CHAPTER 28
April 16, 2090 (Earth timeline)
February 24, 2090 (Ship timeline)
“I would like to have sedated him, but after being in cryo with a concussion, I just didn’t think it was a good thing. So, before he got completely awake, I had him restrained to the bed,” Dr. Maksim Kopylova explained to the captain.
“You haven’t told him yet?”
“I think that’s a captain’s job, don’t you?” Maksim said rhetorically. “But if you want me to . . . ”
“Aw hell, he needs to know.” Crosby slid back the curtain.
“How you feeling, Roy?” Captain Sam Crosby asked as he stepped into the curtained-off area of sickbay housing Roy’s bed. There were a couple of wireless sensors on his forehead and one on his wrist as well as an I.V. connected to him. His arms and legs were restrained to keep him from tearing himself free and hurting himself.
“Captain Crosby.” Roy looked up at him and Sam could tell he was very confused. “I have to get to my ride.”
“Roy, stay calm. Dr. Kopylova says you need to take it easy. Looks like you had a concussion before you were put in the cryobed . . . ” Crosby was interrupted.
“The doc told me all that! I need to get off this ship!” Roy exclaimed. “Why am I restrained to this bed?!”
“You had a bad bump on the head and the cryosleep caused some aftereffects. We just didn’t want you getting up and hurting yourself worse. We can take those off if you promise to relax and stay calm. You are perfectly safe where you are,” Crosby said carefully.
“Okay, okay. Just get these things off me,” Roy begged.
“Alright.” Crosby reached down and started unfastening the restraints. “Roy, you need to listen to me carefully. You were knocked out and put in a cryobed on August twenty-fifth, ship’s timeline. Right now, today, is February twenty-fourth, ship’s timeline. It’s like April on Earth. Roy, you’ve been on the ship for six months our time and almost nine Earth-wise. We’re in deep interstellar space on the way to Proxima already and have been for some time.”
“What? That can’t be!” Roy shouted. “I’ve got to get off this ship and go home!”
“Roy, calm down.” Crosby really didn’t know what else to say. The poor man had just had his life forever changed and there was more.
“Calm down? I have to get off this bloody damned ship!”
“You can’t, Roy.” Crosby’s head sank. “The Samara Drive has been at full power for months. Even if we turned it off now it would take months for the metamaterial to return to normal without damaging it. Then we’d have to slow down for a long time just to turn around. Roy, I’m sorry, but . . . there’s no going home.”
“No! Turn the ship around and take me home! I’m not supposed to be here!” Roy shouted. Tears formed on the corners of his eyes. Roy tried to rise up but fell back into the bed almost immediately, grabbing at his head. “My wife! I have a wife at home. I have to see her!”
“Doctor!” Crosby no sooner than shouted before Maksim appeared through the curtains with a sedative gun.
“Roy, I’m going to give you a mood stabilizer to help calm you down,” Dr. Kopylova told him as he then pressed the injection gun to his neck. There was a swoosh and a click sound. Roy cringed slightly from the injection. “You need to quit moving about. Cryo slowed the healing process down and you are still recovering from a concussion.”
“Roy, you need to calm down and listen to me.” Crosby put a hand on his shoulder. “Doc?”
“Tell him, Sam. He has to know.”
“Tell me what?”
“Roy, your wife has been looking everywhere for you. You never came home. It’s been a bit more than nine months for her since she’s seen you,” Crosby explained. “She was afraid you had disappeared or even been killed. Fortunately, you are alive and will be well soon.”
“So what? If I can’t go home . . . ” Roy started calming down. Crosby assumed the drugs were kicking in.
“Roy, your wife is pregnant. She never got to tell you. She’s due, probably any day now if we’ve figured our time dilation deltas correctly, and it is a girl. She still has no idea where you are,” Crosby told him. “We immediately sent a message back toward Earth that you are here—alive and well. It will be a couple of months before they get it. But she’ll know you’re okay. As soon as you are ready, you can compile videos for her and we’ll send them with top priority.”
“Okay? I . . . I . . . will never get to see my baby girl . . . ”
“I’m sorry, Roy.”
“She’ll be, what . . . ” Crosby could tell Roy was doing math in his head. “Eighteen before we even get to Proxima. You bastards had to bring me here!”
“I know, but, Roy, you need to tell us how you got in the cryobed. What happened?”
“What does it matter? I’m stuck here. I might as well be dead.”
“Enough of that. You are still alive. We are still alive. But something happened that was nefarious and wrong and we need to know if it has put us all in danger.” Crosby spoke sternly with his voice of command, hoping it would snap Roy out of his fervor, but he wasn’t overly optimistic about the odds. Had he been on the other end of this conversation, Crosby wasn’t so certain how he’d react. “Roy, tell us what happened the night after you left my office.”
* * *
“Artur, wake up the CHENG, and all the flight crew, including the political officer. Plus, I want Vulpetti, the computer guy, um, Dr. Renaud, and that cyber-warfare Russian guy from the UN Landing Party team. Get them awake, alert, and in the galley by oh-nine-hundred,” Crosby ordered his XO.
“Aye, Captain. To what end, if you don’t mind me asking?” the XO asked cautiously.
“No, I don’t mind, Artur. We’re going to sweep this ship from bow to stern, top to bottom, and port to starboard. Every system. Whoever this Gaines or O’Hearn character was understood the ship’s design and was here for some reason.” Crosby opened a drawer in his desk and depressed a thumbprint reader mechanism. A panel opened, revealing two 9mm semiautomatic pistols and multiple magazines. He looked at them briefly and thought that it was too late for that. He reached to the side of the pistols and pulled out a bottle of bourbon that he kept hidden there. There were two small unbreakable tumblers stacked together as well. He sat them on his desk and pulled them apart. “As soon as Burbank is able, I’m ordering him to have a snort. In the meantime, fancy one?”
“Helluva mess, Cap’n.” Artur sat down and nodded in the affirmative.