The Lost Ark by Zachary A. Pieper

Event Log: 1

Nobody can hear a scream in the vacuum of space, or so they say. Raphael knew he didn’t want to find out. Yet, he always felt this compulsion when he looked out the viewing window on the observation deck. The compulsion to go find out exactly that. Even though it would basically require someone’s death, and he tried to rationalize it away, tried to smother the morbid little curiosity inside him. He never could. He lifted his cocktail to his lips as he contemplated whether or not the mania was getting to him. He thought maybe a trip to the Doc might be wise. But he didn’t want to be put on meds. Or worse, on ice.

“Command to senior engineer,” his auditory implant sounded into his ear canal.

“Yes command?” Raphael asked.

“We need you in central, we have a development that’s… It’s all hands Raph.”

Raph’s brow furrowed, it was unlike Emelia to be vague. This was most likely very serious.

“On my way,” Raph said. Lifting his cocktail to his mouth, he turned to go. His implant buzzed back on, his drink froze halfway to his mouth. He waited, but only uneven static came over the line. “Command?…” Raph said aloud.

The static broke, and this came through: “Re…To…Earrr…cost…”

“Command? Is that you?” Raph said, his voice raised slightly.

The line went silent. Leaving Raph standing there confused. He took another drink while he waited. After almost half a minute, he addressed command again.

“What is it Raphael?” Emelia asked.

“Was that you just now? You weren’t coming in, there was some interference.”

“Just now? No Raph, I have been paging the rest of the crew.”

Raph’s brow furrowed again, “Someone hit my line, can you see who it was?”

“Hold,” Emelia said. Raph began walking to the elevator while he waited. “The logs show no activity on your implant since I hit your line.” Emelia said as the door closed on the elevator.

“Are you sure?” Raph said in surprise, “I know I heard something, but it was full of static. I couldn’t make anything out.”

“Strange… I’ll run a system diagnostic.”

“Alright, good enough I guess. Thanks anyways.”

“See you in command.” She said, and the line went dead once more.

Raphael couldn’t be sure why, but the static filled call put him on edge. Something about it felt off. After all, while technically possible, there hadn’t been a reported comms issue in over fifty years, not since his father was senior engineer. He activated his neural link virtual assistant with a thought, and made a note to follow up on this event.

In central command, over one hundred men and women stood, waiting for the last few crew members to arrive. No one was sure why they been gathered. This was highly unusual. In the last hundred years this had only happened once, and the reason for that all hands meeting, could not be the reason for this one. That knowledge alone was enough to put the crew on edge. Daniel, however, prone to paranoia and other maladies of the mind, was letting the uncertainty of the situation agitate him well beyond a reasonable point. He stood near a wall, hands in his pockets, trying to appear small. He’d never liked being around people, this gathering of the crew unsettled him for multiple reasons. He could not have been more dissimilar to his older brother Raphael.

When Raphael walked in the door, with two other crew members he’d fallen in with on the way here. Many of the crew stopped and observed him for a microsecond. Raphael commanded attention, his light brown skin with light freckles along his cheekbones, amber eyes, and stylish haircut made him fairly attractive. His tall broad shoulders and good muscle tone made him appear manly and reliable. Finally, he was well liked by most everyone. Seeing him arrive gave many in the crew, a small measure of comfort.

Raphael fell in with his good friend Jhorn, a pale man of Scandinavian descent. “What’s this about?” the chemical plant operator asked Raph. “I know as much as you Brass,” Raph called his friend by the nickname that only he used.

“Figured they’d at least tell the senior engineer something,” Jhorn said with a surprised and concerned expression.

“Nah, if you ain’t command, you’re a mushroom.”

“But you and Emelia…” Jhorn began.

“That’s been over for a long time, you know that.” Raph reminded his friend.

“Well yeah but I figured she still might talk to you,” Jhorn said.

“Not so much.”

“Damn… That’s rough buddy.”

“Yup,” Raph responded as he glanced toward Emelia’s work station. She sat there in her blue command uniform, the optional women’s variant. She was focused on her job, speaking softly into her control panels mic. But from where Raph stood on the lower level of the deck, he could still see her well enough. Her natural purple eyes scanned holo-displays rapidly. Her Chestnut hair was born in a tight braid. And her athletic figure wore her petticoat and skirt like it was tailored for her.

“Your staring, friend,” Jhorn reminded Raph.

“Oh? Yeah… Yeah I guess I was, thanks.” Raph nodded to his friend before looking around.

Central command was located at the structural center of the ship. The large room was absolutely filled with control consoles. Instrument blocks filled the walls. At the head of the room, the far wall was a giant holo-display. One section near the top right corner, was dedicated to a rotating feed of the ships security cameras. Which were everywhere except crew members quarters, and the communal waste facilities. Another section of the display was the ships data stream. A constant updating log of the ships processes. If a computer on the ship logged it, calculated it, or executed it. It would eventually appear in that stream in a summarized format. Another section was dedicated to the ships external cameras. With the largest single window being the front facing feeds. And the command crew routinely changed what filled the rest of the space on the display. Today, it was a game of chess.

But the data stream was what was highlighted right now. With one line extracted and set outside the stream in the analysis window, flashing red with the ‘executing’ command underneath it. But the process title made no sense to anyone there. It was titled ‘Rendezvous Protocol’ and to the best of everyone’s knowledge, no such protocol existed anywhere in the system. Stood to reason then, that was the reason for this meeting. Still, not everyone had reached that conclusion before the captain came to the rail for the upper deck to speak.

Captain Lux Ventis was an elegant but firm woman. Dark hair and sharp features, she was known for her empathetic left hand, and her iron right. No one hesitated to go to her with a problem, but no one screwed around with her either.

“Thank you all for interrupting your personal time and duties to meet me here. I apologize for the abrupt nature of this meeting. But I am afraid, the situation demands it. There is no point in dancing around the issue, so here it is: The ship is slowing down, the navigation systems are plotting a course back to earth, and we cant stop it. Whatever the rendezvous protocol is, its hard coded into the system, at this time, we don’t think we can stop it.” Captain Ventis stopped to let the crew absorb that.

For several moments, it was pure silence. Almost never do you find such quite in a room with over a hundred people. It was as if they were all dead. Shocked into utter confusion by the news.

It was Raphael who spoke first. “How could something like that go unnoticed? And who put it there?”

The gathered crew murmured agreement that these were pertinent questions.

“We traced the protocol to a small data drive in one of the second auxiliary systems. For those of you who do not understand the systems design. That means this protocol was being stored in the hard storage of a backup for the backup. The drive only had power one day each month for routine system checks. All of which are handled automatically by the systems maintenance A.I., so the likelihood that we ever found it was nearly zero. Furthermore, it was protected by encryption and defensive A.I. so advanced, we’re confident it would have taken at least two generations of crew to access it. Its so far beyond the rest of the ships software it defies logical explanation.

As for who put it there, we haven’t a clue, now that the protocol is running, we can access its files, but it wont let us change anything. And there’s no fingerprints of where it came from.”

There was silence for a few more moments, then another crew member, a man named John who worked in the medical bay, spoke up. “So, what now? It sounds like our search for a new home is over, whatever condition earth is in when we get back, that’s what we’re gonna have to work with. So, are we all going on ice?”

More murmurs of agreement, and concern. Some absolutely did not ever want to be put on ice. Raphael among them.

“Not all of us,” the Captain shouted over the growing noise, the crew became silent, “no one who wishes to remain awake will be forced to go on ice.”

Several sighs of relief could be heard.

“However, if not enough people wish to remain awake, we will have to hold a raffle to keep some of you awake, at least until you produce children and raise them to replace you as crew. We will need a minimum of twenty crew to continue running the ship, and to have a safe breeding population. We will not reach earth for almost five hundred years. And we have no idea what kind of state it will be in. Hopefully the ash has settled and the ice age has begun to thaw, but if it hasn’t, we may need to orbit until it does. What I am saying is, if you go on ice, we have no idea when you will be thawed out.

A detailed briefing on all the facts and particulars has now been sent to your virtual assistants. You all have seventy two hours to make a decision. We will then proceed with cryotizing those who wish it, and performing a duty raffle if necessary. If there are no more questions, you are all dismissed.”

For a moment, there was silence.

Raphael then spoke up, “Can I have a word in private, Captain?”