Sisters in Space: The Complete Series Read online

  Sisters in Space

  David R. Beshears

  The Complete Series

  Episodes One through Seven

  Adapted from the screenplays of the seven episode webseries

  Greybeard Publishing

  www.greybeardpublishing.com

  Copyright 2016 by David R. Beshears

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  Greybeard Publishing

  P.O. Box 480

  McCleary, WA 98557-0480

  ISBN 978-0-9969077-5-0 (ebook edition)

  The individual episodes of Sisters in Space appeared previously in The Greybeard Gazette.

  ebook edition

  Copyright 2016 David R. Beshears

  Episode One

  “Awakening”

  The universe beyond the forward viewport was jet black and all but featureless. There were only a few very faint stars to indicate the cosmos wasn’t totally empty.

  Within the shuttle’s cockpit, occasional faint beeps and tweets were the only sounds that broke the blanket silence. There was no sound of human activity, no muffled rumble of engines; nothing but the quiet existence of the shuttle’s computer system going about its solitary business.

  The only illumination came from tiny indicator lights on the front panel set before the view window and those in the console between the two empty seats; that and what little light managed to reach in through the narrow opening leading to the main compartment.

  The main compartment was sixteen feet long, lit only by the soft glow of panels set beneath a pair of sleeper canisters that were recessed into the port wall, set behind clear plastic panels. Claire lay in the upper canister, her sister Amelia in the lower. They were dressed in beige cryo-support coveralls, monitoring and bio tubes attached to the synthetic sleeves and at the waist. They lay comfortably asleep on thick cryo-support sleeper pads.

  Claire was twenty two years old. She was tall and thin, with a thin face and long, straight brown hair. Amelia was twenty years old, a few inches shorter than her sister. Her hair was wavy and several shades lighter.

  Storage compartments were set into the bulkheads to either side of the sleeper canisters. Set into the opposite wall was a computer station, a small kitchen station, food storage and the shuttle’s water recycler.

  A narrow table was fixed to the floor in the center of the compartment, with small benches attached on either side. A door to the rear of the cabin led to a smaller compartment that held main storage and the sani-closet. Beyond this was the EVA gear room and airlock.

  At the rear of the shuttle was the power room. But for the rare course adjustment to avoid one danger or another, the power room had been quiet for a very long time. Once the desired direction and velocity had been attained, there had been no need.

  The shuttle traveled silently in the empty black of space, its two occupants unaware of the passage of time, deep in cryo-sleep, fed and cared for by the shuttle’s bio-system, their bodies aging at the rate of three minutes with each passing month...

  §

  Several alert lights flashed in the cockpit. A series of soft beeping sounds broke the silence and a small, square panel that had lain dormant for years began to glow. Back in the main compartment, the overhead lighting turned on, set to low and providing minimal illumination. The panel below the sleeper canisters came to life and changes were made to the fluids that fed the occupants through the bio tubes.

  Adjustments to cabin life support were made in preparation of the awakening passengers.

  Once all was ready, each canister’s clear wall panel slid aside. A few moments later, Claire opened her eyes, and then Amelia opened hers. They lay unmoving, blinking, staring uncertainly above them.

  Amelia, in the lower canister, finally rolled onto her side and sat up, placing her bare feet onto the floor. She took in several long breaths, only then looked about the main compartment. She looked side-glance at a pair of feet that appeared suddenly beside her, attached to legs dangling from the upper canister.

  “Is that you, Claire?” she asked dully. Her voice was raspy. She hadn’t spoken in she didn’t know how long.

  “Yeah... me,” Claire said casually, her voice just as rough. “Uh… where are we?”

  “Looks like a shuttle.”

  “I see that. I don’t remember a shuttle.”

  Amelia looked back behind her, into the canister. “It’s the tube I went to sleep in.” She looked again into the shuttle’s main compartment. “This is definitely not the transport ship.”

  Claire slid delicately down from the upper canister, looked about the compartment as she sat beside her sister.

  “This looks like a long recon shuttle,” she said. She looked again side to side. “Small. Two person team.”

  “Claire? Um… how did we end up in a recon shuttle?” asked Amelia. Not that she expected an answer.

  “Something must have happened to the transport. We got moved.” Claire continued to study their surroundings. “The others must be in another shuttle.”

  “I hope so. If something did happen—”

  “I’m sure they’re fine, Amelia.”

  “There were over three hundred people on that ship.”

  “I’m sure they’re fine,” Claire repeated, this time with a bit less conviction.

  They were both quiet then for a long moment, each with their own thoughts.

  Uncle Marcus? Danny?

  Amelia finally looked forward, in the direction of the cockpit.

  “I wonder where we are,” she thought aloud.

  “Near Trinahr, I imagine,” said Claire. “The system woke us up for a reason.”

  Amelia continued looking in the direction of the cockpit, but made no effort to stand up. “I expect we should find out.”

  “I expect so,” agreed Claire. She also showed no signs of standing.

  Amelia looked in the other direction then, gave a half nod and managed to get to her feet.

  “Sani-closet first,” she said. “I need to get cleaned up.”

  “Right behind you,” said Claire. She watched Amelia stagger awkwardly to the rear of the compartment, and again looked forward. She stood and started toward the cockpit.

  §

  Claire slid into the pilot’s chair. She took only a moment to look out the forward view window and then tried to ignore the emptiness out there.

  It didn’t look much like the Trinahri system they had been destined for.

  She quickly scanned the various boards on the forward panel and the central console, familiarizing herself with the configuration. She reached out then and confidently touched several pads, flipped a couple of switches. Panels illuminated as the nav system came on line. An eight-inch monitor flickered to life as text and numbers displayed and scrolled.

  Claire didn’t like what she was reading.

  She reached out to her left and ran her fingers across several other touch pads. More panels illuminated and another small monitor came to life.

  The ship’s autopilot confirmed what the nav system had already told her.

  Claire leaned back in the pilot’s seat and frowned. She looked more closely at the view outside. She was still staring out the forward view window when Amelia came into the cockpit and settled into the copilot seat. She had changed into work coveralls.

  Amelia took in that same view of the outside. “Oh, that can’t be good,” she said.

  “It’s not.”

  “So where are we
?”

  “A very long way from where we should be.”

  Amelia was bringing up the ship’s main computer on the copilot primary monitor. She stopped and looked over at her sister.

  “And where is that?”

  Claire sat up, leaned forward and began running her fingers across touch pads. “I don’t know.”

  “Claire? How can you not know?”

  Claire continued tapping at a panel. “We are way, way into uncharted space,” she said. “I can tell how far we are from where we should be. I can give you the path we’ve been on. I can tell you how long we’ve been on that path.”

  “And?”

  “Eighty years.”

  Amelia turned quickly back to the computer station, began running her fingers across the console.

  “That can’t be. That can’t be.”

  “Sure it can,” Claire stated matter-of-factly. “We’ve been traveling at ten percent the speed of light for eighty years, fourteen days and a couple of hours; direction consistent at ninety three degrees in the wrong direction, with the rare course adjustment to avoid hazards.”

  Amelia fumbled with her thoughts. “Okay… okay… so what do we do?”

  Claire shrugged a shoulder. “Turn around, start back.”

  “Another eighty years?”

  “What choice do we have, Amelia?”

  Amelia leaned back in her seat. She stared out at the black empty space before them. From all she could tell, they could have been sitting motionless in the dark, but Claire had just said they were travelling ten percent the speed of light; in the wrong direction.

  “Eighty out, same back. If I’m up on my math, that’s one hundred sixty years,” she said numbly. “Everything… everyone…”

  “We don’t know what happened to the others,” said Claire. She was working again at one of the panels. “They could be in the same fix we are.”

  “Come on, Claire. That’s a stretch. And that’s assuming they even made it off the transport.”

  “And I’m going to assume that for now.” She gave a slight hmm sound and frowned at a small screen. “This could be why we were brought out of cryo... the nav array is down.”

  “A blessing in disguise,” sneered Amelia. She nodded sharply at the forward view. “We could still be asleep; another hundred years; a thousand years.”

  “Even on recycle, cryo tubes don’t have supplies for a thousand years, Amelia.”

  Amelia frowned. “You’re not making the situation any easier, Sis.”

  Claire ignored her, swiped a fingertip across a panel and it went dark. She looked to Amelia, then back behind them, into and beyond the main compartment.

  “It’s not software,” she said calmly. “It’s the array itself.”

  Amelia grew coolly serious. “Can we fix it?”

  “Hope so. It’s gonna take an EVA.”

  “Fine. I’ll do it.”

  “No, I’ll go. I have more hours, and I know navigation arrays better than you.”

  They stared at each other a few moments. Amelia finally swiveled her seat about.

  “Fine. I’ll help you suit up.” She started out of the cockpit. “Let’s get this over with. I want to get this bucket turned around. Every second puts us further from home.”

  §

  The gear room was small compared to the main cabin. There were the two suit closets on the right, the access hatch to the airlock on the left. The open area in between was for donning the suits.

  Each suit hung on a heavy hook that was set into a ceiling track. Amelia pulled one out from its closet, sliding the hook along the track, as Claire shrugged her way out of her cryo-coveralls. Underneath she wore a two piece base layer covering her from ankles to neck. She had to disconnect several fittings that held the base layer to the coveralls.

  She backed into the suit, stepping into it.

  Amelia supported her, holding her by the elbows.

  “It’s going to be clumsy, Claire,” she said. “No getting around it.”

  “I have never liked these one size fits all suits,” said Claire. “I know they say it adapts, but it never fits like my own suit.”

  “Well, we’re a long way from our jumper, so think before every move.”

  “Thank you, Nana.”

  With all the fittings and seals in place, Amelia brought the helmet from its shelf in the closet and set it into position over Claire’s head. She turned it forward and locked it down. She took a toolkit from a drawer in the closet and clipped it to Claire’s suit.

  “It’s the standard kit.”

  “Got it.”

  Claire moved over to the airlock hatch, turned to face Amelia so that her sister could activate a panel on the chest plate. After a few moments, Amelia looked directly into Claire’s helmet faceplate.

  “All good, Claire. You?”

  Claire read through the status lines on the internal display within her helmet. She took a moment then to evaluate how everything felt physically.

  “Good to go,” she said at last, giving her sister a thumbs-up. She faced the airlock’s inner hatch and pressed the touchpad beside it. The door opened and she stepped through.

  Amelia closed the hatch behind her sister and looked through the porthole. Claire lifted a hand and waved heavy-gloved fingers without turning. She pressed another touchpad and the outer door opened. The black of space lay before her.

  She took hold of a D-clamp fastened to one end of a support line and hooked it to her suit. She took the other end and reached outside, found the recessed eyelet on the hull beside the door. Once connected, Claire allowed herself to drift out of the airlock.

  Back in the main compartment, Amelia settled in front of the computer station. She pressed a fingertip to a touchpad and the monitor came to life. A few keystrokes on the smooth keyboard panel and she picked up Claire’s helmet cam.

  “I have your feed, Claire,” she said. The tiny mic in the monitor picked up her voice and fed it to her sister’s helmet. “How do you read me?”

  “I read you just fine, Amelia.” From the display, it looked like Claire was already maneuvering into position. “This old bus is really showing its age.”

  “So I see. Looks like about eighty years of micro-meteors, eh?”

  Claire reached a panel cover set into the hull, the short, squat navigation array beside it. “The array looks fine, but take a look at this cover.”

  There was a deep indentation in the cover, and two sides were bent upward, creating an opening along the exposed seam.

  “It took a heck of a hit,” said Amelia.

  The shifting movements of the image on Amelia’s monitor indicated that Claire was studying the damage from different angles, likely looking for a way to get into the nav box.

  “The latch is useless,” she heard her sister say. “I’ll have to pry it open.”

  “I don’t have to tell you to watch yourself, do I?” asked Amelia. “There are some sharp edges on that cover.”

  “By all means, Amelia. Please do point out the dangers of the vacuum of space.”

  “Don’t get snotty.”

  Claire’s gloved right hand came into view on the monitor. She had a small pry tool in hand. Using it on the panel cover, it took only a few seconds to get it open. The narrow beam of light from Claire’s helmet lamp exposed damaged wiring within the small compartment.

  Claire sighed. “This is going to take a while.”

  “Take your time. I’m not going anywhere.” Amelia sat back and folded her arms. “I’m not going anywhere at ten percent the speed of light.”

  Claire stepped down from the cockpit and into the compartment. She was dressed now in the same work coveralls as her sister.

  “Course is entered,” she said. “System is still calculating burn to turn us around.”

  “Good, good…” Amelia nodded without looking away from the computer station’s monitor. She was tapping at the keyboard panel, her expression alternating between curiosity and frustration.


  Claire went to the food storage cabinet, brought out a dry ration packet and sat at the table.

  “D’you find anything?” she asked. She opened the packet and began eating the bite-sized food pellets.

  “Some,” said Amelia. “It looks like there are media files in the log, but half are corrupted and the index is toast. If I can salvage something from the directory, I might be able to bring up one of the less damaged files; at least a piece of one.”

  “You’ll get it,” said Claire. “That’s what you do.”

  “Yeah…” Amelia let out a distracted sigh, her focus on the monitor. “We’ll see…”

  Claire was about to respond to that when she hesitated, leaned forward and turned her head aside. She felt it first, and then heard it; a faint rumbling through the deck plates, through the seat and the table.

  The engines were coming to life.

  Amelia spoke over her shoulder, still tapping at the keyboard panel and her focus still on the monitor in front of her.

  “Sounds like systems finally figured out how to get us home,” she said.

  “We’ll be there before you know it,” said Claire. She smiled and tossed another food pellet into her mouth.

  There were flashes of light and shadow then from Amelia’s monitor, crackling static sounds, and finally broken pieces of words.

  Amelia straightened and leaned nearer the console. She brushed her fingertips across the keyboard panel. The monitor display quieted as the sounds went silent.

  “Amelia?” Claire prompted, standing and coming around the table. She stood beside her sister.

  “Trying. Like I said, these files are—”

  “Corrupted, damaged, yeah. I got that.”

  The screen flickered, images flashed and disappeared; more static noise from the tiny speakers.

  The frozen image of a young man flashed onto the screen, his expression as though he had been speaking and was now stuck in mid-word. He was in his early twenties, had light brown hair and a friendly face. From his look, he definitely had something worrisome on his mind.