A New Beginning

We made it through! Juan was able to guide us right through the center of the hole. I knew he could do it. I have the greatest confidence in him. He's going to make a great spaceship captain someday.

The only thing though, as we passed through the hole one of the four solar panels attached to the James Cook's wings scraped its edge. A warning light on the desk at Natalie Amiee's station immediately flicked on. Luckily, the computer indicated that the damage was not bad enough to completely destroy the panel, just enough to reduce its output by about forty percent.

True, solar panels way out by Jupiter didn't do much good. But they were not there to provide us with electricity. Their main function was an experiment.

United Earth Space Agency supposedly developed a new type of solar panel. They were designed to collect even the remotest energy coming from the sun and possibly charge our batteries. The people at UNESA were hoping that the new solar panels would be a source of energy for space stations far removed from the sun.

The panels didn't work. The amount of solar energy they collected as we approached the asteroid belt was almost zero. In fact, they didn't even work very well once we passed Mars. The farther out we got the less effective they became. We recharged our batteries with a generator when the James Cook's engines were turned on.

I'm just glad we didn't have to depend on the solar panels as a source of energy. We would have been better served by rubbing two sticks together like our ancestors did in the stone ages.

Just to be safe, I asked Natalie to tell me what the computer was telling her about the batteries stored in the central, weightless area of the living section. She reported back a moment later that their output was OK.

Anyway, by now my faith in the ship's computer had been restored, so as soon as we passed through the hole I returned to my seat and radioed down to the navigation officer on the lower flight deck. "Aleks I'm using my override code to take control of the James Cook's telescopic camera."

I didn't wait for a reply from her; I wanted to point it toward the rear of the ship and focus it on the hole. I just wanted to see if it was still closing up.

Don't ask me why I wanted to see that because I don't know why I wanted it. I just wanted to watch the hole close up. I watched on the monitor at my station. Sure enough, I observed the hole close up and then there was nothing. The opening was gone! It was as if there was never a hole in the universe.

I then advised our navigation officer that I was returning control of the camera to her. "Aleks, I'm returning control of the camera to you. I want you to scan the sky and try to locate the tail section or the cargo hold. Let me know what they look like, will you? I'll need it for my report to UNESA."

"Yes ma'am," she radioed back.

Suddenly my attention was drawn to James Cook's main window. The background stars of the universe had unexpectedly changed. Not only that, the sun seemed larger . . . much larger. It no longer appeared as a small dot of light in a black sky. It now appeared to be about four times larger, about sixteen millimeters in diameter, not the four millimeters we had been accustomed to seeing the last couple of weeks as we approached Jupiter.

Curious, I got up out of my seat and again went to the nose of the ship. I looked out the starboard window toward the rear of the ship. There was nothing there! No electrical storm, no Europa, no Ganymede or Io. Jupiter wasn't even there!

That was odd, real odd.

Then I heard Aleks Michelle over the radio saying that she thought that there must be something wrong with the ship's telescopic camera. She was complaining that she couldn't locate Jupiter or its satellites. Her comments were a form of confirmation. I wasn't the only one seeing something weird.

Not being able to see Jupiter when one is only a few days journey from it is akin to not being able to see a 4.5 to 5 meters high giant Apatosaurus dinosaur in your backyard. These creatures were 27 meters long, 15 of those meters were just tail. A person would have to be blind not to see one in their back yard, even a large back yard.

A movement by Victoria Rose then caught my eye. I looked back at her. The communication officer was just standing up at her station looking out the port window. The look on her face was one of bewilderment.

Fear filled my gut. I slowly turned around and almost fell over with astonishment.

There in front of me in the port window was the red planet Mars. It was still quite distant from us. I judged from its apparent size -- about the size of a cherry -- that it was maybe half a million kilometers away. But it was there all the same.

I couldn't think straight. Just seconds before we were only a few days journey from Jupiter and now were within a few days journey of Mars. We crossed over 550 million kilometers of space in the blink of an eye.

I wanted someone from navigation up here to see this. I was still standing in the nose of the ship. Vickie was closer to a radio mike than I was. I knew that Joshua was on his way to sickbay. So I told Vickie to tell Aleks that I said to come up to the bridge. Maybe she could figure out how we got here.

Vickie was still in a trance and spoke robot-like into the mike, keeping her eyes focused on the view outside the port window. By now everyone else on the upper flight deck also had their eyes glued to the port window.

Within a minute Aleks was standing next to me, on my right. She too was in awe.

"Is that Mars?" she asked incredulously.

"Yeah and it's only got one satellite. There's no Phobos and it's got a debris field orbiting around it, something Mars hasn't had for about 50 million years."

We were above the planet's north pole and I could see its entire equatorial plane. The only satellite visible was Deimos, the smaller of the two satellites. At least the only satellite I could see appeared to be Deimos. It wasn't moving fast enough to be Phobos, which as I understand orbits Mars relatively close to the planet and circles around it twice daily.

The satellite I saw wasn't moving nearly as fast as I thought it should be, nor was it the size I thought it should be to be Phobos. That's why I assumed it was Deimos. But I really didn't know which satellite it was that I saw. I could only see one satellite.

"How did we get here?" Aleks asked me. "Weren't we approaching Jupiter?"

"I don't know how we got here," I answered. "All I know is that we got sucked into a hole in space above Jupiter and now were above Mars."

"A hole?" she asked puzzled. "What are you talking about?"

"Don't worry about it. I'll explain later."

I suddenly realized that when I took control of the telescopic camera to watch the hole close up, this prevented those on the lower flight deck from seeing it. Neither Aleks nor anyone else on the lower flight deck had seen the hole. The only people who actually saw the hole were the five of us on the bridge when we went through it.

I decided that I wanted Joshua to view this too, so that both he and Aleks could work on figuring out how we got here. I didn't know what kind of answer they could give me but I figured something was better than nothing.

I turned around. Vickie was still in a trance, staring out the port window. "Vickie, snap out of it," I yelled at her. She blinked and looked at me. "I just sent Joshua to sickbay. Call down there and see if he's there. If he is, tell him I said to get back here on the double. If he's not, then leave a message that I want him on the bridge as soon as possible."

"Call sickbay roger that," is all she said. She sat down and started to call sickbay. I was relieved to see she was back to reality, even if reality wasn't real any more.

"I've received reports from around James Cook," it was Joseph. He was now standing next to me, on my left. "Everything seems to be OK. I sent Beth to the living section with an order to get with Chantelle and to check for any damage we may have sustained there when going through that hole or whatever it was. I told her to get back with either me or you within the hour. I knew you'd want that."

"Thanks Joseph," I answered him, glad that someone else was thinking level headed.

"Got any idea as to how we got here?" he asked.

"No I don't." I turned around and asked the communication officer, "Vickie are we close enough to Mars to pick up any of the space stations there with our short range antenna?"

She paused a second before she answered, "Yes, ma'am, I'll give it a try."

"Good. When you get us patched through to them ask them what happened to the other satellite that is supposed to be orbiting around Mars and where that debris field came from. Then tell them that I need to talk to MC3. Tell them we lost both our long range antenna and our backup antenna. Could they possibly relay an urgent message for me?"

She was never able to raise them. She tried for over an hour on several different frequencies but got nothing except static. Her lack of ability to raise anyone left me feeling uncomfortable. It gave me an eerie sensation that there were no space stations on Mars, that there was nothing there.

Meanwhile, neither Joshua nor Aleks could come up with a reasonable answer as to how we flew across over a half a billion kilometers of space in less time than it takes a supersonic jet to travel from one time zone to another time zone on Earth.

I then asked Joshua and Joseph to accompany me to my cabin. I wanted to discuss the situation in private with them and I didn't want the others to get the impression that we didn't know what to do. I left Juan in charge of the bridge with orders to let me know immediately if George showed up.

Once we got to my cabin, we debated among ourselves what could have happened. Besides discussing how we got here, we also discussed some other things too, like what exactly to tell the crew about the explosion and the hole.

Not having seen the hole, Joshua could only offer conjecture. But the three of us came to the conclusion that the hole we encountered above Jupiter was somehow created by the shockwave of the exploding liquid oxygen tanks or maybe by the explosion together with the lightening bolts. The hole must have been some kind of wormhole that sucked us toward Mars. Mother Nature cannot stand anomalies so she closed the hole up.

I have heard about weird events taking place in space, particularly on long voyages, stories that are as strange as science fiction.

There were rumors of baseball and basketball size meteors passing completely through spaceships without causing any damage. There were legends of unmanned satellites that would be swallowed up by the vacuum of space. There were tales of people seeing long dead relatives. Then there were incidents where people whose spacesuits were supposedly torn open in space but lived by holding their breath.

Most of these types of events were chalked up to myth, space fatigue or just plan misinterpretation.

But a wormhole that allows a spaceship to instantly travel across hundreds of millions of kilometers of space was totally beyond anything anyone had ever encountered . . . except in science fiction stories. In fact, I'm calling it a wormhole only because I don't know what else to call it. I got the term from science fiction stories that I have read.

It made us all contemplate on just how much reality there is in science fiction.

Joshua speculated, "Since we've traveled across hundreds of millions of kilometers of space in the blink of an eye and Mars and its entourage of satellite and debris field appear as they did millions of years ago, then maybe we haven't just encountered a wormhole across space. I'm wondering if maybe there isn't also a time element included."

Both Joseph and I reminded him that time travel only happened in science fiction stories. However, his observation did give me a whole new perspective on the space-time continuum.

We came to the conclusion that the rest of the crew needed some kind of explanation as to what had happened to the James Cook over the last several hours. We also came to a consensus on what to tell the crew about the hole in space.

It was getting late; arrangements had to be made to give the laborers someplace to sleep. The three of us returned to the bridge.

I decided that it would be easier to call a general assembly of everyone into the cafeteria. I used the ship's intercom to make a general announcement. I wanted everyone in the cafeteria within the next 20 minutes, no exceptions.

After I made the announcement I looked around the bridge. Juan, Natalie, Vickie, Joseph and I were the only ones who actually saw the hole. Joshua and Aleks were told about it; they were below and hadn't seen it. By this time, Vickie and Natalie had given Aleks a fairly accurate description of the hole we had gone through.

I was glad that there were only a few people who actually knew about it. I didn't want anyone spreading false and ridiculous rumors about something that none of us knew anything about. So I strictly ordered everyone present on the bridge not to discuss the hole we had just gone through with anyone.

I was also thankful that Gerald was on the lower flight deck and had not seen us go through the hole. I knew there was no way he could be prevented from discussing it with George his homosexual lover.

I then told my new second in command, "Joshua to go to George's berth and drag him to the cafeteria if you have to. What I have to say I need to say it to everyone and I don't want to say it twice."

Just as I said that George stepped onto the bridge. He was holding a damp cloth to his head and complaining about the lights having been knocked out.

I looked over to Joshua standing by Natalie's computer station. I was about to tell him to ignore my last order. He just shook his head. I asked him to go close the games room and the TV lounge and to get anyone who may be in the laundry, the showers or the three remaining saunas and have them all go to the cafeteria.

George demanded, "What happened? Where's Captain Butler? And why are you issuing orders and calling a general assembly?"

"George just go to the cafeteria for now. I'll answer your questions as soon as I get there."

"I demand to be told immediately!"

I momentarily closed my eyes in exasperation, took a breath to compose myself and decided to give in to his whining.

"There's been an explosion, George. Captain Butler is dead along with half of the crew. We've lost the tail section of the ship along with the cargo hold."

The bizarre look he gave me caused me to wonder whether or not he understood what I just said.

I continued, "I'm in charge now and if you don't follow my orders I will put you in the brig. Now will you please go to the cafeteria?"

"My head hurts," he complained. He then left for the cafeteria.

It was a few minutes shy of twenty-one hundred, just over two hours since the explosion. There had been no further mishaps since Chantelle Dawn reported that everything in front of the cafeteria was OK. The ship's computer would not allow anyone to open any of the hatches beyond the cafeteria without an override code which only Butler and I knew.

"Juan, take us off condition red and put the ship on condition yellow. Y'all can go about your everyday business as usual but just be on alert for anything unusual."

"Yes ma'am," he answered me.

I thought about putting us on condition green but decided that it could wait until after my explanation to everyone in the cafeteria. After I talked to everyone in the cafeteria, then those who were not scheduled to be on watch could return to whatever they were doing before we went to condition red.

I put Juan in charge of the bridge. I also wanted one person from navigation, communication, computer and engineering to stay with him as a skeleton crew to manage the James Cook. So I asked Aleks to remain on the upper flight deck; she was the only one left alive from navigation. Next I called Akira Carissa, Vickie's communication assistant, Ralph, Natalie's assistant, and Elizabeth Dee, the engineer's first mate up from the lower flight deck.

Once the junior officers were at their stations, I jotted down some notes of what I wanted to say to the crew.

Next I called the four surviving prostitutes over the intercom to meet me in my berth. I called them individually by their names. I wanted to talk to them in private before I talked to the rest of the crew.

After all four of them got there, I informed them that until further notice their services were canceled. I also told them that I didn't want them to let anyone know that I suspended their services, at least for the time being.

The four of them complained about not being able to offer their services but I emphasized to them that it would only be for a few hours. I revealed to them that I had already closed the games room and the TV lounge for now, which is where they usually picked up their johns. Since it would be almost impossible to pick up a client, not allowing them to offer their services was a moot point.

Then I told them that I had to get everyone squared away, new rest areas for the four of them, new sleeping quarters for those construction crews who were not killed and new assignments for some of the crew members. I didn't want anyone not getting their correct orders or living arrangements because they were indulging their sexual fantasies or some other desire.

Josephine Jasmine, Veronica Anne and Terri readily accepted the situation. Alicia balked but also accepted it.

I asked them where their cabins were. Terri and Josephine shared a cabin but Veronica and Alicia now had their cabins to themselves; their roommates were all dead. I told Terri, Josephine and Alicia that I wanted them to move their belongings into Veronica's cabin -- it was closer to the TV lounge and the games room. Then I told them that after the meeting they were to stay there until further notice.

I asked if one of them would collect the other girl's belongings and bring them to my berth. Terri and Veronica volunteered to do it. I thanked them and then asked them all to accompany me to the cafeteria.

When I got to the cafeteria everyone except Chantelle was there. I knew that the brig had one man in it for drunkenness; maybe that's why she wasn't there. I thought I might need her. I asked Joshua to go get her and to release him; I wanted him in the cafeteria too.

While I waited for Chantelle to arrive I went over my notes.

As soon as everyone was assembled in the cafeteria, except the skeleton crew I left on the bridge and the two injured construction workers, I revealed to them that Captain Butler was dead and that I was now in command of the James Cook. I then officially made Joshua my second in command.

George didn't like that one bit and complained bitterly. He said he outranked Joshua and should be second in command. I told him we were under an emergency situation and that I was only following UNESA orders.

He then promised to report me for insubordination and mutiny as soon as we got back to MC3. His disrespectful comment was the last straw. I ordered him to sit down and be quiet. Then I told him that if he questioned another order of mine he would spend the remainder of the trip in the brig.

I saw Chantelle out of the corner of my eye. She didn't like George one bit and was grinning from ear to ear.

The first thing I did was to inform the officers attending the meeting that Joshua and I would make up a new list of who would be on watch and when. I still intended to keep the six hours on and twelve hours off shifts for them that had been in use before the explosion.

Since Aleks was the only navigation officer still alive, Joshua volunteered to rotate with her. Later, the two of them made up a watch rotation of eight hours on and eight hours off for themselves. Joshua and I also figured up the watch whereby either he or I would always be on duty when George was on duty.