Quickflight: A Meeting at the Oort Cloud-Chapter Five

A Meeting At the Oort Cloud QUICKFLIGHT

The DistantStar did not respond. The NightWind sections locked back together again.

The TOC hailed the DistantStar once more. But, he still got nothing. “Sir, Comm is picking up a new transmission from Earth! It is coded from the BOARD, Sir…It’s very weak, Sir…It’s on an emergency sub-space band that shouldn’t have made it out this far. We have confirmed that it is a new message from the BOARD and it is passing authentication!” the Bridge Communication Officer stated with a little enthusiasm. “Very Good, Bridge Comm. Let me have it in my office,” The Commander said. He turned his head to the Captain, “Take Command of their Surrender!” He announced to his next in Command. Then, he walked down the hallway to his office and set down at his desk.

The BOARD emblem appeared on the screen on top of his desk. Then, came the U.S.S.E. emblem after that. “C’mon…machine, hurry up!” The Commander was impatient for the news that would follow! The message came up coded by the BOARD, “Cease all actions against the DistantStar. Stop. She is on an undisclosed urgent assignment. Stop. Meet with the PlanèteVoyageur out at Oort’s Cloud with caution. Stop. They will send you coordinates once you are there. Stop. You will assume DistantStar’s assignment with the Space Alliance and follow the Planète Voyageur’s Command Instructions to the letter. Stop. This will be your only transmission. Stop. Do not come back to Earth until Space Alliance objective has been satisfied. Stop. There will be no further transmissions until then. Stop. Do not attempt to respond to this transmission. Stop. BOARD out. Stop,” The message said. The TOC leaned back in his chair and swung around to view the stars and space. “What in the heavens is going on?” He said to himself. He had never been involved in so much secrecy and bizarre behavior before….not even since the early days of being on their own in space trying to find a supply run any way they could. “Command 2…Cease all actions against the DistantStar…Ask her if she needs aid…then meet me in my office. Keep the ship at our present position for the moment, and on full alert! Command 1, Out!” Vince Dongen ordered.

He was trying to think this new situation through. He didn’t like being at the mercy of

the SpaceAlliance. The Captain entered the office. “OK…What did they say about the DistantStar?” He wanted to know if the BOARD explained why she was acting so weird and hostile. “They didn’t. What’s the status of the DistantStar?” The Commander asked.

“They didn’t say…only that they were ordered home. Commander…we tore their underside up pretty good according to Eagle 2! That Brauhman Sr. said he would be settling up with you later…for sure!” the Captain laughed. “Yeah …I bet…that pig-headed idiot has to have the last word after his pummeling…I’m sure. Well…their on their own to get back and out of our way! I’m surprised they made it this far. We got a new assignment Hank. Our next waypoint is the Oort Clouds, best speed, under caution. We have to meet with the Space Alliance there, and then follow the French Command aboard the Planète Voyageur for our next assignment,” said the Top Ops Commander for NightWind. “Are we on their wing?” the FC asked. “Don’t know…Don’t know what’s going on. The BOARD didn’t say. They didn’t say much. They acted like someone was listening in. They only gave me minimal information…IF…they even did that. I honestly don’t know what is going on out here. (The Commander paused in thought) Guess the best thing to do is zip over to this meeting and find something out!” The Top Commander said. “Move out to the Oort Clouds, then…?” The FC asked. “I’m open to any other suggestions…If you got any!” the TOC said. “Yeah…I have one…Retirement…so we don’t have to put up with all this bull!” The FC stated. The TOC laughed at that. “Not a bad suggestion,” He thought to himself.

The Captain returned to the bridge and set their new waypoint. The Commander stayed in his office and reviewed everything the ship had learned to this point. The further they headed out into space away from their galaxy, the further in the dark they all were, both literally and figuratively.Vince worked away at his desk and studied on how his crew had performed to this point in every situation. His analysis: They had done brilliantly. That reminded the Commander of something, so he space mailed the Galley Manager to go ahead with the Hawaiian Luau as they had discussed. Then, he ordered a submarine sandwich, with chips and a soda. He had it sent up to his office from the galley mess. He planned on working for a couple of hours at his desk. The Captain would stay up, as well, and guide them into the Oort Cloud. The Communication and Radar Dept. was hard at work. They would be up all night, working with triple crew members at each post. The objective was to gather as much intel as possible on their new surroundings. It was also to be on the alert for anything unusual or any kind of threat that could come against them. The Captain and the Commander eventually retired to their individual quarters for the night, once they felt assured they had done as much as they could for the time being. The Command was left to a Command Deck officer for the night, and after many hours, the Comm Center began sending those who had worked the longest, to bed. A long day on board the NightWind had come to a close. The French starship had not appeared on any instruments, yet. The Deck Officer for the night was under orders to not wake anyone for messages from the Planète Voyageur or Space Alliance unless it was an emergency. All was quiet on the ship. Everyone had slowed down for the night shift. It was a little afterMidnight, and the Third Shift was doing what it does best: Holding down the fort!

“Command Deck Officer!” a Sonar crewman spouted out in the calm stillness of the bridge. “I have an anomaly at 4 million kilometers off our port side. It only showed -up for a second, then disappeared,” the crewman stated. “Any thought as to what it might be…Sonar?” The Night CDO asked. “Sir…it was gigantic! But then…it has no readings coming from the center of it. I only found readings around its edge, all the way around it,” the Sonar crewman explained. He was very excited. “I couldn’t tell you exactly what it is if I had to guess, but…if I had to think about what it could be…I would say it was a Black Hole!” The CDO looked around the bridge. Navigation spoke up. “There has always been rumors that a Giant Black Hole existed out way beyond the Edge, but it has never showed up on a scanner before! Never even been proven! CDO…I think you better wake the Commander on this, Sir…He’ll want to know this! It explains a lot of the crazy things that have been going on. Maybe...even everything!” The NAV officer stated. The CDO didn’t waste anytime, “Sir..?” He tried to gently wake up the Top Commander on his personal communicator. “Sir…?” was what Vince Dongen heard about one minute, after falling asleep. He had moved his bed up into his special glass dome for the night. It let him see all the way around, except for a built in privacy wall on the outside hull that covered the dome to 8 feet. “What…is it, CDO?” the Commander asked. “Sir, we may have found a very large Black Hole, way out past the Edge…and I thought you should know!” The CDO said. “Did you say Black Hole?” The Commander asked. “I’ll be right down!” He stated.

The TOC flipped the switch to lower his bed down out of the dome, and rolled out of it before it lowered all the way. He threw on his robe and slipped into his house slippers. Then, ran down his foyer and steps that led down to B3. He didn’t want to wait on the elevator to go to this level, even if it was ten times faster than he was! He hit the side door off the steps at B3, and was in the hallway in between his office and bridge station. “Show me your readings on my monitor!” the TOC yelled out loud to the whole bridge, as he sat down into his station. The Commander leaned out of his command chair and was nearly pressing the monitor screen with his nose. He studied very intently the picture on his monitor. “This was all you got, Sonar?” the TOC asked. “Yes Sir…!” the crewman responded, believing he was in trouble for getting such a slight image. “Good job!” the Commander belted out, instead of a reprimand. “Uuh! Thank you, Sir!” the Sonar operator said. “Now…we know what all the fuzz is about!” the TOC stated. “Yes Sir! We Do!” the CDO stated. “Well Crew…I believe that is what the Spanish, who’ve been mining out here in the Oort Clouds this past year, call the Boca de Muerte (Mouth of Death). Who knew that they had actually found it?” the Commander said in amazement. “Damn…I want to go get a closer look! But…I’ll probably get us all killed if I do! Something’s not kosher with that thing, or we would all be sent out there on a photo expedition!” The Commander mumbled to his Night Shift CDO.

“Look out your window, Hank…Don’t get out of bed! In the distance, lies a whole new age for man in space on the new frontier. You just became a Captain of a ship sitting along a black hole!” The TOC was as excited as a little kid. Hank mumbled something since he was still ½ asleep, then he sat up in his bed, “Did you say we’re sitting along a Black Hole!” The Captain asked, his bedroom was the most forward part of the ship. His large picture frame window in the front of the room looked out over the horizons of space. “Are we going to go see it?” he asked. “Not yet…it might be why we haven’t heard from the Estrella Nuevo de Ninos, and why we’re meeting with the Planète Voyageur,” the TOC stated. “True! In that case…wake me in the morning!” the Captain said, and fell back against his pillow. The TOC was too excited to sleep, but knew tomorrow would be a big day. So, he went back to his quarters. Before he did though, he gave orders to use caution with the Black hole, no more scans of it…because it has some nasty rumors surrounding it, and keep the Oort Cloud between them and the anomaly. “Do not make it mad…in other words…until we know what it really is!” The TOC said. He had read some earlier reports concerning the mysteries of the Black hole that the BOARD had sent to him. The BOARD can do a good job of keeping their Commanders informed of things that are developing in space, when they don’t want to hide things from them. The Commander made it back all the way to his bedroom. The Commander laid back in his bed, once more, and stared at the stars. He didn’t know if he could go back to sleep. He was busy thinking about what might lay ahead for him and his crew, with this new development.

The next morning on the Bridge, the Commander arrived very early to relieve the CDO from this shift. “Commander on Deck!” I (AUG1) call out from our bridge station, as he approached. “Very Good, AUGGY…We heard anything from the French ship, Comm?” the Commander pressed the talk button to his chair. “No Sir…!” The Comm officer replied. “That’s Great…what are we supposed to do while we’re waiting for them…have a picnic?” The TOC said to himself, with the talk button disengaged to his Comm. “Sir?” I said, not understanding that this wasn’t a question. “Nothing…AUG…could we run some diagnostics on all the Weapons while we’re waiting?” the TOC asked. “Yes Sir...what mode (means what level to test at), Sir?” I asked back. “Peak Overload!” the TOC replied, which means to test them for how well they would perform while engines and shields were maxed out. The kind of usage that happens shipwide during combat. “AUG1…Ready?” the Commander asked. I nodded my head. “Let’s pose this one…say I have maximum shields up at LS 12.25 reverse thrusters (Hardest drain on the engines) and need to charge the atomizers? What’s the output read?” the TOC asked. I study all meters in the scenario. “Sir, the engine compensators take over at 117% output…Engines are fine with excellent power stream feed. The Shield’s would hold at maximum with only one percentage point fluctuation of 109 % that I am detecting. While switching to the compensators, the atomizers would be at maximum charge in 10.03 seconds. This is up by 8.33 seconds longer than at previous LS 10 Interceptor, Sir!” I said. “Let me see that!” the Commander said, and he peered over my shoulder. “ 10.03 SECONDS!!! That could be a lifetime in a battle situation! Man, I’m glad we ran that test…AUGGY…send your results over to Engineering…Tell them I would like to see that seconds to charge cut in half or reduced down to where it was…by tomorrow!” the TOC ordered. I sent the information and request as he instructed, then continued monitoring all the Commanders Bridge Station monitors and instruments per my normal duty routine.

The Captain called up to the bridge, and stated that he wanted to go long in his meeting with all his day shift officers before they got started for the day. They were all meeting in his meeting room n B1. He asked the Commander to hold the Night Shift over, if the meeting went over. It was 50 minutes until the day shift was scheduled to take over the bridge stations, but the Captain wanted to cover a lot of things prior. Included in his agenda were all the reports and evaluations from the battle yesterday, their new mission, the sighting of a black hole, DistantStar’s new assignment, and working with the Space Alliance on assignment, and what all that could entail. He had a lot to go over with them. The Commander told him to take as long as he needed. “AUGGY!” the Commander said.

I turned to look at him. “Let’s run some more tests…we don’t know what lies ahead for us out here on the edge looking down a black hole!” He said. “Yes Sir!” I said. “Sir…I’m getting a message in from the PlanèteVoyageur complete with coordinates. It is coded on the Space Alliance band-width frequency. They want to know when we can meet them at the pre-set coordinates, Sir?” Comm said. “Have NAV calculate two hours from now to our departure at Mach 8 to the coordinates, and give them that for an answer. Give them the usual political nice greeting stuff from me, and the obligatory blah, blah, blah, happy to work with them through the Space Alliance speech, too!” The Commander stated. “Yes Sir!” Comm replied. “Oh boy…here we go…all the sudden, I would rather be on a

solar radiation disposal run, than be out here rubbing elbows with all the “wanna-be” future political galaxy leaders in the Space Alliance,” the Top Commander stated to himself. I kept quiet, as I have come to learn that he seems to make humor in the face of tasks that are unpleasant or dangerous, a lot of the time, either to himself or to the Captain, or others in Command. I would laugh, but really his humor escapes me. The MAIN is working on that for my programming, so we can have a better working relationship with Command, but she has informed me that she doesn’t get ½ of the

humor the Commander tries on her, either.

The Commander waited for the Bridge crew to get from the meeting to their posts and then, to get completely re-acquainted with the ship for the day. “NAV…Send over helm the coordinates for our meeting and Command Pilot…set a course for them at Mach 8. Safe Distancing on Approach!” The Commander stated. “Aye, AYE’” Everyone mentioned at once that was involved with that last order. Then, the Commander stated to the Captain, “I prepared a list of all Bridge and Security Personnel that I would like to accompany us on this meeting, Captain…If you would, please, make all the necessary arrangements. We will be using “Free-Bird” (Command Shuttle 1. “Fire-Bird” was Command Shuttle 2) and I want her armed to the teeth. Just in case, we encounter any opposition out here for any reason, and have to fight our way back.” The TOC said. “Yes, Sir!” The Captain stated., “I’m on it!” he replied. “Good…I leave you in command of your vessel, Sir…while I slip out to talk to the departments in the Rear about some of the calibrations we are needing to fix!” the TOC said. “Yes, Sir!” The Captain said. He was fully aware that the Commander was in a strictly business mode this morning and wasn’t in the mood to be joking around or keeping things on a lighter side. The whole ship took on the Commander’s mood, when he was on the Bridge. So, it was good for him to step away and let everyone have a breather. However, there was no reason for anyone to relax, either. This was all an uncertain journey before them, and the Captain knew that more than anyone else, who ranked below the Commander. No one else matched the Commander’s level of experience and time spent out in space, other than him. He would have been promoted to Commander several times himself, if he didn’t insist on being assigned to Vince Dongen for all the missions.

The TOC caught an even quicker SpaceTram to the Rear Section since the other two sections were gone. The Tram’s were already fast. They traveled at just under Mach 1. They could potentially go much faster than that because they are flying through vacuum tubes and driven with electromagnetic currents underneath them, but then they would echo out sonic booms throughout the tunnels and ship all the time. That was no good!

the TOC got out on the Tram Deck and stretched his legs. It was good to be off the Bridge and out of the Command Section for a little while. It helped to clear his thoughts.

He was tempted to send a flight wing group out to the Black Hole, and go with them. But, it was only a temptation. Too dangerous for a Commander, assigned to another mission at the moment. Vince could smell aromas from breakfast drifting out onto the Tram Deck, but before he went to it he had to go talk to Rear Section Command and Engineering. The rest of the crew was busy scrambling from place to place, just like usual. The Trams were being loaded and off loaded. Night Crews Personnel were coming to the Galley to eat or leaving after they were done. All Crew members were acting like nothing big was going on. Even, the ones that the Commander could see that had a high enough rank to know they were flying out near a Black Hole, headed for a special assignment with Space Alliance, and had successfully battled their sistership, the DistantStar. But, then that’s the way they are supposed to behave in all circumstances.Normal, like it was all business as usual. The Commander was just a little jealous in his thoughts, because he felt the weight of everything, and they didn’t. He remembered his younger days when he would enjoy finishing a shift with his fellow crewmembers and socializing around a meal, and then hanging out in the Rec hall, or racing work pods around the ship for fun. Those were the old days!

A row of crewmembers spotted their Commander at the end of the deck looking out into space. They approached him, and saluted him. “Commander…have we been ordered to the Black Hole? Is it really as dangerous as everyone is saying?” One Crew member asked out loud to him, knowing the Commander did not mind any question, as long as they were asked in respect to what was important to the operations of the moment.

“No, Crewman Armstrong (the TOC read his name stitched into his uniform)…we have not been ordered to the Black Hole yet…are you wanting to see it up close?” the TOC turned the question around on the young ensign. The ensign knew how the Commander liked to test his crew to see where their loyalties were. “Sir, only if we stand to gain from

going to it!” the wise ensign replied. “Good answer, Crewman!” the Commander smiled.

“But, heed some advice from your boss who has been out in space, since when your mama used to scan your belly button for radioactive dust , after you went outside…

Nothing, new in space is ever good at first, as a rule and a reality!” the Commander tried to give them some quick words of wisdom. They all looked back at him with a blank look of fear, now a little worried about what their future held. The Commander knew this look. He laughed a little bit at their innocent approach to their missions, but not enough to be cruel, “Also, don’t ever let your enthusiasm be shot down by an old fart that believes everything that comes out of his mouth is pure gold. I learned all my bull from being young like you once, and going through all the things that came my way back in those days!. After you learn what it takes to survive in space for yourself, you will be as wise as any Commander…but you still won’t out rank one yet…though!” the Commander laughed again. He enjoyed keeping the young crew members, slightly off balance, from figuring him out. Yet, somehow he tried to help educate them at the same time. In a real since, something could happen to him, and all Commanders in an instant on board a ship. And then, everything would be left up to the ones coming up the ranks to carry out, to get them home! The Commander told them all to have a great day, then he walked off the Tram Deck without looking back. He didn’t know if the crewmembers were still standing in fear or had blown it off and hopped a tram. He didn’t want to know their reaction either, because either reaction would be a normal one for those who volunteered to be on this ship. It took a balance of fear and arrogance to survive in space. And, that was the real truth for any assignment.