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“Say again, Comm,” asked General Williams, the commanding officer of the Legacy.
“We’re receiving a distress signal from the Stinson, sir! Priority one!” The comm. officer turned to look at him.
Hal Williams leaned back in his chair and looked over to his executive officer and bio-engineer, Dr. Jordan, who was shaking his head. A priority one distress signal meant only one thing. The Stinson was dead in space. Hal knew the reason Jordan was shaking his head: because he now had an impossible decision to make.
During the mission planning, everyone finally agreed after a long debate that under no circumstances would either ship change course. The food rations for the ship’s personnel had been carefully calculated and only a limited reserve was put on board due to space limitations. A change in course would jeopardize the crew and the mission.
“Dr. Jordan, would you please ask all department heads to meet me in the war room?” The doctor nodded, picked up his PIC, and began making calls. He was already pretty sure what he was going to do, but he needed everyone else to be on board. Several members of the mission planning team were on the Legacy, and some of them had argued for saving the other ship, regardless of the potential costs. He needed to have their full support now that they were actually in this dreaded scenario. He stood up and followed Jordan off the bridge.
Hal waited for everyone to sit down before he began.
“We’ve received a priority one distress signal from the Stinson.” He let that sink in a bit while everyone digested the implications. He looked over at Colonel Jessup, the Engineering Department officer, who was one of the original members of the planning team that was against staying the course. Jessup took the cue.
“General Williams, you already know my feelings about this. I’ve argued from the beginning that to leave our fellow comrades to die in space is inhumane, and I won’t stand for it, not when we can do something about it. Of course, there’s an element of risk involved, but I would sleep better at night if I knew that at least I tried something.”
Another officer nodded her head in agreement. “We can’t just leave them out there to die alone. How would we feel if we knew that the other ship ignored our plea for help?”
Hal looked over at her. “Dr. Toomey, it is important that we continue this mission for the sake of mankind. I realize that in your profession, you have taken an oath to save all human life, no matter what the costs, but I also have taken an oath to ensure the safety of everyone on board this ship. Even Dr. Jordan here agrees with me.”
Jordan raised his head. “I do agree with the general; however, I want to make it very clear that I also agree with Major Toomey and Colonel Jessup. If there is any way to rescue the Stinson without putting this ship at unnecessary risk, then I think it is our obligation to try and find it. We owe all the people on the Stinson at least that much.”
The other three department officers all nodded in agreement. Hal sat quietly thinking of what they had said. This had all been said before, but it was harder to defend his argument this time, so he finally nodded in agreement as well.
“Very well. I want all department heads to talk with their people and see if we can come up with a viable plan that will reduce our risk if we decide to alter our course to save the Stinson. I want everyone back here in two days with their plans. We need to make this final decision quickly.”
Hal motioned over Lt. Colonel Greene when everyone got up to leave. “What is our ship’s defenses and fighter status?” His operations officer looked at him curiously.
“Are you expecting a fight, or do you know more than you’re letting on?”
“There is really only one reason I can think of why the Stinson’s engines would fail to the point that they would have to send a priority one distress signal.”
“Sabotage?”
He thought back to the beginning of their journey when the commander of the Stinson, General Helon, had warned him of a potential problem.
“My thoughts exactly. General Helon had sent me a message when we launched about a potential saboteur on board. He was pretty sure he could handle it, but now I’m not so sure. We need to be ready for anything. If we come up with a good plan to go back and save them, I don’t want to pull up to a supposedly friendly ship only to find out the saboteurs have taken over the ship and they start firing on us. So, what’s our status?”
Greene nodded. “We are up and running on most systems. The number three portside gun is showing a software malfunction, and we’re working on it.”
“What about our fighters?” asked Hal, knowing full well that this ship would be vulnerable in a ship-to-ship fight without them.
“All Talons are operational, but…”
“But what, Colonel?”
“It’s been over two years, and none of my pilots have had any actual flight time since the launch. The simulator is all we’ve had to keep our boys current.” Hal knew the colonel was just being honest and not trying to make excuses.
“That’s okay. We all didn’t expect this, and who knows, maybe I’m just being paranoid and we won’t need any of your pilots or navigators. Hopefully we’ll get a chance to get your crew some actual flight time. Just get that number three gun working, will you? Thanks.”
“Yes, sir.”
Hal watched Greene leave the room. Secretly, he agreed with the doctors and Colonel Jessup. He couldn’t stand the thought of leaving his fellow officers either. General Helon and he went way back to their academy days together. If he had a chance to save his friend, he would do it.
Two days had passed and everyone met once again in the war room to go over their plans. They went around the room, discussing each plan in turn, and every single plan still had a large element of risk to their own ship’s crew. No matter the plan, there just weren’t enough supplies to make the rescue and continue on to Ashokan or Batavia, even with the Stinson’s reserve supplies.
The best plan they had was to put the majority of the crew and all the civilians into hibernation for the majority of the trip, but that posed an even greater risk to the operation of the ship. The ship was just too large to be operated by a skeleton crew. It could be done, but the general was not about to take the chance. One by one, each person around the room reluctantly agreed that staying the course was the best thing to do.
“What are we going to tell the Stinson?” Dr. Toomey asked the general as she looked around the room. Everyone was silent.
“I’ve been struggling with that very question. Despite our good intentions, I’m not sure telling them the whole truth is prudent.”
“Tell them the truth,” Toomey blurted out. “I wouldn’t want it any other way.”
Hal looked around the room and everyone agreed. “Ok then. I’ll send a message telling them that we all made a decision to continue on with our mission and that, unfortunately, we were unable to come up with a solution that would save both ships.” He felt like he had just been punched in his stomach. If Helon needed his help with the sabotage, he had just turned his back on his friend.
Several weeks after they had sent their message to the Stinson, the Legacy received another radio transmission, but this time from Earth.
The communications officer was becoming very excited as he began making out the message he was deciphering. Hal was getting annoyed at how long it was taking the officer.
“Well, Captain? What is the message?” Hal knew that HOPE had left three earth orbiters that would periodically send updates of the planet’s status. But those messages were routine and not ciphered. Only a high-level HOPE operative would know how to send a coded message using the earth orbiter, and the fact that his officer was getting excited really peaked his curiosity.
The officer stood up, walked over to the general, and handed him the decoded message. After reading the message, the general looked up and smiled back at him. “Good job, Captain.”
“Helm, plot a course that will put us on an intercept with the Stinson.” Everyone looked back at the general who was smiling. “We have just been notified that the few HOPE scientists left on Earth have successfully found a way to reverse the global warming on our planet. Very few people knew about this since it was thought that they had almost a zero percent chance of succeeding. Earth has been saved.”
He immediately thought of his friend and looked over at Jordan, who was smiling. They both knew that they now had enough supplies to be able to rescue the Stinson and make it back to Earth without risking any of the crew.
“Comm. Officer, send the Stinson the standard priority one acknowledgement signal and add this – Legacy is coming.” He wasn’t sure that the Stinson was receiving their communications since they hadn’t received an acknowledgement back from their response to their distress signal, but he hoped they were at least receiving them.
He sat back down, feeling great. He looked around the bridge and everyone was in high spirits. It’s not every day that you get to save your friend, your ship, and the planet.
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