Phantom (Part 1)
Thursday
Walter Mikkels was no stranger to his crew being absent-minded. It comes with the profession. Months, sometimes over a year at a time without direct contact with people other than the select few who are along for the ride. That’s something to wear anyone down. And today was not a typical day either. The four men and women sitting with him at the dinner table were not looking for a joke to lighten the mood or encouraging words about all the things they should be looking forward to once they got home again. They were looking for an answer the Captain of the Iris could not provide. In his 24 years of traveling through the Greek belt, he had never experienced anything like today. Collisions, while extremely rare, did happen to ships like his. What did not happen however was Novak losing his temper. Mikkels simply could not figure out what upset his oldest friend this much. A question the rest of the crew also did not have an answer to. Uncertainty might be the biggest danger in space travel and it led to visible distress in the faces of every single person in the room. Even Sheridan seemed bewildered by the events that occurred earlier. Luckily for them, the damage to the ship was minimal. Something they wished they could say about Novak. Mbaye had to put him into an induced coma to minimize the brain damage he incurred when his head slammed into the bridge’s ceiling and then onto the floor. They still had a week’s worth of travel to do before they would reach Elpis where he could get adequate treatment. After hours of deafening silence, Mbaye, the youngest among them, got up to dump the remains of her dinner. “I will check on Novak again before I go to bed, Captain. Good night, guys.” Mikkels could not think of appropriate words. He just smiled and nodded approvingly. Something that did not overshadow his concerned look. The others followed Mbaye. First Acosta, then Sheridan until Mikkels sat alone with Yang. Once they were alone he spoke up. “You’ve known him since the academy, longer than any of us. This was so out of character for him even you have no idea what could have gotten him so agitated?” He might know tomorrow. Or whenever Novak would wake up again. Now was not the time to waste energy on what might have made him say the things he said. “Get some sleep, Yang. The diagnostic of the proximity sensor array won’t be done until 6 am.” If there was a sensible reason to stay up longer, Yang would have found it. There wasn’t so he followed the rest of the crew to his quarters. The Captain sat alone at the table for a while longer. Maybe he would not sleep tonight.
Friday
“How is it looking?” Everyone on the bridge turned their heads to Yang who was reading through the results of the diagnostic that just finished. Before yesterday’s collision, there was no proximity alert. The logs did not show anything within 15 000 kilometers. Every test they did since came back with a normal result. Something went wrong yesterday. “Prior to impact, every sensor was working within the set parameters. No energy surges of any kind. No unusual readings. There is also no change today. Aside from the parts that were damaged yesterday of course. We could still do a visual inspection.” Sheridan shook her head. “The damage is too extensive to go for a walk. Plus we are going too fast anyway. We would have to slow down significantly to not risk your life.” Mikkels knew there was no time to slow down. If they wanted to save Novak they could not waste a single second. “Acosta, keep us on course. Yang, monitor the visual sensors to give us some insurance. I will check on Novak.” The Captain stood up to leave the bridge. Yang was not happy and Mikkels noticed. Then again he was not trying to hide his discontent. Something that Mikkels would address later. On his way to Sickbay, he heard a big clank noise from Starboard. Before he could call the bridge, Sheridan was already on his comms. “We’ve heard it, Captain. I’m on it.” It was his daily reminder of why he still relied on such an old engineer when most people would have replaced her long ago. For a moment he allowed himself to feel good. Mbaye was monitoring Novak’s vitals on a small screen on her desk. “Good morning. How are you and the others doing?” Out of the entire crew, she and Sheridan were holding up the best. “Well, enough from what I can tell. You wanna do a round of psych evals?” That question left his mouth before he could think better of it. Lucky for him she declined. Otherwise, the crew may not have forgiven him. “I noticed you did not tell me how you were doing. There is something else that is bothering you other than Novak’s condition, am I right?” As much as Mikkels loved Sheridan for being great at her job he hated Mbaye for being so good at hers. Nothing ever slipped past her and for someone like Mikkels who tried to keep a more professional distance from his colleagues that was uncomfortable, to say the least. Begrudgingly he sat down across from the doctor. “I’ve barely slept. I know he is in good hands here but what he said and how he said it. He... He knew what was gonna happen and he was terrified.” Mbaye looked up from her screen for the first time since Mikkels came in. “If he knew, then that should not be a surprise. A stronger impact could have destroyed the ship completely.” That would be the logical assumption if it was anyone but Novak. “About fifteen years ago, before we were on this ship, Novak and I were working on a search and rescue vessel around these parts. One day we were recovering a prototype that was conducting experiments with a new engine. When we loaded it into the cargo bay, the engine burst. Half our crew was killed in the explosion and we were stranded for a full week until another ship came to rescue us. We barely slept, working around the clock to keep the ship’s systems alive. During all this time, with some of our friends’ lifeless bodies floating around the ship and not knowing if we would survive ourselves, he was the one who kept everyone’s spirits up. What he felt yesterday must have been far worse than just our deaths.” This silenced Mbaye for a little while. She was new and didn’t know much about the other crewmembers and their experiences and relationships. There was nothing for her to add. She turned around, took a bottle out of a cupboard, and handed it to Mikkels. “Take two of these before you go to bed tonight. They will help you relax.” He took them and left for the bridge. When he got there, Sheridan told him what she found out about the noise earlier. “There was no malfunction in the starboard engine. Yang checked the sensors in that area and one of them does not return a signal. There might be damage that was not picked up by the diagnostic after all.” Yang might have to go out to assess the damage visually as he suggested earlier. While Mikkels thought about whether to fully stop in preparation, the Iris was thrown port side and the alarm started screeching throughout the ship.
Saturday
Mikkels did not sleep tonight. Mbaye was dead. The moment the starboard engine exploded she was not strapped into her chair and her spine was crushed on impacting the bulkhead. No one else sustained notable injuries. Acosta had to be restrained after learning of Mbaye’s demise. The two had been a couple for a while. Telling anyone would have made Mikkels sack one of them. It took Yang an hour to calm him down and get his head straight. Afterward, he called a rescue ship to meet them halfway. With the starboard engine beyond repair, the journey back would take twice as long and that was only if the port engine held up. For the next three days, they’d still be alone. Sheridan also found traces of cesium in the corridor next to the destroyed engine. It was a thought Mikkels did not entertain yesterday but today there was no doubt that what happened was deliberately caused. It was unthinkable but nothing else made sense. They were attacked. To Mikkels’ knowledge, no ship had been targeted like this since before he was born. Maybe that’s what shocked Novak so much. How could he possibly have known? With no one to look after Novak anymore Mikkels took on the task. He was too tired to do anything else anyway. Once his vitals stabilized he would take him out of the induced coma. For the time being, everyone was to stay strapped in unless moving around the ship was absolutely necessary. It would give them some protection but they could not do anything to defend themselves. They still did not know who did this to them or how they did it without the sensors seeing anything or why they attacked them specifically. The Iris was just a runner, placing communication relays and sensors deep in the belt. Mikkels was trying to put his theories into words for the ship’s log but he struggled when looking over to his friend, lying no two meters away from him just barely alive. Eventually, his mind got tired and he finally fell asleep.
