The Ship of the Unforgotten - Chapter 11, Pt. 2

Cobb was a little more direct. “You could’ve rescued someone and didn’t?” He shivered visibly, eyes closing involuntarily and going a bit pale. “How could you just leave them? You know what it’s like to wake up in that place, so cold, so alone, surrounded by—”

“Sir, we’re going back for them as soon as we can. And they’re not alone. Rose is with them. She can let them know we’re out here, and summon Rose here to help if they’re having trouble disengaging from the pods. For now they’re safe where they are. Maybe safer than with us, given what we’ve seen, sir.” The formal chain of command felt a little weird under the circumstances, but Dann figured it couldn’t hurt to fall back on it now.

The lieutenant snapped his mouth shut on the rest of what he’d been about to say. He closed his eyes again, took several deep, calming breaths. “You’re right, of course, you’re right.”

Rose let them rest for several more minutes, then called them to the cliff face and the door leading in. It was much like the cryo-bay doors; heavy, with a large latch to release it, but there was no interface to provide an access code of any sort.

The interior was shockingly dark when she opened the door, and cavernous, if the echoes of the door’s screeching opening were any indication. They filed inside and clustered by the open door. “Rose? Is there any way to light this place up a bit?” Dann asked.

“Of course.” She vanished into the dark next to the door; they could hear her moving across the metal grate walkway they stood on within the space. There wasn’t much more to see. The light from the door showed the grate just inside the doorway, and a little farther in as their eyes adjusted, but they couldn’t see any of the far walls.

There was the sound of a panel opening, and switches being flipped. Immediately the air filled with the low level humming vibration that was the sound of power flooding through systems all around them. LEDs blinked on, an expanse of stars that helped them start to make shapes of the darkness around them. More footsteps on the grate led to one more set of switches, and suddenly they could see.

There wasn’t a whole lot to see, which was a bit of a letdown, Dann thought. They were in a moderately large multi-story concrete ‘room,’ up on the second floor. Signs indicated that various banks of equipment around them were standing consoles with local climate controls and readouts in the form of giant wall-screens. Conduits for power, water, air and other substances collected near the core-ward end of the room, where the lower floor featured a two-line rail track marked up with yellow and black warning stripes. It extended through the room in both directions, towards and away from the ship’s core.

Handrails lined the grated walkway, with mesh steps leading down to the area below. They stepped gingerly inside, taking the place in, hesitant as every sound they made echoed weirdly in the space. Cobwebs hung from the various pipes and fixtures that lined the ceiling. Rose made a sound that Dann could’ve sworn was a harumph of disapproval.

“Please forgive the mess. We managed to keep spiders and insects out of the ship proper for nearly two years, but it was inevitable that some would get in eventually. We’ve never been able to fully clear them out.” She led them down the steps to the first floor.

The air was musty, but Dann was relieved to note that it was all dry must. Even in the temperate woodlands, his team had been under tremendous pressure not to allow water leakage, and the woodlands biome held barely any water compared to the rain forest, or especially the islands. The dryness left a chalky, unpleasant sensation in the mouth and throat after a few minutes, and he quickly found himself sipping at the water he carried. He wasn’t alone; all three of them were.

“The air should improve quickly once we restore the environmental systems to this section. I’ll work on that. Lt. Cobb, would you lead the others down the tunnel toward the core? There should be a storage room not five meters in. You’ll find several of the cars we’re looking for there.” Rose made her way to the back of the room and brought one of the consoles to life. She plugged herself in and stood still.

They watched her for a few moments, and then the lieutenant started in the direction she’d indicated. Rose had no formal rank, but crew of all ranks, from private all the way up to the captain himself, listened when she advised them about shipboard functions.

The tunnel was dark, with only burnt-amber running lights lining the tracks providing any light. They were spaced about two meters apart, and were barely enough to enable them to throw shadows on the walls, let alone see anything clearly, but Rose had been right about the location of the storage room. Of course she had, Dann thought; in a very real sense Rose was the ship.

The storeroom was large, a good ten by ten meters square. Tool and parts bins lined most of the walls, with several doors labeled as closets promising more beyond. The center of the room was dominated by four secured trams. They were individually small, the idea being that they could link up to form a longer train as necessary. Each tram would hold two people.

When not in use, they could fold up and in at the back, providing space for another tram to dock from behind, saving space. It looked much like stackable chairs that had fallen horizontally to the ground, Dann mused.

These trams were painted red with white highlights, though it was difficult to tell through the light coating of dust that had settled on them. They were affixed to the floor of the room with wheel clamps that they would have to remove before the cars would move again.

Dann’s eyes swept over the tools and parts within view and stopped at a set of familiar and welcome ones. “Flashlights. We should take a few of these,” he commented.

Cobb looked back at him; he’d moved on to inspect the wheel clamps. He followed Dann’s gaze and nodded. “Good. Grab enough for all of us, plus an extra for Pixton.”

“Everything look okay?” Jackson said from the door. She’d taken up her habitual guard post.

Cobb was silent a moment. “Hard to say. Pass me a flashlight, Chambers. There could be some …” Dann handed him the flashlight and stepped back out his way. The lieutenant leaned in close, lighting the clamps carefully. “Ahh, crap.” He rocked back on his heels and cursed under his breath.

“Problem, sir?” Dann asked.

“Some light rust. Probably won’t affect the function of the clamp at all, as long as it’s not worse but it’s sloppy. Means there is some leakage somewhere after all.” The muscles of his jaw bunched as he ground his teeth, then sucked in a breath. “Well, let’s give it a shot. Rose? Release clamp … A1,” he said, checking the painted label.

An alarming squeal of stressed metal shrieked from somewhere close below them; they slapped their hands to their ears. Dann almost knocked himself out with his flashlight in his haste. After several seconds of the terrible noise, the clamp released and the sound stopped. They breathed a collective sigh of relief.

“That’s what I was afraid of,” Dann grumped. “Rose, shouldn’t routine maintenance have taken care of that rust problem?”

“Routine maintenance has not been performed on equipment in this section for approximately 20 years, Lt. Cobb.”

“What? Why not? It was scheduled, wasn’t it?”

“I believe it was originally scheduled, yes. However, the current operating schedule does not include maintenance for this section.”

“Who altered the schedule?” Cobb’s voice contained a hint of frustration that Dann hadn’t heard before.

“Unknown.”

“How can it be unknown! You are the computer! You must know who did it! Who was awake 20 years ago?”

Rose was silent for several seconds. Dann mentally dubbed her, the ship-bound Rose as Rose Alpha.

“Access to that datum is denied. You do not possess sufficient clearance.”

“Rose, are there any higher ranking officers revived from cryo-sleep?” He said slowly.

“No, Lt. Cobb.”

“Then I’m the ranking officer about this ship. Grant me access.”

“I’m afraid I can’t, Lt. Cobb. Access to that datum is denied.”

Cobb argued with the computer; Dann left the room and looked back the way they’d come. Rose—Rose Dawn, he thought, mentally renaming her too—still stood still as a statue, interfacing with the environmental systems. “Rose!” he called to her.

“Yes, Dann?” It was Rose Alpha.

“I was trying to get the autonomous Rose’s attention. Can you send her here?”

“She is otherwise engaged, Dann. She has encountered unexpected difficulty with the environmental systems and is working to resolve them.”

He frowned. “Are they rust-related?”

“I’m afraid I don’t know, Dann. Maintenance has not been performed on the environmental systems in—”

“Let me guess, 20 years?” he sighed.

“That is correct, Dann.”

So many vital systems, all failing around the same time almost two decades before. Cryo-pods for most of the crew, with a few exceptions. Life support. Transportation. Maybe even corruption within Rose Alpha’s data caches. Who knew what else? They needed Pixton, and soon. “Thanks, Rose. Do you mind if I call you Rose Alpha from now on, to distinguish you from the android version?”

“You’re welcome, Dann. And the Rose Alpha designation will be fine.”

He was wandering slowly toward Rose Dawn’s position, lost in his thoughts, when she turned to face him abruptly, finished with her attempt at getting the environmental systems online. “Dann, my ability to bring life support up is compromised. A number of areas aren’t responding to control properly. I was able to get life support for the core of the ship going, but this area needs serious maintenance before we’ll be able to regain automatic control.”

“Thanks, Rose Dawn.” She looked at him askance at that. “Is it okay if I call you that?”

“Sure, Dann. That designation’s fine.”

He smiled. Her linguistic flexibility seemed to be improving. She was sounding more like a member of the crew all the time.

The Ship of the Unforgotten - Chapter 11

Biome Bay 6 - Rain Forest

UTS Rose Dawn

Jun. 5, 2565 A.C.E.

The water was a beautiful turquoise surrounded by white sand beach that crept up to the jungle’s tree line. Out beyond the entrance to the next biome, blue ocean spread from wall to wall, with the walls colored a matching blue. It was a breath-taking sight, spoiled only by the persistently artificial sky, and the other biome sections curving away “above.”

Dan felt much of the tension leave his body just seeing it. He slumped against the rocks and just stared. After a few moments he noticed it even sounded good; the artificial currents in the sea next door caused small, shallow waves to crest into the bay. It wasn’t 100% like the oceans back home, but it was close enough, and they basked in it.

Rose looked around at them and gave another rare smile. “This is as good a time and place for lunch I guess. Sorry, sometimes I forget.” She passed around water and some of the varied fruits and vegetables they’d harvested during their trek across the jungle.

They sat and ate, Jackson and Rose both keeping an eye on the jungle around them just in case something should appear. Dann found his eye wandering around the bay, following the great semi-circle of sand surrounding the waters right up to where they’d settled themselves. There was a doorway set into the rock cliff next to the main entrance to the sea biome. It wasn’t disguised, but the dark metal was similar enough to the dark rock around it that it didn’t particularly stand out.

“Is that where we’re headed?” he asked, nodding toward the door.

“Yes, that’s the service entrance. From here we can gain access to the maintenance tunnels, and from their to the ventilation shaft and the cryo-bay. There is a storage room where several tram cars were stored for travel near by. Once we’ve revived pvt. Pixton, we should check on the tram and make sure we can use it to travel to the ship’s central core sections. From there it will be a lot faster and easier to revive any more crew we need to complete our diagnostics and investigation.”

“Rose, speaking of additional crew, there was another survivor in the cryo-bay that Jackson and I stayed in while you were assisting the lieutenant …” He shifted uncomfortably.

“It’s just as well you didn’t start the revival process. We will go back for everyone who’s left once we know more about what’s happened.” Rose’s voice was firm, maybe even a little sympathetic.

“You bet we will,” Dann said, feeling better at the words. Jackson gave him a look that was hard to read.

The Ship of the Unforgotten - Chapter 10, Pt. 2

She gripped the lever firmly and pulled, but nothing moved. “Strange,” she said. She tried again, artificial body visibly straining against the metal of the handle until with a creak, the handle actually started to bend. She let go short of allowing it to break, frowning.

“All that time unattended didn’t do it any favors,” Cobb commented.

“Is there any other way in?” Dann asked.

“The cryo-bays are completely sealed off, at least from the biome environments. They are ventilated, but we can’t access the ventilation shafts from here. We would have to go to the maintenance access in the ship’s superstructure outside of biome containment.”

“Why didn’t we just do that to begin with?” Jackson said sourly, slapping at another of the incessant insects.

“The maintenance shafts weren’t designed as an alternative transit route. Cryo-bays are located within a kilometer of the edge of the biomes. Colonists and crew are expected to make their way to the nearest armories from the bays, under armed escort, and from the armories to intra-sectional trams to move about the ship proper.”

“You mean we could have avoided tramping around this jungle if we’d just taken the damned trams!?” Jackson glowered at Rose, shaking and scratching at the bites covering her exposed arms.

“We should get moving and I’ll explain on the way, but the short answer is no.”

“You heard her, let’s get moving, people.” Lt. Cobb started out, Rose easily keeping pace with him. The lieutenant looked a lot better physically, as though he thrived on the stress and exertion of their jungle crossing. Dann felt a little jealous; he mostly felt weak and exhausted, though looking at himself, he had regained a bit of his lost weight in water and muscle, he supposed. They all had, though they also all had a ways to go.

Rose picked up where she’d left off. “The long answer is, the trams would have been operational, had events gone as planned. As you’re aware, things didn’t go as planned.”

“That’s putting it mildly,” Jackson grunted, hauling herself over a slick cluster of tree roots.

“Pvt. Chambers was the first person aboard the ship to awaken from hibernation. His awakening was a preprogrammed schedule that was intended to awaken his entire maintenance team. Dann, you were to function as part of that team and begin checking and preparing ship systems for later activation. Other teams were to awaken about this time as well, including several security teams for escort and protection, but none of them survived.”

Dann had wondered at that, at why he alone of the group had awakened without any intervention from someone else. He couldn’t say it set his mind at ease any, but it was still good to know, at least.

“These early awakening teams would have inspected the ship’s systems, performed any maintenance necessary to ensure everything was in working order, and then returned to hibernation for the remainder of the journey. Since things have gone … awry, none of that initial preparation has been done. The tram systems are likely in good operating order, but the tram cars themselves are in storage for transit.”

“And I take it that it’d be too much for a small group like us to manage?” Cobb asked.

“Assuming the ship systems haven’t failed, it would be easy enough to bring out a few tram cars for our own use. I would recommend doing a proper diagnostic though, in light of the problem in this biome. We don’t know what other schedules or systems might have been compromised.”

The group fell silent. A few minutes later Rose stopped them in front of another wall of roots and vines, this one apparently an overgrown supply shed. As they moved on, some hooting and calling from the tall overhead branches chased after them; it sounded like some sort of primate species. Monkeys, most likely, Dann thought. With the luck they’d had with larger animals, he hoped it was monkeys rather than any of the great ape species.

The calls faded out with distance; whatever it was wasn’t interested in following them, at least. They followed the edge of the biome, and Dann quickly realized why they’d cut through the center. Not only had doing so cut the raw distance they had to travel down, the edges were very rough terrain in this particular section of the ship. The walls had been molded into surfaces very much like rough rocky cliffs, providing yet more habitat for plants and certain wildlife as well. The ‘rocky’ terrain at the base of these enormous false cliffs was challenging, but they had a far shorter way to go this time.

One way in which it made things slightly easier, he thought, was that the insects were thicker in the air toward the center of the biome, that being where most of the water was, except for the occasional artificial waterfall. They wouldn’t be passing any of those, but Cobb had told them about his team having installed a number of them around the cliffs.

Before too long, a change in the quality of the air became clear to the tired crew. The thick, earthy plant-scent of the jungle started to thin, mingling with just a hint of freshness with a salty tang. They clambered over a small mossy rock ridge jutting out from the base of the cliff only to see a broad, shallow bay cutting into the jungle biome from the entrance to the next, which, Dann thought, must have been the sea biome with the islands. He’d glimpsed it days before, from the temperate woodlands.

“Now this,” Lt. Cobb said with relief in his voice, “is more like it!” Even Jackson looked around with the hint of a smile on her face and a set to her shoulders that looked just a touch lighter.

The Ship of the Unforgotten - Chapter 10

Biome Bay 6 - Rain Forest

UTS Rose Dawn

Jun. 6, 2565 A.C.E.

The remainder of the journey took them several days, thanks to uncooperative river paths and greater than expected numbers of piranha, other potentially dangerous fish, shockingly large snakes, and an aggressive hunting cat that Dann didn’t recognize on sight. Thankfully the trip did have benefits, as well. The rain forest biome contained a lot of vegetation chosen for edibility, and water was, of course, no problem to acquire.

When at last they did reach the cryo-bay, they had to take Rose’s word for it. The entrance was completely overgrown, layered so thick with roots and vines that only Rose’s internal coordinate mapping of the bay locations confirmed the location.

She stared at the place where the entrance was supposed to be in apparent confusion. “It looks like I haven’t been here in a while.”

“Y’think?” Jackson grunted, looking for any sign of a door.

“Nothing’s been here in a while,” Dann said. “Not just you.”

“True. There are other maintenance bots that should have been around.” Rose studied the overgrown vegetation. “The vines are thick and firmly attached. That isn’t a surprise, I’ve been around to the pods in this biome many times to clear them away. They grow fast and are very strong.”

She knelt down and ripped several away, getting a better look at some of the roots intermingled in the mass. “These though, they’re relatively new. And more importantly, there aren’t any old roots among them.” She stood back up and surveyed the area of the entrance. It was just possible to see the painted metal of the bay entrance in the shadows beyond the vines she’d torn free. “Based purely on the growth of these vines and roots, I’d say it’s been roughly 18 to 20 years since I or any other maintenance bot cleared this.”

The four of them exchanged looks among themselves. “20 years?” Dann said, voicing what they were all thinking. “About the same time the pods malfunctioned and the crew died.”

“Exactly,” Rose agreed. “I am tempted to check other bays within this biome, but it’s too dangerous to leave you alone and it would take too long. There is an armory near here I should be able to check. We should go there after we’re done here.” With that she set to clearing the entrance, cutting and ripping out roots and vines alike with little difficulty.

“You weren’t scheduled to check on this place?” Cobb looked like he wanted nothing so much as to help with the clearing, but Rose had the whole thing covered and didn’t need the help.

“No. Maintenance for this and several other biomes looks to have been removed from my internal calendar.” She stripped out the last of the vines, leaving a scored and dirty but functional-looking hatch exposed for the first time in decades. “Something more for Pvt. Pixton to check into when you revive her, assuming she can be revived.”

Lt. Cobb nodded. “Right. Let’s move in then and see what’s what.”

They gathered around the door as Rose set herself to open it. Jackson stood watch behind them, their many encounters with the wildlife fresh in mind.

The Ship of the Unforgotten - Chapter 9, Pt. 2

They wrapped up within a few minutes, nobody being eager to prolong their stay in the jungle any longer. They’d been on the move another 10 minutes or so when the rain finally stopped, though with the dripping from the treetops above, even that offered only a partial reprieve. Water dripped from above, the jungle’s own unique internal rain. For half an hour they pushed through the darkness and growing heat with the sound of water droplets striking the undergrowth drowning out most other sounds they might have heard.

Except for the insects. As soon as the rain stopped, they seemed to magically appear; Dann suspected that most of them had been there all along though, unnoticed, if the increasing number of tiny bites he was covered in was any indication.

The buzzing of the bugs increased in proportion to the silencing of the falling water; by the time the showers were done, the air was a thick, hot blanket of buzzing bugs. Even Rose wasn’t immune, her grey artificial skin as covered with bugs as any of the others, though she was bothered by it far less.

The constant itching and buzzing quickly became intolerable. “Into the water!” Dann half-shouted, half-spit to avoid getting any of them in his mouth.

“Good … idea,” Cobb added around a mouthful that made him cough and spit vigorously. The three dove head-first into a broad stream rushing past with the extra water the rains brought. It was shallow; they were near the level of the deck beneath the earth. The rivers flowed through channels constructed for them, false bottoms in place to mimic the bottom of a natural river. They were designed to provide habitats for a wide variety of aquatic inhabitants, and the false bottom had layers of real dirt, sand and detritus commonly found in river environments. Most of that was legitimately natural, the result of the simulated weather acting on the real jungle around the banks.

After a few seconds of blessed relief from the insect attack, Rose’s voice rang out over the rush of the water. “Out! Out right now!”

Not seeing any immediate threat, the three nonetheless splashed as quickly as they could to the bank and climbed out, then stared quizzically at Rose, who’d beat them to the opposite shore. Movement caught Dann’s eye; he turned in time to see a long branch floating … no, he thought, undulating through the water. It was dark brown and looked for all the world like a flexible tree branch, until it slithered up and onto the bank they’d just vacated. Swatting at the bugs that were already making their return known, he breathed a sigh of relief. “Thanks Rose. Guess we wouldn’t want to run into that thing.”

Rose shook her head. “The snake? That was harmless to you. It feeds on much smaller prey. The danger was from the school of carnivorous fish approaching this location.”

All three of them visibly blanched, scanning the water. Cobb spotted them first, a silvery school drifting downstream from the east. They were hard to spot until one would suddenly dart off in another direction before drifting and rejoining the school. He shivered and pointed them out.

“Piranha?” Jackson asked a touch of strain in her voice.

“Yes,” Rose confirmed. “There are a number of them in the rivers, of various species. Contrary to what you may have heard, they won’t eat you and strip your bones, but if you startle them, they could injure you badly enough that the wounds would attract other predators.”

“Yeah … I’ll take your word for it, I think,” Dann said, shivering again and slapping at the bugs. “I’ve seen the movies. Those things freak me out.”

“How’d you know they were there, Rose?” Cobb looked a bit pale too.

“I can see wavelengths of light you can’t, and my visual range and acuity is better. I could see them in the water despite their size and the distance.”

“The bear, too?” Jackson asked. “Even through the trees?”

“Well, I can’t see through the trees,” the android replied with the first smile Dann could remember seeing on her face, “but I could see well enough through even small gaps between them to see what you were walking into.” The smile vanished as quickly as it’d appeared. “We should get moving. The bugs are drawing blood from you.”

“Oh c’mon, they’re just bugs,” Jackson scoffed. “You don’t think they’re going to suck us dry do you?”

“Given enough time, they could. But the danger here is your scent. Piranha aren’t the only things that can damage you enough to draw predators. You’ll want to return to the water shortly.”

Dann caught his breath to avoid cursing. “With those things in it?” Returning to the water appealed almost as much as the burning itching that was rising over his exposed skin where the bugs were feasting. “Who decided this was a good thing to put on a space ship, anyway?”

It was Cobb that answered this time. “My team was also responsible for installing a lot of these riverbeds. I don’t—ow!—” he slapped at a large mosquito on his cheek—”I don’t know all the details, but I don’t think anyone expected the jungle to get quite so … wild. They were more worried about it surviving at all than that it might survive too well.” He cleared his arms with a growl. “Almost wish Burstein could see this! He was so worried this whole biome would fail …”

They moved on again, as quick as they could, but sticking to the water when possible. Rose would warn them whenever they got too close to anything too dangerous, and with the assistance of several stretches of quick-moving river, they doubled the pace they’d managed the first day. By sundown, they were halfway to the cryo-bay.