While Making Other Plans:
Chapter 13

  Kathryn sat in her captain’s seat in the centre of the bridge reviewing the more extensive damage report Felix had prepared.  It was a little worse on closer inspection than he’d originally reported; they really were lucky to still be flying.  The systems which were still working were working fairly well: engines, radiation shields, but things that were more compromised were practically beyond repair, certainly not outside of a space dock.  The electrical system were nearly completely shot, and based on the degree of damage to the hull it wasn’t clear if they’d even be able to repair it all or if they’d be forced to just make a new one and cannibalize this so recently beautiful new ship for parts.

  “Ma’am?” The Lieutenant Byrne asked.

  “Lieutenant?”

  “The rift is operating properly, but…” he checked his instruments again, “we’re not receiving the go-ahead signal.”

  After opening a rift it was standard procedure for the other side to broadcast a simple transmission indicating that it was safe to travel through.  The actual absence of any kind of signal was quite odd though; if there was a problem, they should at least be getting a hold signal and information on the problem.

  “Nothing?” she asked.  “No signals whatsoever?”

  “No Ma’am.”

  Kathryn looked down in thought for a moment before ordering: “Slow our descent Malcolm, hold position in orbit above the portal.  We’re certainly not fling into it blind.”

  “Yes Ma’am.”  Byrne started tapping at the panel in front of him, but was clearly met with growing frustration.  He reached over and started tapping at the operations station’s panel to the confusion of the officer currently occupying it.

  “Ma’am, the… the controls aren’t responding, I can’t adjust our course.”

  “What do you mean?”  The chill of her awareness of danger started inching its way up her spine.

  “The controls aren’t dead exactly, we’re not ballistic.  We’re still making small and proper course corrections to take us into the rift, but… but the ship isn’t responding to our inputs.  I’m sorry Admiral I can’t halt our approach on the rift.  It looks like some sort of program has taken control and I can’t override.  We have lost control of the ship.”

  “Understood.”  Kathryn grimly acknowledged before reaching down to open a channel to Felix and Jaren.  “We have a problem, boys.  Unknown programming has taken over navigation.  We aren’t receiving the go ahead signal from Earth, so I ordered a halt to our approach but it looks like controls are being overridden by some sort of rogue programming.  We seem to be heading in whether we like it or not.”

  “No signal at all?” Jaren asked.

  “Nothing.  Felix, see what you can do about the controls.  It may just be battle damage, our course locked in somehow and new inputs not reaching navigation.  Jaren I want you to look to see if there is some sort of malicious program at work here.”

  Both men acknowledged their instructions and closed the channel to get to work.

  She didn’t know what to make of it, but it was cause for deep concern.  Ultimately, though it was the correct move to hold in the absence of a signal from Earth, there was nonetheless a part of her that wanted to proceed regardless to investigate why there was no signal coming through.  No matter the reason she certainly didn’t like not having control of her own ship.

  “It’s not autopilot,” Felix reported.  “Something is piloting us in.”

  “Understood.”  She switched over to hail Jaren.  “Felix says someone or something is actively piloting us in.”

  “I agree but can’t isolate the source.  How this is being done is beyond me.”  He seemed concerned and frustrated, but not yet panicked. Coolness under pressure was essential in their careers, and something they respected about each other.  

  Kathryn looked over at the one still working wall screen showing the surface of the sun filling the entire screen.  They were now close enough with the filters adequately darkening the image that she could see the roiling surface of the sun and the granulation of the seemingly infinitely intermingling convections at the photosphere.  As much as she wanted to go through and see what the problem was on the other side, the ship being out of control was unacceptable and remained their primary concern, even if it was sending them where she wanted to go.

  “Do what you can,” she told him.  “Work with Felix and bring in anyone else you need, just get me back control of my damn ship.”

  “Roger that,” he answered before closing the channel.

  Kathryn rapped her fingers in series against the arm rest, again, then again, and again, thinking hard.  She then got up out of her chair.  “Lieutenant Tarsus,” she said to the operations officer, “you have the bridge for all the good it will do you.  I need to check on something.  If we regain control of the ship take us up to a high holding orbit.  If we don’t, I’ll be back before we enter the rift.”

  “Yes Ma’am.”

  She made her way over to the exit and after stepping through the doors she broke into a run towards the robotics lab where they were keeping Ralph.  She toggled the door open and stepped in.

  “Kat!” Felix called with surprise.  “What are you doing here?”

  “Don’t mind me,” she told him, “carry on.  Get me my ship back.”

  The man seemed confused, but he obeyed and turned back to his terminal to resume his work.  The robot body Ralph had been granted stood before his data core like an inanimate automaton.  It stood rigid like a statue, betraying not a shred of the life it had so convincingly portrayed earlier.  She walked up and stood with her face inches from the screen where the robot’s face would be displayed.

  “You in there Ralph?” she asked softly.  There was no response.  “How long has he been like this?” she asked Felix.

  “Now that I think about it,” he answered without looking away from his terminal, “I haven’t heard a peep from him in some time.”

  Kathryn had a suspicion and the more she considered it the angrier she was at herself for not figuring it out earlier.  It seemed like it was working on something else instead of interacting with them.  She shook her head, a computer that advanced surely must be able to converse with them and manipulate the ship at the same time.

  Felix had assured her that it was adequately quarantined, but… it was such an advanced technology, how could they ever know?  If she was right, there was no way to know so what could they do?  Smash the computer core in fear and suspicion?  What if they were wrong?  And besides, how could this machine, even if it was behind locking out their navigation, how could it possibly have had any effect on the signals from Earth?

  “Any luck Felix?” she asked while keeping her eyes fixed on the blank face screen of the robot.

  “None,” he answered in dismay.

  “Haven’t finished that kill switch yet, have you?” she asked.  Felix stopped his work and turned around to look at her with wide eyes.  “It’s him,” she said.  “I don’t know how he’s doing it, but it has to be him.  Stop it, Felix.  I don’t care what it takes or what you have to do, you stop this now.  We’ll soon be at the rift soon.  I’ve got to get back to the bridge.  We don’t know what situation we’re going to be flying into on the other side, so I’m also going to need you to get the rest of your team to get us as ready as we can be for whatever we’re going to find on the other side.”

  Looking noticeably pale, Felix answered:  “Yes Admiral, we’ll do what we can.  I’m sorry.”

  “Oh I think this would have happened either way…” she assured him as she exited the lab and ran back to the bridge.

   

  “Alright everyone,” she called out over a general broadcast to the whole ship, “action stations.  Be ready for anything.”

  They entered the rift and felt the familiar yet perpetually disorienting sensation of breaking through normal space into something utterly unknown to the human body, and then falling back as abruptly into a space-time their bodies better understood.  As soon as she was able to, she started barking out commands to get a full situational assessment.

  She was frustrated by the length of time it seemed to take for anyone to respond to her, but Jaren answered her first.

  “We are… not in the Terran system,” he said.  

  “What?” she asked, then considered: “Oh, well at least that explains why we weren’t hearing their signals.”

  “Sure, but Kathryn, we’re still not getting any signals.  Nothing we’d expect from any of our systems.”

  “Right.” she said, still not quite getting it.  “So where are we then?” she asked.

  “I think we are way, way off the grid here, Kat.”  She started to hear the rare panic sneak into his voice.  “It’s hard to say with most of our instruments blown off, but…” she heard the beeps and boops of him tapping at a control panel for a moment, “I was counting on the navigation beacons to bring us back in, but we’re not getting anything, not a damn thing!”

  She noted the growing panic in his voice and moved on, trying to not let it infect her.  “What can we get from the instruments we do have, Jaren?”

  “Not much,” he answered.  “Our primary navigation scopes are only of use at close range.  We were able to navigate in the previous system because we’d already mapped it out and we could fly by models of the system we’d already created with our mapping.  If we knew what system this was, we could do the same thing, but we don’t even know that.”

  “And there are no welcome ships nearby?  No standard portal security fleet?”

  Jaren checked his panel.  “Nothing I can see.”

  “Acknowledged.  Keep at it.  Barnes out.  Pilot, do you have control again?” she asked Byrne.

  “Negative Admiral.  Whatever was controlling us before still has the ship.”

  “Damn it.” she stated, her own frustration growing to dangerous levels.  She was really hoping that whatever had taken them over was only concerned with getting them through the rift.

  “Kat?” Felix’s voice came through the comms.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “It’s Ralph, he’s… you’re gonna want to come down here.”

  Her eyes narrowed.  ‘I fucking knew it,’ she ruefully muttered to herself as she booked it for the lab.