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“How long before we reach Stinson’s estimated position?” General Williams asked the navigation officer. Hal was getting nervous since they were coming close to the location where the Stinson should be, and they weren’t picking her up on any of their long-range sensors.
“Approximately twenty-six hours, sir.” It was becoming painfully obvious that he was wrong. And with communications still unsuccessful, they had no idea where the other ship was.
The general knew that the computations the navigation officer had made were correct. He always had the computer double-check any calculations done by the crew. No reason to let him off the hook, though. The only explanation he could think of why the Stinson wasn’t here was that their assumption that they had continued to coast at full speed after they lost their engines was wrong.
“Nav Officer, is it possible that the Stinson could be further along its planned route towards Batavia than we thought?” Dr. Jordan looked over at the general who smiled back at him. The general knew the answer to this, but always liked to test his crew.
“I think…so. If the Stinson’s engines never went offline, they would have continued accelerating causing them to be much further along their planned route.”
“Is that what you’re saying? The Stinson sent a priority one distress signal by accident and there’s nothing wrong with their engines?”
“I don’t know, General. However, that’s the only way I see them making it past this point,” replied the nav officer more confidently, which was exactly what the general wanted to hear.
“Very good, Captain. However, I fear something bad has happened and they’ve never made it this far.”
Williams had met with the command crew earlier in the month to discuss the different possible scenarios. The one scenario that made him the most nervous was pulling up to a hostile ship, but not seeing the Stinson at all was almost just as bad since it could still be hostile, but now they had no idea where the ship was. They all agreed though that if they arrived at their calculated position to not find the Stinson, that their assumption was wrong and that the ship had to be along the pre-planned route closer to Earth. All they would have to do is follow the Stinson’s planned route to Batavia in reverse and they should find them. The Stinson’s disappearance will definitely be unsettling for the rest of the crew. Williams still hadn’t told his crew about Helon’s message to him about the possible sabotage. He didn’t want to alarm them for no reason.
“Nav Officer, enter in the coordinates for Earth and alter course when we reach the Stinson’s expected position. We will find the Stinson as we make our way back.”
“Yes, sir.”
The general’s PIC beeped. Lt. Colonel Greene was trying to contact him.
“Yes, Colonel.”
“You wanted me to contact you when I had confirmation of a successful transmission test. Well, you might want to come down to the communications room. You’re not going to believe this.”
“Very well, I’m on my way.” It had been six months since he had ordered Greene to find a way to prove that their communications array was transmitting properly. Had they finally figured it out? He hoped so and with the recent discovery that the Stinson was missing, he also hoped that it was a problem with their equipment. That way, they could fix the problem and then get in touch with the Stinson to find out what happened; otherwise, well, he didn’t want to think about it.
He made his way down to the communications deck and walked through the door. Lt. Colonel Greene was huddled around a computer console with three other men.
“Colonel, do you have good news for me?”
Greene turned around and had a smile on his face. “General, I want you to meet Lt. Gonzalez. He’s got something to show you.”
“Lieutenant? What could you have possibly done to make the normally miserable Lt. Colonel Greene so happy?”
The very young lieutenant shifted a little on his feet before he replied. “Well, sir, I’ve been working for several months now on trying to get the Earth Orbiters to reply to one of our transmissions.”
“I thought we already tried that, and that it was impossible.”
“Not impossible, sir, just extremely difficult considering we didn’t have the proper information on the orbiters available to us. Therefore, my only option was to use trial and error. After six months, I finally received this message last week,” the lieutenant explained, pointing towards the monitor, which showed a blinking acknowledgement signal sent from Earth Orbiter Two.
The general stared at the blinking signal, not moving or saying anything for several moments. What everyone didn’t know was that the general was now very concerned about his friend Helon and the Stinson. If the Legacy’s communication equipment was functioning properly, then something was seriously wrong with their sister ship.
“Sir, our communications array is working properly,” the lieutenant said, stating the obvious and breaking the silence.
The general turned towards him and said, “Good job, Lieutenant, and thank you. Colonel, please walk with me.” And with that, the general turned around and left the room with the colonel on his heels.
As they walked down the corridor back towards the bridge, the general began speaking to the colonel. “You know what this means? We have a very big mystery on our hands, and, frankly, I don’t like it. I don’t like it at all. What I’m about to tell you, I don’t want you to divulge to anyone else yet. General Helon called me right after we launched to let me know that they thought someone had purposefully shut down the power to a section of their cryogenic chambers. The backup power and alarms were disabled as well. They were able to get everything back online quickly so they didn’t lose anyone. He thought he had the situation under control, but now I’m not so sure. With proof that our communications array is working properly, I now think that we definitely have a problem with the Stinson.”
“Why didn’t you tell me about this before?”
Hal could tell that the colonel was upset that something this important wasn’t divulged to him. He was responsible for the safety and security of this ship and surely must feel that he was being undermined.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t want anyone to panic, but that’s why I asked you to elevate the security to level three after the launch; just in case.”
“Ok. What do you plan to do now?”
“We need to find the Stinson as fast as possible. They may be in serious trouble and need our help. If it’s only one saboteur and not a mutiny, we have a chance; otherwise…” The general stopped in front of the bridge door and looked back at the colonel with a very serious look.
“Begin planning battle scenarios. We need to get the upper hand if the Stinson opens fire on us when we find them. Only discuss this with your high-ranking officers that you trust. I still don’t want this getting out.”
“Do you think we have a saboteur too?”
“We may need to start assuming we do.”
“Yes, sir, I’ll get on the battle scenarios right away.”
The bridge door opened and the general walked through. Greene turned around and headed back down the corridor. The communications officer called the general on the bridge.
After several months of traveling back on Stinson’s planned route to Batavia from Earth, the Legacy still hadn’t found them. The general was at a loss on what to do. Had something terrible happened? Each day he grew more worried until finally they came upon something.
“Long range sensors picking up something, sir. Straight ahead,” announced the navigation officer to the general. “It looks to be several large pieces of metal.”
The general got up from his chair and walked over to the navigation officer. “Any idea what it is?”
“Not yet, sir. It’s still too far to tell, but looks to be a debris field.”
The general had a very good idea what this probably was and dreaded to know the truth. As they moved closer to the debris field, the nav officer turned to the general and whispered. “Sir, it’s the Stinson. Those metal fragments have the same metallurgical signature as the Legacy.”
“Check the long range sensors again. Is this the only debris field around?”
“Yes, sir. Just this area,” replied the nav officer, catching on to what the general had already figured out. “There’s no way this debris field is big enough for the entire Stinson. They might be still alive.”
The general was hoping that very thing, but obviously something was very wrong with the Stinson. “Dr. Jordan, see to capturing those metal fragments. Maybe we can determine what happened from analyzing them.”
“Yes, sir.” The doctor got up from his station and walked off the bridge. As the general watched the doctor leave, he couldn’t help but wonder if they were too late. Would their delay in deciding to rescue the Stinson be their undoing? One thing he knew for sure. Helon was wrong and he did not have everything under control with the Stinson.
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