height, so that will save fuel.  If you could find a place that would accommodate this ship, have Sky Listener target it, and then I’ll bring us into it.”

“Hawke?” Sky Listener asked, searching for his opinion.

“Find us a nice, deep ravine and see if you can lock onto it.  Then once we have full power to the ion thrusters again, I’d say we give it a shot,” he said.

Twenty-nine

While the ion thrusters were charging, Hawke and Kashuba went to check on the others in the ship.  They shared the plan with the others and warned everyone to beware of any jolts or vibrations that come with landing a ship this size.

“What do you think happened to Rain when we left?” Kashuba asked as they walked through the corridor, “You said you wanted us to get away from the zeppelins before we launched even though we were high above them.”

“Yeah,” he frowned, staring at the floor.

“You said it was dangerous to jump while that low,” she said, “Do you think we caused a hurricane or something?”

“Using all the figures I have on the gravitational-reflex engine, I have to believe that there was a good chance our departure was devastating,” he said, “I do my best however to hold onto the fact that I don’t know the results of our jump for certain and that in truth, a suborbital jump like that has never been tested to my knowledge.  Who knows?”

“Devastating?” she asked, “How devastating?”

“I’d rather not think about it, Kashuba,” he muttered.

They located the stairs and took them to the next level.  For the moment, they were just wandering the corridors aimlessly.

“So, what’s the survival plan for arriving on a virgin planet?” she asked, eager to change the subject.

“Virgin planet – I like that term,” he smiled, “Well, we’ve got some tools of our own that we brought with us.  We’ve got plenty of bane down by the water tanks.  We’ve got the shelter, the heat, and th
e safety of this ship, but we don’t want to plan on using it forever.  Hmmm.

“I’d guess finding food and water would be the immediate task to conquer.  Then would come
necessary task of finding a sustainable source of food and water, which would entail farming and maybe the building of a pier or fishing boats.  We’d probably end up building barns, silos, and wind or watermills before we ever got to the building of homes.  Basically, we’ve got a lot of work ahead of us.  You and I will finally get to take a proper honeymoon when we’re about seventy or eighty years old.”

She laughed, pushing him away playfully.

“Do you think this crew is up for such a hardworking schedule?  It will probably take years before we can consider ourselves even slightly settled in,” she asked.

“Yes, I have a lot of confidence in them.  And I think our shared goal of community survival will give us a lot to focus on so that our minds won’t drift back to Rain, to the Shomani, or in my case, to Earth,” he said, “I think it will be good for all of us.”

Thirty

The ship’s rapid descent was now slowing significantly as the ion thrusters burst forth at a full one hundred percent.  Hawke couldn’t help but to be frightened though as the ship was still dropping through the clouds in spite of the thrusters.  The ground rose quickly but never came to within three miles of the bottom of the ring before the thrusters forced gravity to release its hold on the ship.

Fire Dragon dropped the thrusters down to sixty percent while Sky Listener released control to the guidance systems.  Light Bender had located a rocky gorge carved out by a river that flowed from the largest ocean on the continent’s east coast to a smaller sea far inland.
  Since there were many portions of the gorge deep enough to permit the ring to settle in, they decided on a spot that would give them access to a dense forest on the one side of the gorge and some grassy plains on the other side.  It would also place them within four miles of two large freshwater lakes.

Nearly the whole crew was on the bridge, watching as they moved over the treetops at nearly two hundred miles per hour.  Gazing out across the beautiful world, they again found no signs of any human presence.  They did see plenty of wildlife, causing Hawke to wonder just how “dead” the planet was when mankind gave up on this world.  He had to believe that they’d already transplanted enough wildlife, sea life, and plant life onto this failing planet that even when the human
s abandoned them to die, they found a way to survive.

“Coming in on the spot we chose.  I’m bringing us down,” Fire Dragon stated.

They watched the ship slow down and begin turning as the guidance system and Fire Dragon began aligning the “key” with the “keyhole”.  They could already see portions of the turbulent river beneath them as the ship continued its assisted descent.

“I hate to ruin all the
fun, but I just realized that the hole in the gymnasium wall would lead us right out over the gorge,” Ocean Song said, staring out the window, “So we still need to cut a new exit to get off this thing.”

“No, we
had only cut that opening because it was where the ice tunnel ended.  This ship has several exterior hatches, two of which are at the very front of the ship and probably only a few feet off the ground once we land,” Hawke stated.

“This is it, people,” Fire Dragon hollered, “If we lined it up properly, we should just be going straight down from here.”

From their spot on the bridge, it appeared as though they were only fifty feet above the top of the gorge.  The ship continued its slow descent, shuddering mildly as some of the unavoidable trees were starting to crush beneath the forward and aft portions of the ship.  The wide trunks of these trees started to splinter before them under the immense weight of the ship.  Moments later, the front windows on the bridge had come face-to-face with the cliff wall.  The crew’s view was obstructed now by either the cliffs face a mere fifteen feet before them or the rapids several hundred feet below.  The ship had settled onto both sides of the ravine, the gravitational-reflex ring hovering barely five feet above the raging water below.

“I think Fire Dragon deserves an award for that one,” Sky Listener said, patting the man on the back.

“Indeed,” Hawke added, “Looks like we’re home.”

“Home,” Night Whisper repeated, “Can we go outside?”

Someone hollered a chant, insisting upon a race to the forward hatches.  People were grabbing their tool kits and duffel bags as they rushed from the bridge.  Kashuba tossed the strap of the survival kit over her shoulder and then offered her hand to Hawke.  He took her proffered hand in his and joined her, as they became the last to leave the bridge.

They walked down the long corridor in silence, hearing the cheers and cha
nts of those far ahead of them.  They continued to the forward hatch, discovering it open to a properly secured bridge across the chasm between the hulls.  The outer hull hatch was left open before them, allowing a bright ray of sunlight into the dreary and musty home they had shared these past few days.

They walked across the bridge to the open door to discover that the thick green grass was only a two-foot leap from where they stood.  They stepped down together.  Light Bender and one of the
other engineers whose name Hawke didn’t recall were already climbing an apple tree about fifty yards away.  Sky Listener was only smiling childlike as he stared toward the mountains in the distance.  Ocean Song and Night Whisper where knelt near the edge of the ship where several splintered limbs of a peach tree had reached out.

“What is this?” Ocean Song called, holding a plump peach high in the air.

“A peach.  They’re sweet and safe to eat.  You just simply bite into it,” Hawke replied.

“What are those two going after?” Kashuba asked, pointing toward Light Bender.

“Looks like an apple tree.  Actually, I think there are a couple apple trees out that way,” he replied.

Winter Grass called from the splintered peach tree limbs where she had joined some of the others.
  They were all knelt around the bounty eating hungrily.

“
In spite of my hunger, I just want to stand here and cry right now,” Kashuba said, still maintaining her grasp on Hawke’s hand.

“If it’s a happy cry, then I totally understand,” he replied, noticing Fire Dragon for the first time, lying face-up on the lush grass with an apple core in his hand.

“Definitely a happy cry,” she replied, resting her head on his shoulder.

The End