Spacesteader One

By Michael Trotta

Welcome aboard Spacesteader One, humankinds last refuge from extinction. Thrust from a dying Earth, this first of thirteen planned missions left our solar system carrying teams of cryogenically stored spacesteaders expecting eons of peaceful sleep.
Instead, Commander Anna Martinez awakens to a blaring alarm and a dozen brutal murders. Is this sabotage by the two cult members suspected of posing as spacesteaders, a faction hell bent on preventing humankind from polluting other worlds? Or is it a burgeoning mutiny by the powerful mobile androids, aka mandroids, a dexterous ensemble left tending the ship in solitude for nearly seventy years as the crew lay sleeping? These two devoted factions may even share a common goal.
Find out as you venture the depths of human conflict aboard Spacesteader One.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Dec 21, 2011
• ISBN: 9781465307323

Michael Trotta

Michael Trotta is the author of three groundbreaking science fiction novels and several short stories. A New York native, he was born in the Bronx, raised in Westchester County and graduated Saint John's University in Queens. He currently lives in New York's magnificent upper Hudson Valley region with his wife Joanne.

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

INTERMITTENT BUZZING IN the background signaled danger; its resonating bursts grew louder.

Where am I? she asked herself in terror, struggling hopelessly to open her eyes. I’ve had this horrible feeling before . . . I know I have . . . I’ve been sleeping . . . Deeply . . . Trying to wake up . . . But I can’t!

She found herself paralyzed, yearning to rise and yet unable to force her eyelids apart. She tried to scream, battled frantically to cry out, hoping someone was near enough to hear, someone who could shake her out of this unpleasant, eerie coma—anyone to save her.

Still, she lay helpless, trapped in a cognizant nightmare, body asleep, mind awake. And she was cold. Very cold.

Help me! she cried aloud, or so she thought. But when no one came, she wondered if she had even made a sound, feeling too numb, too powerless to move a muscle.

Will I ever come out of this? she asked herself in desperation. Maybe I’d only dreamed that shout. I couldn’t have moved my lips, could I? Or perhaps I did, she reasoned through a panic that followed, and there’s no one close enough to hear my pleas anyway.

The relentless buzzing alarm grew louder in the blackness, vibrantly surrounding her. Its throbbing was timely—a deeply annoying, brassy honk, with only seconds of silence between each resounding burst. And it was real!

She fought again to open her eyes, to yell out. There was no response. Is this my fate for eternity? she imagined once more.

Then, from nowhere, and everywhere, a gentle, motherly voice spoke tenderly, Please relax, Commander Martinez. You have been in suspended animation, and your final hibernetic stage is being terminated. You will be able to open your eyes shortly.

Who’s there? she pleaded in silence.

The softly spoken words repeated in their calm tones, several times, at regular intervals and with precise delays in between, yet each time conveyed a genuine understanding of her fear.

That’s right, she finally realized. I’m Anna Martinez, Commander of Spacesteader One. And that’s MOM’s voice, the computer consciousness of our Mult-Operational Migratory star vessel. I’m emerging from cryogenic storage. But why the alarm? What’s gone wrong?

There was no way for her to tell how long she’d been asleep. A few months? Hundreds of years? Was their stellar migration already over? A habitable planet found? Every crewmember knew it might take several cryogenically extended generations to locate such a world.

Despite this apparent emergency, Anna recalled that in order for her to be cognizant, her multistage awaking process had to have begun over a week earlier. I wonder if any other crewmembers have been reanimated yet, she thought while lapsing into deep slumber again. Or if any additional mandroids are reactivated. All this will depend, of course, on why and when I’m being revived.

Relaxing, dreams returned her to the life she’d known before her cryogenic suspension, back to a society teetering on the threshold of nuclear exchange, yet one whose mushrooming debts had inflicted the deepest depressions. To compound that global turn in fortune, fiscal precessions of climatic changes had diminished the world’s rainforests and converted its polar ice caps into high-rising seas. Mounting populations of humans soon swarmed shrinking habitable areas like locusts, festering vicious cycles of pandemic famines and plagues.

As her hibernetic phase deepened, Anna relived clutching her younger brother’s body while her colleagues pulled her to safety, and watched yet again as a clan of overpowering and unsympathetic androids tossed his sore-ridden corpse into a smoldering vat of incinerating flesh. The cries and whimpers of friends and relatives being ushered away sounded as disheartening as the day she had actually heard them.

Then, above the stench and agonizing cries, the buzzing alarm sounded again, pulsing throughout her engulfing blackness with rising intensity. She felt numb once more and grew afraid while struggling to open her eyes. I’ve had this terrible feeling before, she believed. Am I in a coma? Will anyone ever awaken me from this chilling half sleep? Someone help me! Please!

Seconds afterward, a motherly voice spoke from the darkness, tenderly into her ears, Please relax, Commander Martinez. You have been in suspended animation, and your final hibernetic stage is being terminated. You will be able to open your eyes shortly.

That’s right, Anna realized with emerging calm. I’m aboard Spacesteader One. And that’s MOM’s voice, our migratory star vessel’s central computer. One always comes out of cryogenic storage this way, through a series of hibernetic phases. But why the buzzing? What’s gone wrong?

Again drifting fast, dreams returned to her past, this time recalling her final departure from a dying Earth. Please remain seated during ion propulsion, the flight attendant’s voice had echoed as her moon shuttle lifted off. Will I miss my home? Anna wondered as the craft propelled upward. How different this view is from the pictures always shown to us, the older photos with large and verdant landmasses, so very unlike the parched monotone patches withdrawing below me now.

A platinum-haired adolescent sat to her right, also leaving Earth for the LaGrange Moon Station to begin his spacesteader training. He noticed the inclination of her gaze and tossed his cleft chin at the body-sized porthole, speaking with an easy, pleasant drawl. Hi, I’m Nikolas Ahmed. He casually stretched his slender neck toward the large window, his bright amber eyes contrasting his rich mocha skin. My grandmother once told me that that long white strip is a natural pileup of limestone skeletons of creatures that were once alive: the Great Barrier Reef. They say live sharks once swam those waters—back when they were clear and blue—if that’s really possible.

I think it was, Martinez responded through a half smile. Once upon a time when a person had an even chance of surviving an afternoon swim.

Ironic, isn’t it? Ahmed said while pointing to a section of land far to the reef’s northwest, his slender finger adorned with a crystal-studded ring that matched the silvery reflection of his hair. The only other construction recognizable from this height is one built by our human ancestors. Chances are that some were even among the millions of slaves who saw to that construction firsthand, spending their short lives stacking its stones or pounding its earthen clay to such an exclusive length.

You said it, Martinez replied, only then noticing how unusually thin her companion was. The Great Wall of China is testimony to both the genius and the cruelty of our kind. I guess it’s only befitting that it better than triples the length of that naturally compiled limestone reef.

Then as if from nowhere the buzzing began blaring again, rising in the background and jolting Martinez with alarming resonation. It was a vibrant, brassy honk, with only seconds of silence between each resounding burst. And it was real! She wondered where she was, trapped in eternity, swallowed by an infinite night, when a calm voice spoke tenderly into her ears.

That’s right, Anna recounted with emerging calm. I’m aboard Spacesteader One. And that’s the voice of this colony’s mothership, the first of the thirteen MOM vessels. I’m almost out of my hibernetic stages. Real close now. But why the buzzing? Something’s seriously wrong!

Suddenly, warm, pleasant breezes flowed around her. She soon inhaled a stimulating mist. Fresh mint leaves, she realized, and a trace of ammonia.

At last, she forced her heavy eyelids apart. Through the fog condensing inside the translucent shield of her containment vessel, she spotted a figure moving purposefully about, working an array of colorful flashing lights. Even before discerning his fuzzy brown beard, Anna recognized his movements as those of a human and not of a mandroid. He eventually brought his face within inches of hers to see if she was waking, but the pod’s misting plastic shield blocked her fluttering focus.

Again losing consciousness, Anna rationalized it could be hours until her cryogenic podule finally opened; so as conditioned, she relaxed and closed her eyes one last time.

Dreams revived her bon voyage sighting of mother planet Earth.

Please fasten your restraining straps, the green-eyed flight attendant had repeated from the center of their saucer-shaped moon shuttle, her voice reproduced meticulously through an iridescently polished, quarter-sized disk affixed to the sternum of her red-and-yellow outfit.

This is the only part I’ll never get used to, young Ahmed had said to her, his words trembling. He leaned back to recline his formfitting seat and pulled his restraining strap tighter.

Martinez obliged him. It is amazing how even with all our modern technology, the turbulence of passing through this conglomeration of space debris is going to make our departure as risky as escaping gravity used to be back in the olden days of rocket boosters.

The saucer shook violently.

Accustomed to modern devises such as the Gravitron, which rendered takeoffs and landings effortless by bending and redirecting gravitational fields and neutralizing inertial forces, both recruits instead dreaded the upcoming collections of orbital space garbage, scattered waste poised to make navigation of Earth’s outermost atmospheric layers highly treacherous. These floating junk piles—gloomily called solid clouds—were regularly spotted from the dying surface, and occasionally rained plastic and metal fire from decaying orbits. The suspended pollution carried the potential of impacting Martinez’s departing moon shuttle at speeds of over twenty thousand miles per hour, allowing matter as tiny as a fleck of paint to dent even the hardened saucer. The shuttle rocked intensely as it intrinsically avoided scattered pieces.

In an attempt to ease their tension, Ahmed had focused on the old fuel-filled canisters used to launch the first astronauts into space. You know, those early rockets were little more than giant gas-filled cans. And still, hardly anyone ever got hurt. Imagine being strapped to the tip of an old Saturn V rocket, balancing three hundred and sixty feet atop a million gallons of highly explosive propellants, and then having someone strike a match under it with hopes of blasting you high enough to reach orbit. I mean, as kids we lit farts, but that’s way outta bounds.

Both Anna’s and Nikolas’s fingertips dug into the armrests as the craft rocked sharply.

Martinez sounded just as agitated. An instructor once told me that blastoffs in those old redwood-sized canisters created eruptions recorded on seismographs over a thousand miles away.

No doubt. Five million pounds of fuel, better than 90 percent of their liftoff weight, burning away at a full ton per second. Imagine that. A ton of gas a second. Not very easy on the old fuel gauge, eh? And get this, once that liquid hydrogen was wasted, they detonated a four-hundred-ton solid explosive right below their butts—Solid Rocket Boosters—building-sized sticks of dynamite. Literally blasting them out of the atmosphere. Talk about having an explosive can.

Martinez smirked. Hard to believe that even without a Gravitron, it would’ve taken a speck of antimatter the size of an eyelash to power one of those old heaps off the surface, fuel tank and all, and to continue accelerating it for light-years into space.

Good thing they didn’t have to figure out a way of dodging all this trash, Ahmed said.

Suddenly, the shuttle’s ride smoothed, as if they were standing still.

A brief yellow twinkle garnished the flight attendant’s tiny medallion as her voice reached every seat with meticulous reproduction. Please remain seated for antimatter fusion.

Relaxing into sighs of relief, neither Anna nor Nikolas felt the slightest sensation as their saucer gained velocity at a tremendous pace. Only watching the fast-shrinking planet Earth through their oversized porthole affirmed their superspeed.

Their shuttle had reached the moon in less than five hours.

CHAPTER 2

PLEASE RELAX, COMMANDER, Dr. Jonathan Grasso’s even-toned voice announced above the alarm’s resonant bursts. His blurry image reached closer to help pull Martinez from her cryogenic podule.

Anna only now noticed that her podule’s cover had already rolled around its polished chrome casing, and that her suspended module had automatically levitated fully upright from a magnetically hinged pivot in its center. I know we’re supposed to feel drained when first revitalized, she told herself with giving knees, but I never thought I’d feel this weak. Maybe I’ve been sleeping an unprecedented length of time. Squeezing her eyelids together helped her focus on the doctor’s approaching form.

Grasso’s touch felt especially warm as he gently grabbed her forearms. The light within their cryogenic hangar was intentionally darkened, but Martinez still needed to squint. She found her doctor’s eyes absorbing the pale blue of his smock, yet remembered they were more hazel, and recalled a square jaw hidden beneath the scraggly brown beard that spread with his persistent smile. Although minimal, he did look older than when they’d entered hibernetic storage, however long ago that was. All Martinez could remember was that she had been the second-to-last spacesteader frozen, before only Grasso, just sixteen months after MOM sling-shot past Neptune’s orbital field and into the never-ending, frigid void of infinite space.

How can anyone relax with that confounded buzzing? Martinez responded with a cracking voice, wincing, then grabbing her sore throat. Another painful swallow followed. She looked for her doctor.

Grasso assisted her to a bio-chair and observed her physiological readings on a colorful three-dimensional image appearing instantaneously over her head. Forgive my saying so, Commander, he said kindly. But even with all the training and preparation we went through at the academy, warning to the contrary, I still find it amazing that every female crewmember I’ve reanimated so far has tried to speak immediately.

The doctor’s charming smile faded in response to his commander’s regimented expression, though readings of her increasing heart rate and peripheral vasodilatation validated his intended responses. He grinned again and then handed her a sweet-smelling, goopy solution.

Martinez spotted a centurion standing twenty feet behind Grasso—one of six mobile androids, better known as mandroids—left active during their initial stage of interstellar travel. Its immense silvery figure remained a blur to her.

I’m sure you recall our rejuvenation solution from your training at LaGrange, Grasso said, bringing his quirky smile into focus.

Martinez did remember that it needed to be sipped immediately, and was grateful she couldn’t yet see its murky, brackish color and slimy, wriggling, wormlike globules of synthetic nutrients. It tasted much tangier than her memory served.

Martinez squinted at the endless rows of coffin-sized chrome-backed cryogenic podules lined up behind Grasso and the dominating silver mandroid. They stood at forty-five-degree angles to the floor and emitted faint hums. She could only distinguish the first four rows, with her freshly opened unit first in line. Cryogenic Hangar 1’s remaining eight hundred podules appeared fused together as a muted reflection in the blackened background. She squinted searchingly at a nearby wall before looking back to Grasso.

The doctor touched select areas on the colorful projections positioned over Martinez’s head and aptly changed her displays. He held a penlight to her left eye and observed her bright blue iris contract its pupil to the size of a pinhead, moving in very close. Please remember, Commander, that your vocal cords have been inactive for almost eighty years now. You’ll need to engage them gently. He pulled away and examined the responses flushing his instrument.

Martinez held her throat and looked Grasso in the eye. She purposefully blinked. She then ran her right index finger over the fingers of her upturned left hand, from index to little.

Grasso’s eyes widened. He briefly shook his head, negatively, then looked down and grabbed Anna’s right hand, manipulating her palm into an impression that formed intrinsically into the solid alloy terminating her armrest. His eyes again darted to the imposing silver mandroid.

Illuminated readings over Martinez’s head jumped.

Grasso stared at Martinez. There seems to be a severe problem with a decelerator, he said. Or at least it appears that way. MOM initiated the revival of Chief Engineer Devine and the rest of us selected for Team 1 the moment the Controller’s general alarm triggered. I was first, of course, protocol to supervise the ensuing reanimations. As prescribed, Mandroid Unit 1 oversaw my resurrection, with some clutch assistance from White Centurion 6. Then I naturally took over on Devine and the others.

Martinez nodded.

Grasso pressed another projection and turned a holographic dial hovering beside Martinez’s left ear. That was almost three weeks back, he added seriously, glancing to the gleaming enormity of Silver Centurion 2. Devine had shut the buzzing off when we were first revived, but for some reason, it’s began sounding intermittently. We’ve all gotten used to it going off occasionally, but this one started over an hour ago and hasn’t let up. I sure hope it doesn’t mean another decelerator is on the fritz.

Martinez’s stricken face corroborated active readings of her racing pulse. Dry and painful swallows alerted her it was still too soon to speak. She squinted to a specific spot on a nearby wall again for uncounted seconds before focusing back on Grasso.

Yes, yes, I know, Grasso replied, his tension indicative of her measured responses, glancing keenly at the same section of wall. Even a doctor’s aware that without all three decelerators functioning, it’ll be nearly impossible for any gravitational pull to safely stop this craft, and if we’ve lost two at the speed we’re now going, the chances are almost zero. I hate to be the one to say it, but we may never be able to park this giant space ball.

Anna paused to do the calculations in her head. If almost eighty years had elapsed since they’d swung past Neptune and left Earth’s solar system, the Matter-Antimatter Colliders and Unified Field Jets would now be propelling MOM to over 60 percent the speed of light, an astounding velocity of more than four hundred million miles per hour, or 112,000 miles (twice around the Earth’s circumference) every second. Even if they were fortunate enough to reach a habitable planet, with such momentum, their triad of fully functional decelerators would require at least two years to slow their sphere down safely; otherwise, resulting inertial forces would crush its tempered platiniridium hull like a beverage can in an F5 tornado.

Anna blinked, pursed her lips as if hooting, and weakly used her right index finger to trace a small counterclockwise motion in front of her mouth.

Grasso briefly bobbed his head at the silver mandroid before winking back to her. He briskly chopped the edge of his right hand into his upturned left palm.

The commander promptly stopped her motion.

Grasso peered back to the endlessly jointed Silver Centurion 2. Alert MOM and Mandroid Unit 1 that Commander Martinez has been revived.

Instantly, several lights flashed on the towering conglomeration of striated pneumonic alloys, electro-receptive plastics and intrinsic composites, microgears, smart rods, intertwining hydraulics, and magnetically hinged segments. Communication completed, the polished mandroid resonated brazenly in a deep, mechanical intonation.

I don’t think I’ve ever heard Silver Centurion 2’s voice before, Anna thought. It doesn’t sound at all familiar. Mandroids’ heavy metallic resonations may affirm their robotic essence, but those mechanical vibrations are nonetheless unique, each with distinct tones and articulations.

You may be discharged, Grasso stated deliberately.

Yes, Doctor, the deeply reverberating tone stated as four sections on its silver head pivoted 120 degrees and it synchronously rotated a myriad of striated torso segments to direct three powerfully hinged steppers toward a black metal door.

Anna heard the familiar high-pitched whizzing and characteristic clicks of mandroid actuations as the door swooshed upward so quickly it seemed to disappear, reappearing instantly after the Silver Centurion 2 streaked through, blazingly fast.

Grasso turned to Martinez, suddenly more at ease. Devine told me he suspects the decelerators may have been intentionally damaged. Sabotaged. Says he’ll know for sure in just a couple more hours.

Martinez felt her aching throat, blinked, and again used her right index finger to trace a tight counterclockwise motion in front of her pursed and rounded lips.

There’s no way to tell at the moment, Grasso promptly responded, this time turning to check a small oval panel on a nearby wall, one that Martinez had again squinted toward. Although somehow, I get the feeling Devine suspects one of our mandroids may be involved, as impossible as that sounds. I for one doubt it, as do most of the others. But I suppose it can’t hurt to be cautious, at least for now. One thing’s certain though, it sure as hell confirms Mission Control’s suspicions that we may have a pair of purists on board. I know I wasn’t the only one who freaked the day we received that transmission informing us of Administrator Andrews’s arrest at one of their underground meetings. And after all the screenings we had to endure to eliminate persons of his conviction.

Unusual that Devine could ever suspect a mandroid of foul play, Anna thought, but like Grasso, the first thing that came to my mind was those two unconfirmed purists.

Grasso continued, You know, it’d actually be easier for those fanatics to destroy this platiniridium ball now than it was when we were back home with all those levels of security in place. Everyone knows they’d try anything to nix these migrations, including plans to stow a couple aboard every mother ship with hopes of blowing them to pieces. Devine thinks it’s possible that more than one of our decelerators has been tampered with, Tunnels I and III, their functions degrading from as far back as when we passed the Oort cloud.

About the time we began putting our crew to sleep, Anna thought. When everyone aboard still had free access to the entire vessel, including those yellow engineering decks. She readied to speak, but wisely caressed her tender throat instead.

Grasso flashed his inviting smile. I have to admit I was screened by Andrews myself. Lots of us were. So who knows who that fat slob could’ve slipped aboard this intergalactic ovum. You know it was only a year after our launching that he was convicted of plotting to stow those two unidentified purists aboard.

Martinez looked Grasso in the eye and weakly tapped her sternum, nodding positively. He screened me too, she mostly mouthed, and then rested a moment. She took another sip of her tangy, squishy, squirmy liquid, then peeked to a familiar section of wall. She braced herself and exhaled a faint breath across her larynx, blowing it into her doctor’s attentive ear. Ask MOM for a conference with Engineering Deck IV.

I’ve already tried. A bunch of times. It seems Devine had manually disengaged that chamber’s oval panel several hours ago, blacking out any view of the entire yellow-caged interior. He saw Martinez squinting inquisitively at the nearby wall again and purposely glanced to the same spot. Just like the one I’ve just disengaged behind us. I know you’re severely nearsighted right now, but your eyes are extremely sensitive to light, so you’d be able to tell if that panel’s green illuminations were on. I toggled them off just as you began coming to, knowing you’d inquire about the Controller’s alarm right away. And don’t you know it, just seconds after I flipped them off, Silver Centurion 2 showed up. Another reason why I’d best toggle them back up now. Despite MOM’s predisposition to remain neutral to our personal interactions, she certainly expects to be kept abreast of your revival.

Martinez nodded her approval.

Grasso stood and retreated toward the far wall. A small excessively bright ball of light led the way just inches ahead of his limber steps, projected from his sternum.

Wise of both Grasso and Devine to turn the oval panels nearest themselves off, Anna considered. Until we determine the reason for this failure, security must remain tight. If Devine truly suspects a mandroid of turning bad, anything’s possible.

CHAPTER 3

GRASSO RETURNED FROM the oval panel, its two indicators shining neon green.

Martinez drew him closer and whispered in an airy hush, Help me to Engineering Deck IV. I should talk to Mr. Devine before I’m taken to my cabin for my alpha sleep.

I’m afraid that as chief physician, I can’t permit that. Protocol requires you to rest first. Your initial recuperative sleep is a must. All three of ’em are.

We have a class one emergency on our hands here, Doctor. I believe that takes precedence for a minimum of one hour.

You’ve got me there. But I won’t permit you to overextend yourself. You’ll receive a status report, then I’ll escort you to your cabin myself. This problem’s going to take a while to fix, by our trained engineers, no less. And your alpha sleep mustn’t be delayed.

Martinez nodded reluctantly, not arguing as her doctor had anticipated, and stood. Her legs buckled. She felt dizzy. The room spun. I’ll need a rover platter.

Seated or standing? Grasso asked triumphantly, supporting her at the elbow.

The platter’s balancers should allow me to stand.

Grasso nodded affirmatively, then spoke with a vigor his commander wished she could muster, his winning smile evident, Standing rover platter.

A distant section of solid wall marked by two salmon-colored diagonal stripes rippled open like liquid and launched a