The Pathfinder Project (10 page)

*    
* * *     *

Adam Roh was seated comfortably
in the shade of a large apple tree. Above him several birds chattered happily
as they worked on constructing a nest. He had gone off-shift several hours
prior and decided to spend the time reading in an outdoor atmosphere. His right
hand was accessing
Pathfinder
’s schematics on his laptop, while his left
held the remains of an apple that had fallen from the tree and landed next to
him. The technology to maintain proper gravity, lighting, and other
environmental conditions for the ship’s farming and ranching areas was rather
detailed… he still had a few areas he wanted to brush up on. Off in the
distance he could see civilians and several off duty personnel walking around,
admiring the rich farmland that surrounded them.

The artificial gravity systems
didn’t cause Adam a bit of concern any more – his team was getting so good at
simulating planetary conditions that most people couldn’t even tell the gravity
field changed as they moved from one area of the ship into the next. He shook
his head – slightly amused – as he opened an E-Note from Thomas that consisted
of two words: “
It works
!” Off in the distance he could hear a hatchway
open.

“Oh, wow…
this
is
great!” said a young boy’s voice. He glanced absent-mindedly up from his laptop
and smiled at Joseph Kaufield’s expression.

“Welcome to the Garden wing,
kid!”

“This is absolutely
fantastically marvelously seriously great!” Joseph repeated, running happily
over to Adam. Just
look
at this place!”

Adam decided to take the young
man’s advice – he put aside his laptop, stood up, and surveyed the area as he
took another bite from his apple. Surrounding him were the rest of the fruit
trees in the immediate area. They were both standing in the smaller space near
the exits reserved for trees, bushes, and other fruit-producing plant life.
Stretching beyond the fruit-producing area were organized, rectangular sections
of farmland dedicated to growing the various crops that they would need to
survive. There were tall cornfields, golden yellow sunflowers, and row after
row of shimmering wheat.

“Do you like it, Joe?” Adam
asked, placing a hand on the boy’s shoulder.

“It’s
great!
” Joseph
laughed, a wide smile lighting his face. “It’s just like being on Grandma and
Grandpa’s farm back in Iowa.”

“It’s even better than that,”
promised Adam. “I take it this is your first time here!”

“Yes, at least since everything
was installed. And it’s the
coolest
thing I’ve ever seen.”

“Well, if you want to see
something even cooler…” Adam smiled back at the kid and pointed upward.” He
watched the expression on Joseph’s face as the kid slowly looked upward.

“Oh, wow Adam is
that
ever
great
!”

The two of them were standing
on one of the port wing’s flat surfaces. The total height from surface to
surface was roughly thirty-five meters – the distance comprising the total
width of each of
Pathfinder
’s upper “wings”. Approximately twelve meters
above them was a suspended ceiling that divided the wing completely in half.

They stood firmly planted on
four meters of Earth’s finest topsoil – carefully surveying the complex ceiling
of lights, environmental controls and windowed openings far above. Through
those glassless, open windows they could see the other surface area of the port
wing where the gravity was reversed. That locale was also coated with richly
fertilized topsoil and covered with trees, grass, and growing things. The depth
of the ground varied around the two farms – dropping from three to two meters –
in some places it was only one. The distance downward changed mostly based upon
the needs of the vegetation planted at each location.

“Keeping some varieties of
trees from growing too high has really been driving our botanists crazy,” Adam
commented. “But all of your Dad’s specialists have little details to work out
in their respective areas of the Sciences.”

“You’ve got
two
farms!”
Joseph giggled with delight. “Dad didn’t tell me you were going to do that!”

“Why waste the other flat
surface?” Adam replied boldly. “But it’s actually
four
farms, because
there’s a Livestock wing on the other side of the ship – and that one has a
farm plus animals on
both
of its sides, too!”

“That’s where I’m going to ask
Dad for permission to visit next,” decided Joseph. “This is just cool beyond
words!”

“The suspended ceiling that
divides the surfaces regulates gravity on both sides, provides simulated ranges
of sunlight, generates a range of wind activity and even waters the crops
occasionally,” grinned Adam. “I’ll bring you in here some time when it’s raining.”

“It
rains
in here too?”

“Yup. And for half of the year
the other side of this wing
and
one side of the Livestock wing also have
cooler temperatures and snow. The growing things we planted over there are the
varieties we brought on board that need all four seasons in order to grow
properly.” Adam found himself absolutely delighted by the look of wonder on the
young boy’s face. He instinctively had an idea. “You must have turned left when
you came in. If you had turned right you would be way over there…” he pointed
upward, to the other Garden above them, “Standing by yourself and looking up
back at me!”

“I want to do that!” Joseph
decided, noting that he could already see the tops of the heads of several
people walking around on the other side. “It’ll only take a couple of minutes.
Will you wait here for me while I go over there?”

“Sure,” Adam responded. “But
first take a look at this.” He reared back and threw the remnants of his apple
upward as hard as he could. The already-browning core flew directly toward the
ceiling, then stopped several inches from its surface and hovered… suddenly
completely still. From slightly behind him he could hear Joseph’s delighted
laughter. “That’s right where the gravity for
our
side begins. It’s
really a simple setup if you understand the concept, but it confuses the hell
out of the birds and insects.”

“Now how do you get the apple
back down?” Joe asked, intensely curious as he watched the floating piece of
fruit.

“The maintenance crew will find
it when they do their next check,” Adam pointed out. “It’s how I say hello to
them and let them know I’ve been by admiring their work. I’ve done it before
and I will do it again.” He chuckled. “Now go run over to the other side and
look up until you see me – I promise I’ll wait here for you.”

Adam Roh picked up his laptop
and closed it as he watched the boy run off. He stood proudly on one side of
the Garden wing. Particularly when viewed through a child’s eyes, the Project
Team really had created something truly extraordinary. What he hadn’t told
Joseph were the basic dimensions of each wing surface – roughly 600 meters by
400. Together both wings and their four surfaces yielded approximately 240
acres of farming and ranch land – plenty of area to feed the 900 people
currently aboard ship. Although, the young scientist decided, having recently
noted the shortage of actual livestock in the Livestock wing… it was quite
probable that their diets would consist mostly of poultry, fish, fruit, and
vegetables for at least a while longer.

*
    * * *     *

Two quick flashes of light lit
up the local area of space as a pair of shuttles emerged from faster than light
transit. They drifted casually forward, toward the distant lines of the
Pathfinder
.
Captain Nori ‘Siren’ Andrews glanced out the forward window and adjusted her
ship’s course slightly. She had been Dennis Kaufield’s Air Group Commander on
Khyber Base for over four years. After the attack on Earth, word had gotten
around pretty fast that the shuttles would be up and running first. With the
fighter squadron relegated to the backseat for the time being, Nori had decided
that there was
no
way she was just going to stay behind on
Pathfinder
while her pilots went out to search for enemy ships.

“Siren to
Pathfinder
,
reporting in as scheduled,” she said casually, glancing out a side window to
make sure the other shuttle was holding a stable course flanking hers.”

“
Siren, this is Central
Command
,” Mary transmitted back. “
Please proceed to the forward – I repeat…
forward – hangar bay. There are two teams in the Lab wing conducting CAS Drive
experiments and they have asked us to arrange a temporary detour for your
patrol
.”

“Roger that, Lt. Hastings,”
replied Nori, taking a good long look at the brilliant white flashes of light
still emanating from beneath the ship. “What the devil are they doing down
there? Did they suddenly decide to start welding all the hull plates
simultaneously?”

“
Negative
,” Mary stated
briskly. “
From the reports that I’ve heard, they’re making some very
significant progress with the CAS Drive. They’ve generated a controlled
singularity, and that’s what’s causing the commotion
.”

“Now there’s some good news for
a change,” decided Nori, “because we certainly don’t want to be hanging around
this
area much longer.” She glanced over at the shuttle holding course beside her.
“Lightning, you may as well take your bird in first – I’m sitting pretty from
this angle.”

“
Copy that
,” the pilot
of the other shuttle replied eagerly.

*    
* * *     *

“Did you get close enough to
Earth to determine if there are survivors?” Dennis asked cautiously. Nori and
her pilots had landed, gone through post-flight and immediately reported to him
on the Command deck. She sat down in one of the empty chairs next to Kaufield
and motioned for her companion and fellow pilot Walter ‘Lightning’ Douglas to
do the same.

“There
are
survivors,”
Nori informed him. “We were unable to get close enough to visually confirm, but
we did capture plenty of distant images which can be enlarged.” She pulled her
curly, cinnamon hair back into a bunch and knotted it quickly to keep it out of
her way as she continued her report. “We were able to determine that most of
the blast points targeted the major cities and other key military targets. Lots
of the suburban areas and smaller cities and towns are radiation damaged, but
completely intact.”

“So we have no way of
determining whether this Brotherhood is taking our people prisoner or executing
them?”

“Not at present. If you want to
try and take some of our ships in closer, that’s your call,” concluded Nori.
“But it would be a
major
risk. There are huge capital ships and fighters
all over the system, camped out behind moons, occupying our orbital facilities…
it all goes on and on.” She paused, reviewing the images in her mind once more.
“As far as I can tell, no significant military assets remain under our control
or are available to assist us. We detected absolutely nothing on the military
and civilian Comm-traffic… every channel remains completely silent.”

“What do you think, Walt?” the
Captain asked carefully.

“We got a lot of practice, sir,
turning our motion sensors on and off as fast as possible, then transiting to a
new location. Any time we got close enough to detect anything, all of the contacts
were enemy fighters, communications drones, or those huge, unknown warships.”
He shook his head, grimly. “I’ve got family back home just like everybody else
but
we
simply can’t get to them – not without additional firepower to
back us up.”

“I would imagine there were a
lot of stragglers like us, Captain,” continued Nori. “Just thinking about the
number of civilian ships that are in flight at any given time – it boggles my
mind. And we found absolutely
nothing
friendly.”

“We are
so
lucky to be
alive,” decided Kaufield. “There is just no way around it – as thorough as this
Brotherhood has been. They’re going to continue looking for refugees and
stranded vessels of any kind. If they find us, they’ll most certainly try to
capture or destroy us as well.”

“Bet on it!” Lightning
commented bitterly. “You learn fast out there… keep the PTP computer ready with
a new transit destination or else you spend most of your time dodging
missiles.”

“I’ve been trying to avoid
making a decision on this matter because it’s such a tough call – the
possibility that we might have to choose to leave those survivors behind. Here
we sit… ready to assist with food and medical supplies.” The Captain growled,
his irritation obvious, and threw up both of his hands helplessly.

“If we go back you better break
out the bullets first, Captain.” Nori warned darkly.

“Fortunately we have another
option,” the Captain said, activating the Comm-link on his chair. “Thomas, how
are you boys and girls doing down there?”

“
100% success, as requested
sir
,” Thomas replied. “
We’ve run 127 test flights to eight different
target destinations and everything is working perfectly. We’re still using the
same
Canary probe that we started with
.” He paused momentarily before adding, “
My
esteemed colleagues report that Contingency Plan Delta is also ready. Say the
word and we’ll give this mysterious Brotherhood a solid knock on the forehead
!”

“You’re
not
planning on
attacking them, Dennis – are you?” Nori asked with obvious disbelief. “The
Brotherhood already own every asset we had but this one. You
can’t
risk
turning this ship over to them too!”

“They’re
not
getting
this
ship,” Dennis insisted firmly. “I’ll order it blown up first. And they’ll never
get the technology, either. We left a ‘virus’ of our own called C-4 behind at
the main computer on Khyber Base and we can just as easily destroy the
Pathfinder
.”
He paused, thinking through the options that he had already been silently
reviewing for most of the day. “The CAS Drive gives us a lot of choices we
wouldn’t ordinarily have… such as the unique capability to travel very far away
to a point where they can’t get to us. We can carry out our mission to explore
Galactic space and return at any time we choose. That will give our surviving
military assets – if they exist – time to regroup and organize a
counter-strike. It’s quite possible that we could end up coming back in a few
weeks and using this ship in a relief effort after all.”