For
three days, life onboard the Enterprise had been routine -- at least
Rick assumed it was routine, he never having been in space before. He and the
other scientists and technicians bound for Titan busied themselves with last-minute
briefings and reports on their soon-to-be new home, and with looking out the
forward viewport in the crew lounge, while Colonel Christopher and the five
other crewmembers spent most of their time hanging out with their passengers.
One afternoon, Rick wandered into the crew lounge, as per his routine, to find the Colonel sitting alone at the table under the viewport, reading. Rick took the chair opposite and sat for a few moments just staring out into the depths. "What a view...," he murmured appreciatively.
Christopher looked up from his PDA, spared the glorious view outside a quick glance, and uttered an indifferent "Mmmff."
Rick chuckled at his friend's ennui. "Yeah, I suppose this is old hat to a seasoned space veteran like you." When that failed to get a rise out of the Colonel, Rick decided to change the subject. "So anyway...," he began. "I've explored the command tower, the hab decks, the engine room, and four out of five cargo modules. But guess what I found when I tried looking in the fifth pod?"
Christopher shrugged.
"A locked door!" said Rick in a mock-amazement. Christopher maintained his stoic silence, so Rick pressed on. "Care to enlighten your ol' buddy and pal?" he prodded.
Christopher smiled calmly and simply said, "Classified."
"Hmmph. I figured you'd say something like that. Oh well." Rick sighed and went back to looking out the viewport. The Colonel went back to reading.
At the beginning of the fourth day out from Earth, the pace aboard ship changed a bit. Rick and the other scientists and technicians still went about their usual routine, but the ship's crew retreated to the command deck and stayed there. This set the scientists speculating, of course, and more than a few of them had adopted nervous or anxious faces.
Around lunchtime, Rick was sitting in the lounge along with half a dozen others, eating a cheeseburger and listening to calypso music on his headphones, when Carver, one of the geologists, sat down at his table. Rick pulled off his headphones and Carver said, "So, Merk, what do you think is going on?"
Rick swallowed his mouthful of cheeseburger, shrugged indifferently and said, "Beats me, Carver. It's not like I'm in the chain of command or anything. Besides, you know military types -- it's probably just an exercise drill or something." He hoped his casual response would satisfy Carver and allay his trepidation.
Carver was not so easily put off though. He leaned across the table and whispered conspiratorially. "Come on, Doctor Merk. Everyone knows you're in with the Colonel. You can tell me -- I'll keep it just between the two of us, promise."
"I honestly don't know, Doctor Carver. I wish I did. But the truth of the matter is that I'm as much in the dark as the rest of you. But if you--" Rick paused, as he noticed that Carver wasn't paying attention anymore. He turned his head, following the geologist's gaze out the forward viewport. His eyes widened in amazement. "What the...."
Space outside the Enterprise was no longer pristine -- rather, it was littered with dozens of misshapen mountains of rock and ice, and some of them were close enough to be visibly moving closer to the ship. "Asteroids!" muttered Carver.
Just then, a brilliant, electric-blue slash of light flashed between the ship and one of the mountains. The asteroid flew apart in a spray of smaller rocks, some of which naturally came hurtling toward the ship. A cacophonous racket assaulted everyone's ears as the space debris clattered and banged alarmingly against the Enterprise's metal hull. Another brilliant flash followed seconds later, and another asteroid met its demise in a hail of carboniferous shrapnel. The riotous noise of these projectiles slamming into the hull intensified.
The men and women in the lounge had sprung to their feet in alarm, spilling drinks and overturning lunch plates onto the floor. Rick turned back to Carver, who had their table top in a deathgrip and a terrified expression on his normally composed face, and muttered, "I think I better go and talk to the Colonel...." He stood, half-eaten cheeseburger and calypso music completely forgotten and started for the elevator at the rear of the room. He'd only gotten half-way when the floor underneath him heaved and bucked, sending him flying through the air into a group of microbiologists, and down they went in a tangle of arms and legs.
Amid a profusion of cursing and poking, further complicated by the ship's continued rocking, Rick extricated himself. "Sorry, Doris," he offered the poor girl at the bottom of the pile, then dashed the remaining distance to the elevator before Doris could recover enough to wreak vengeance. The door slid shut behind him and he was gone.
By the time the lift disgorged him on the Enterprise's top deck, he'd restored some semblance of order to his clothes. Not that anyone on the bridge would have noticed. The room was darkened -- the only light coming from the displays on the control consoles, the irregular staccato flashing of the ship's lasers, and the distant stars. Colonel Christopher sat tensely in the command chair on the left side of the bridge glaring out the forward window and the other officers were intent on their own duties. No one even noticed the new arrival in the foyer behind them.
An asteroid loomed large in the forward window. One of the brilliant blue point-defense lasers reached out to it, but this time only managed to slice off a chunk of it. The rest of the mass continued its slow rush toward the ship -- a deadly juggernaut.
"Hard to port!" shouted the Colonel.
The pilot at the front-most console frantically played his fingers over his board, and the deck heaved and bucked again just like back in the lounge. Rick was tossed against the bulkhead beside the elevator, but managed to keep his feet this time. The crew swayed in their seats, but were securely strapped in.
With painful slowness, the looming asteroid veered to the right in the forward window as the ship tried to evade, then crept safely by the ship's starboard side. The forward window was clear of any more asteroids.
"That was too close...," muttered Christopher. He eased his grip on the arms of his chair and forced himself to relax.
"That one missed us by less than twelve meters, Colonel," said the man in the pilot's seat.
"Like I said, too close," replied Christopher. He turned his attention toward the sensors station and said, "What does the lidar show, Claudia?"
The tall dark-skinned woman at sensors turned from her scopes and said in a somewhat worried voice, "That was the last big one for the time being, Colonel, but there's a huge swarm heading right for us. I estimate it'll get here in about forty-five minutes. And it's going to make that last swarm look like a gentle morning drizzle."