Chapter eight.

The shuttle slowly approached the alien ship. Professor Ricter activated the outside lights and gave it a good look. The hull was dull brown with a red line that encircled the craft. The bottom was flat and the top had one large structure built on top of it. He could see no engines and wondered if they used a different form of propulsion. He also saw no place for them to house a Particle Accelerator. They used a different form of space travel to get here. How advanced were they?

He knew everyone on board had to be dead. No advanced race would let a strange craft get his get close without being alerted. Still, it felt good to run the scanners. Experience taught him never to assume everything was as it seemed. He ran a deep scan, making sure the sensors checked every corner of the ship, both inside and out. It was going to take some time, maybe an hour or more, so the Professor had some time to think.

He closed his eyes and was surprised to hear the computer alert him to the finished scan. He looked at the clock; an hour passed. He fell asleep. He didn't recall being tired but with all that had happened, he shouldn't have been surprised.

He looked over the data. The ship had been orbit a long time, about two thousand years based on the computer estimates. He paused, two thousand years. This star was two thousand light-years from Earth and they detected a powerful magnetic pulse. That pulse drew his attention toward the planet. Could it have been that pulse that disabled this alien ship? The strange coincidences were starting to add up to a disturbing trend.

There seemed to be no power, nothing of real interest until the Professor saw a light glow. The ship had power, very faint. Everything else was dead. What could it be and why was it on?

The Professor knew what he needed to do. He would have to go to the ship to check it out. The sensors could only see so much, he needed to see it with his own two eyes. He would make a spacewalk and he would find a way inside. The idea of floating through space with nothing but a thin force field protecting his body from the vacuum made the Professor's stomach flip. He felt his hands and feet turn cold. He knew it was irrational to feel this way. Force fields were safe and had proven over and over again that they not only protected you, but they were also reliable.

Still, the Professor found it hard to leave his chair, to walk to the back, to get the force field generator, to place it on, to open the back and to float to the ship. He stood and then sat back down. He needed to control his breathing and his heart first. "Come on," he told himself, "you're not like this."

When he stood again his legs didn't feel as rubbery. He walked to the back and opened the door. The force field generator was on the wall. He grabbed it, placed it on his belt, and turned it on. The force field hummed around his body, lifting him a few inches off the ground. He hated the feeling of slickness on his feet and took a few tentative steps, making sure he could walk with the force field on. Once he felt comfortable he walked over to the controls for the back door. Professor Ricter took a deep breath then opened the door. In front of him was the alien ship. Gathering all his courage, he closed his eyes and stepped out.

The Professor floated toward the hull of the alien ship making sure not to take his eyes off it. He feared if he looked to the left, right, up or down he would lose sight of his target and go drifting off into space. He knew in his mind that the shuttle's computer would find him and rescue him, but that didn't help his fear of floating off into space, no matter how irrational that fear was. The only thing he wanted to do was to find out if he could get into the alien ship, if he couldn't, then he would just have to run more scans until he was rescued or until he died.

He lightly touched the ship's surface then slowly drifted off. He stopped a few inches in front of the hull. His legs kicked wildly, and he started to tumble. Reaching out with his shielded hand he dug into a small seam. His fingertips had a very light grip on it. With no more inertia to disrupt him, he pulled himself forward ever so slowly until his face was a simple force field's width away from the hull. He had been out less than two minutes, and he was already out of breath. He closed his eyes and focuses on a math problem until his heart stopped racing.

Slowly, the professor moved about the ship, sliding his feet along a small, raised seam he found himself precariously perched on with the very tip of his force field. If there was any hint of gravity, he would have slipped. He turned his head to the left and saw what looked like an opening. His pace quickened as he headed toward it. What he found was an open hatch. Thankful he no longer needed to be outside, he floated into the opened bay slow and careful. Was it an invitation or did someone simply forget to close the door on their way out? He wasn't sure and decided to be very cautious as he explored.

His earpiece chirped. The shuttle computer alerted him to some new information. "Power surge recorded near the open hatch." The Professor turned just in time to see the hatch close. Before he panicked he waited to hear what else the computer had to report. "Detecting a power surge in the docking area. Atmosphere in dock rapidly increasing. Air mixture is breathable and safe. Detecting power surges throughout the ship. Air pressure inside ship increasing."

Lights in the docking bay switched on and he could see. There were pipes, wires, and very heavy equipment scattered throughout. The equipment looked strange to him but he was sure if he examined them carefully he'd easily find human equivalents to each piece. Every race had to deal with the challenges of space travel and all seemed to come up with the same kinds of solutions. Like math, it seemed engineering fixes was a universal constant with very few variations.

He was trapped inside the space ship now, no way to go but toward the now increasing power source. The only problem he had at the moment was figuring out how to get out of the docking bay. Several doors were evenly spaced below him, but he had no way of getting them opened.

"Gravity is now detected," his computer said. He felt himself slowly falling to the ground. Several pieces of junk which had been floating near accompanied him where they all gently landed. Gravity, how thoughtful, the Professor thought. "Air is breathable." Came the computer voice.

The Professor lowered the force field. The cold surprised him at first. He breathed out and saw a cloud of breath. The air temperature had to be around freezing, maybe even a few degrees colder. He would get used to it, and if he couldn't he'd simply raise his force field again. The smell of the docking bay didn't seem stale, and he did not detect the smell of death. In fact, he didn't smell anything. A door along one of the walls opened. Professor Ricter walked over to it carefully and looked down a long hallway which gradually faded into blackness. He stepped out into the hallway and lights above him turned on. He noticed darkness beyond the lights and headed toward it. When he reached the end of the hallway another set of lights turned on leading him to another section.

He came across another hallway while the hallway in front of him continued around a corner. He stepped into the dark, and nothing happened. He stepped back into the light, turned, and stepped into the dark of the new hallway. The light turned on. "Like following a trail of breadcrumbs," he told himself and then continued walking.

Why someone would do this? If they had power surely they could leave. What would he do if he were the last person alive on a ship and was unable to get back? He placed himself in a situation where the Arwen was attacked again but didn't crash on the planet. How long would it take until it ran out of air? What if the attack was something other than a massive electrical assault? What if the power surge was so fierce it not only fried the computers but the brains of the crew as well? What if the crew were some sort of machine hybrid? What if he arrived on the Arwen to find all the crew dead, and he knew he'd die before a rescue party arrived, or worst, what if there were no rescue party coming? Would he just sit there and wait to die, or would he do something? "I would do something," he told himself as he walked into another lit area. More questions ran through his mind. It was something to keep him occupied while he walked down the hallways of a dead alien spacecraft.

In front of him was a lift with hallways to the left and the right. He stepped to the right and nothing happened. He stepped to the left, and no lights turned on. "Looks like it's the lift," he told himself and stepped in. The lights turned on and the door closed. Moments later he felt himself moving upwards.

I would do something. He thought. I would try to pass what I knew onto the next person who found me. Perhaps I would do exactly what they are doing, leave a path to the information. Or, I would lead them into a trap if I didn't want them to know anything. No, that doesn't make sense. Any automated weapons system would have destroyed me a long time ago. This is a mission of knowledge. These aliens are scientists like me.

The elevator stopped, and the door opened. When the Professor walked out the lights turned on and he found himself on some sort of bridge or observation deck. It was difficult to tell which since he had never seen a bridge with such a large window looking out into space. All bridges he had been on were in the middle of the ship, safe from attack, hard to get to should someone board. The only time he saw a room this exposed was on research ships.

The room was curved with most of the equipment placed along the circumference of the wall. There were at least 30 to 40 computer stations, each with tall chairs that faced away from him. He was unable to tell if there was anyone occupying the chairs.

The center of the room was empty except for a sizeable device which hung from the ceiling. It was a huge white sphere. Protruding from the object were several pins reminding the professor of a pin cushion his grand-mom used to have when she crocheted her blankets. He looked carefully at the pins and noticed that each pointed to the computer terminals. Some sort of mind linking device? He thought. If it was some sort of linking device they were century's ahead of his own technology.

The Professor spun one of the chairs around and sat in it. He whirled around and looked at the station. There was no keyboard, no way to input any information. He found his feet dangled from the ground and when he looked down, he saw what looked like small pedals on the floor. There were maybe ten to twelve of them just barely touching his toes. Perhaps they used their feet to input data?

Where was the crew? He gave it half a thought to look for them but decided it would be best not to, the last thing he needed right now as to find a room full of alien corpses.

He slowly walked along the circle, spinning chairs as he went, expecting to see an alien skeleton looking back at him. He looked at the last chair and saw a long-dead arm, hanging down. How he missed it when he first walked in he didn't know. The entire newness of everything was a huge distraction, so he figured that's how he missed it.

With a shaky hand Professor Ricter slowly pulled at the chair. He found he could not move it. He walked around to an area where the chair was more open. When he looked down he found himself looking into the face of a dead alien. Its skin rotted away leaving nothing but a white skeleton. There must have been air on the station after he died or else he; the Professor felt he was the proper pronoun to use, would have been preserved.

The alien had a flat head, squashed thin as if someone had placed it inside a vice and pressed it until it was a few inches thick. It had ribs, although there seemed to be many more than the average human. Long, stick like legs stretch under the console and disappeared behind two thin slots. From slender shoulders he saw one hand with no fingers. It looked more like a stump. The stump was strapped down and laid next to a knob. There was a very light, almost unnoticeable, red glow coming from under the button.

First, a trail of breadcrumbs, now this, the Professor thought. He sat in the chair next to his alien friend, leaned over and pressed the button.

The lights in the room dimmed to almost nothing. A low hum came from the strange device in the center of the room. The pins moved out from their slots and blossomed to resemble very tiny satellite dishes. Before Professor Ricter could get a better look there was a bright flash that forced him to close his eyes. When he opened them he found himself floating above the planet.

He dangled in mid-air and hovered over the planet. There was an odd detachment from himself. He lifted his hand in front of his face but wasn't able to see it. Could they be projecting this image into my mind? Why does it seem every race has better holograph technology than we do? He made a mental note to write a paper on why alien races used holograph technology to communicate with other races and then turned his attention to what was in front of him.

He saw a large space craft orbiting the planet. It was an odd-looking ship shaped with angles that didn't seem right to him. Large spires jutted out in all directions. Some touched to form bridges while others didn't. It was hard to tell scale without a frame of reference. He had to assume the craft in front of him was some sort of mother ship. If he guessed correctly, what he was looking at were images taken from the research ship or some probe. He saw a tiny dot leave the mother ship and head for him. He recognized it right away as the ship he had found.

A beam of light projected out from the research ship and the image quickly changed. He could tell because the cloud formation on the planet had moved drastically from one second, to the next, as if someone had spliced together a movie incorrectly.

The mother ship orbited the planet and seemed farther away than before. Then, something happened so fast Professor Ricter wasn't able to process it. The hologram moved backwards in time. The image changed within a blink. The planet and surrounding space turned dark with hundreds of white curved lines arching in hundreds of directions. It took him a moment to realize he was looking at some computer representation of a magnetic field. The mother ship was highlighted white to make it stand out from the rest of the image.

The images rewound again. From the right corner a bar fell down. There were symbols all around it and the Professor assumed they were words. He really wished he had some linguistics expert here to help him; he did some studying but never fully mastered the science behind alien languages. A line at the bottom of the bar slowly moved upward. The movement followed the rearranging of the magnetic field of the planet. It was as if the field was building strength. The magnetic lines crossed. The bar spiked upwards rapidly then, almost as quickly, fell to nothing.

The images change again, this time showing him events in normal light. The clouds on the planet move quickly. He followed the massive storms he had seen earlier rotate around the planet. They were smaller than he had seen but he was sure they were the same storms. The mother ship struggled to keep in orbit. Day and night cycles passed by in seconds. During one-night cycle he saw a long, red streak flash across the planet's sky and when daytime came the ship was gone. He tried his best to keep his mind on facts but seeing that Mother ship destroyed sent a shiver of dread throughout his body. Right now, he was in the same situation as these aliens two thousand years earlier. How many other crafts orbited this planet? How many other ships had it taken down? Could the Arwen survive such a violent act as entering the thick atmosphere of a water planet?

He had to put those thoughts out of his mind as the next set of images played in front of him.

Time once again past quickly. Each day seemed to last about a minute, each night the same. How long were they in orbit? He lost track and was pretty sure one of the many symbols he saw scattered around the hologram told time. If he had to guess he'd say at least twelve cycles passed. They weren't on the planet long enough to determine how long the days were so he had no reference to really judge how long they were in orbit before they launched another probe.

The image once again jumped ahead. The Professor figured the image was from the front of the probe as it headed toward the planet. All around him strange images played. Some were endless circles which seemed to fill quickly. Others were the same unrecognizable symbols he had seen before. He did his best to ignore the things he couldn't figure out and concentrate on what he was looking at.

The probe hit the ocean and then things slowed down. The water was murky, as if looking at it though a smoke stained window. What he could see was uninteresting. There was no life, and that struck him as odd. All planets with a warm ocean had some sort of life on it. Even planets where the ocean was frozen had life deep below the ice. Eurpoa, one of Jupiter's moons, had a frozen ocean with microprobe life inside the ice as well as complex life under it. How can this planet not have any life?

A reading blinked rapidly to get the Professor's attention. He looked at it and watched as a bar, not unlike the one he saw before the electrical discharge, filled in. The symbol above it was unusual. It was taking a different reading?

He looked below, a bit unnerved he couldn't see his own feet, and saw something come out of the muck. At first, he thought it was a space ship because the first impression he got was how large the object was. The closer the probe approached more detail he saw. The object was massive, spherical, and a bright silver. How big was this object and what could it be? After several more moments the probe seemed to stop moving yet, the bar continued to fill. The Professor realized it hadn't stopped; the object filled his entire view.

The bar's color continued its upward climb until it reached the top, it started to blink rapidly. Then, something happened and the bar dropped down to nothing and the murky water became crystal clear. The probe then made a rapid decent downward, crashing into the silver sphere, ending the program.

Professor Ricter opened his eyes, almost surprised to find they were closed, and found himself once again seated on the bridge of the alien ship. His decayed friend still next to him, the entire ship empty and quiet.

What was that last image? The probe hit the ocean and went down. That's when the bar appeared. Could it be a pressure gauge? Water pressure on a planet like this would be unfathomable. It would almost make the water a solid, so thick nothing could get through yet; the probe did, and it found something huge, silver and spherical.

Then, the only logical conclusion hit him like any revelation would. He stood from his chair and yelled, "It's the core! It's the planet's core! Why would they show that to me? Why end the program there? The probe wasn't destroyed. The readings showed it was close to being destroyed yet it wasn't." He turned to face the dead alien and continued his monologue with it. Talking his ideas out always worked for him in the past. "Is that were we need to go, towards the core? But why, the pressure would crush any ship that went too close. Only it didn't. The probe you sent survived long enough to crash into the core. Is it just a theory, or did you confirm it before you died? Why didn't you go down to confirm your findings? Too many questions you can't answer, I understand. I guess the only way to find out is to head down there, talk to my friends, tell them what I've found. Thank you, my friend. Thank you for giving us a chance."

The nighttime shadow fell over the planet and covered almost half of it. His first order of business would be to find the Arwen. It was down there, somewhere. The Professor refused to end up like his alien friends. He would not sit back and die hoping to be rescued. He would do something even if it killed him.

Professor Ricter knew he was taking a chance. He knew his plan might not work. He also knew he couldn't wait in orbit any longer. He would program a probe to send out a prerecorded message to any Corps ship that might come to rescue them. Stay away from the planet, do not get within its magnetic field, leave now because if the Arwen hasn't returned it has been destroyed.

Chapter nine.

Captain Cook lay in her bed; the cushion under her did little to elevate the pain. She felt her fingertips tremble on the sheets. The sweat from her body soaked the bed in ways even her worst dreams never did. The tremor from her fingers shot up her hand and moved into her arm then her shoulder. Her entire body convulsed. Fran's words echoed in her head, 'I'm kind of surprised no one was killed. A powerful enough discharge could easily affect a person's nervous system.' The heavy gravity did nothing to prevent her back from arching up. Her teeth clinched shut, and her eyes had rolled into the back of her head. This was her second seizer since the attack.

After a few moments her back arched down and she felt her shoulders and arm rest. Muscles ached as if she had been working out for a few hours. Her breathing was erratic and her heart beat fast. The medicines the doctor had given her for the condition had stopped working. She had to get back to Earth as soon as she could.

The computer chirped in urgent, begging her to answer with its tone. She looked at it with weak eyes. She gave the Commander orders not to interrupt her rest unless it was important. She had no choice but to answer. "Yes!"

"Captain, our sensors are picking up a signal from Professor Ricter's shuttle."

It hurt her face to smirk, but she couldn't stop it. Of course he'd find a way to contact us. We needed to be rescued, and it would fit him just fine to be the one who saves us. "What did he say?"

"He has some very important information he needs to share with us."

"Can we get the shuttle into the ship?"

The Commander paused for a few seconds before answering. "No, not without lowering the force field and I wouldn't recommend we do that. The Professor doesn't seem to be in any danger, so he should stay there until we can figure something out."

"I agree. Is there anything else?"

"He would like to set up a meeting. He claims to have found a way out of this and would like to discuss it."

"Okay, set something up and meet me in the conference room in ten minutes."

Professor Ricter looked back at her from a monitor which hung from the ceiling in the main conference room. His face had a painful look on it as he strained against the pull of gravity. "The alien's hologram showed a giant core in the middle of the planet. I'm not sure why they showed it to me, but I believe it's where we need to go."

"I agree," Commander Pippleton replied. "Doctor Lipton and I have been talking about it, and it all seems to point to the core. The ribbons aren't preventing us from going down and now that the Professor has seen what it is I'm inclined to side with him on this argument."

"Professor, I'm impressed with your bravery," she said when they had all finished. "Never thought you had it in you."

"Well, Captain, sometimes circumstances dictate how brave you are."

"That's true," she replied with as much humor as she could muster. Her hand continued to shake. "It seems all my senior staff is in agreement; we should head down. Trying to leave proved almost fatal, heading to the core also seems like it will kill us but if the Professor, my second in Command and Doctor Lipton all agree, I don't see how I can say no. But, let me just play some devil's advocate here, what if we head down and we can't get back? "

"Captain," Commander Pippleton said before anyone else could answer. "We are in a situation that we've both have been trained for, a situation where we don't know the answer or how things will turn out. There is a very good chance we are in a no-win situation."

"Damned if you do, damned if you don't." Professor Ricter said.

"Rock and a hard place," Doctor Lipton added with a smile on her face.

Marjorie raised her hand and laughed. "Okay, enough with the cliches, I get it."

"All jokes aside," Professor Ricter said, "I don't see what other choice we have. Captain, you know me and I would not risk my life unless I thought there was a chance we'd survive. I'm betting my life on this choice."

"I sure hope you're right. Is there anything else we need to discuss?"

No one said anything and the meeting broke up. Before leaving, the Captain pulled Commander Pippleton aside. "Commander, how are you feeling?"

"I feel good," he said. "This gravity doesn't seem to affect me as much as the others."

"I noticed that. I need to be candid with you. I'm not doing so well."

Commander Pippleton nodded. "I don't think anyone is."

"But I'm the Captain. I need to know that if something happens to me, if I can't go on, that you'll be there to take over."

"Of course, it's my job."

She placed her hand on his shoulder and smiled. "That's all I needed to hear, Commander."

He shrugged his shoulders, happy. "Do you need help getting back to your room?"

"No, I'm heading to the bridge. I've been in my room long enough. It's time I made myself visible again. Inspire by example, it's the only way I know how."

"I see. May I head to my office?"

"Go ahead. If I need you, I'll give you a call."

Chapter ten.

Captain Cook sank into her command chair. Now was the time to put the Professor and Commander Pippleton's plan into action. They were going to move toward the core in the hopes that there will be something that could save them. It was a great risk, one she felt she needed to take. She had total confidence in the Professor's theories and trusted his instincts. "Communication, get me Professor Ricter."

Within a few seconds, his face appeared on one of her screens. "Are you ready, Professor?"

"I'm as ready as I can be. I'll lead the Arwen down with my shield configured to make me as streamline as possible. You'll follow close behind with your shield configured the same way, within a few minutes we should reach the barrier."

"At which point you will break off and let us try to break through."