A study in Solar
Chapter 3
By Trynia Merin
Down at the Front Desk, several terminals had been hastily wired up for temporary access. Mel had worked miracles with her new friend, William Cameron, rigging up a comm. port with the Space Guard ship.
Captain DeForester had just arrived at the Spaceport. Space guard support personnel rushed to and fro assessing the situation. One or two reporters managed to telecast news of the Power failure to Earth. Emergency crews struggled to rescue anyone trapped in parts of the station where power failed completely.
But in a matter of minutes they had the power generators going. Holmes kept his ears open to hear discussions about the solar panels, and how they were made with Nusolar, like the solar sails on the ships. Slowly the station was coming back to life, in bits and pieces as life returned to normal.
"Mister Holmes, the ship is ready to go…" said a gentleman who strode up. It was Mel's boyfriend, he thought in interest.
"Ah, you must be the Earl of Cameron…" Holmes said. "When I heard your name…"
"Yes. I am most pleased to meet you. Since we didn't have adequate time to talk around the ladies. It pleased me you seemed to enjoy my Robbie Burns tribute…"
"A piece of the old century, nevertheless not English, but Scottish, and welcome…" Holmes nodded.
"Your young partner seems a bit tense. Mel said she always was one to ignore parties. She stuck to the gym or studies mostly… Mel had to drag her out kicking and screaming sometimes."
"No doubt," Holmes smiled. "Mel is very fond of Lestrade, is she not?'
"Inseparable like night and day."
"Very interesting," Holmes nodded as he continued to chat with Mel's gentleman friend, and awaited Lestrade's return.
Space suited figures swarmed around the delicately built craft. Long strands of wire spanned to the thin foil solar sails. Each sail was attached to a long mast protruding from the cylindrical crew cabin. Looking at the ship from a distance, it resembled a set of praying hands clutching a pen. Other solar yachts drifted in dock, of varying forms. Some had cylindrical sail surfaces, others the more familiar single square sails.
Rockets would boost it away from Earth. The solar sails would give the William Wallace enough velocity to get a slingshot around Earth. Once at sub-light speed, it would accelerate to nine tenths the speed of light. It wasn't a hyper drive craft, but it was better than a simple rocket ship.
Lestrade felt funny boarding such a primitive craft. It was like taking a sailboat instead of an ocean liner. Or a propeller plane instead of a jet. Most propeller planes could get you halfway across the world, but a jet got you there faster.
If you didn't have jet fuel, a propeller plane worked just as well.
And faster meant more expensive.
It took a crew of five to fly the ship. Five young technicians who'd taken leave to attend the Scottish Festival now prepared the craft for launch.
"Standby to cast off," laughed the Earl of Cameron, over the view screen.
Inside the passenger lounge, Lestrade fastened her seat belt. She and Holmes sat on a circular couch at the back wall. The small chamber was paneled in lovely mahogany. Small paintings were fastened securely to the walls. Under her feet, Lestrade felt the thick plush carpet. Through square skylights, they caught glimpses of the diamond stars. Somewhere below them, a navigator was consulting her astral maps, and two young men pulled on the cable riggings. The other two crew members checked the rockets and gyro readings. "I feel strangely at home on this craft," muttered Holmes.
"Kind of like taking a propeller plane instead of a jet, eh?" said Lestrade.
Holmes smiled at her comprehension, confirming it as he said, "Or rather like a sailboat instead of an ocean liner. The first time I feel like I've been on a real space ship, instead of your automated shuttles."
"Are you sure this contraption will get us there and back safely, considering the track records of the others?" Lestrade asked. "I mean, it is to the Asteroid Belt."
"We're not going to Saturn," said the Great Detective. "I'm putting my analytical brain to use and predict if we're due for any meteor storms… considering that vid on astronomy you insisted I watch, Lestrade."
The inspector sighed. Now wearing her quilted coveralls, she shivered. Was it the environment in the cabin, or her nerves? The craft seemed so flimsy compared to the heavy New Scotland Yard guard ships.
"Let's see. The Persied shower should be resulting from Comet Enke . . . in approximately six hours from now. At sub light velocity, we should be able to avoid them at," she punched up the information from the console to her left.
Sudden acceleration pushed them all back into the couches. It was a gentle push, compared to the huge g-force astronauts experienced when taking off from Earth. But it was enough to take Lestrade's breath away. Starlight faintly painted Holmes profile in silver. He still wore his deerstalker and Inverness. Powder blue was transformed into liquid silver, and the red to dark violet.
Grinning, Sherlock Holmes clutched his cane on his lap. Clearly, he was enjoying the ride. All wore their emergency oxygen vests; much like the life jackets worn on ships of old.
In this pressurized, radiation-shielded cabin, they didn't need space suits. Unlike the crewmembers. Lestrade watched the stars elongate into streaks as the William Wallace rocketed out of the Space Resort's orbit. Slowly the steel hull retreated, falling away from them faster and faster. Soon it was just a gleaming cylinder, illuminated blue underneath from earthshine. Night crept across the earth's hemisphere now. Eventually the Earth grew into a full disk.
Green lights twinkled in their cabin. The Detective was pouring over a copy of an astronomy text he'd borrowed from her store of books, but occasionally he glanced up to watch the views starboard and aft. In his eyes was the wonder of one who'd never get sick of traveling in space.
Lestrade took it for granted. She felt her head nodding. The gentle pull of acceleration rocked her to sleep. Later she woke. Someone had wrapped a warm woolen blanket around her. A small fluorescent light gave some light in the cabin now. Still the great detective was reading a book, across from her. Now the 0.5 gee field kicked on, perfectly comfortable. Unclipping her buckles, Lestrade walked off the sofa, or trotted rather. Gently she pushed herself with her fingertips to the forward view-port. Earth had become a complete disc now, about the size of a large basketball. Near to it hovered the Moon's smaller crescent. From the shift of the lines of the stars, she guessed they'd reached half-light speed by now. They walked about the passenger cabin, slowly extracting the niceties for tea. Time was beginning to slow for her. Time would pass outside at a much faster rate. For them, the trip would take twelve hours. For the station, it would be two days.
Ah, the price one paid with space travel. Holmes had never experienced the phenomenon of light speed travel. Always, the ships had exceeded this barrier. Sub-light ships were considered pleasure cruisers.
Lestrade felt an odd feeling. Was it her imagination, or did the cabin suddenly seem shorter? Ever more she felt like she was staring down a tunnel. All light zoomed ahead. Oblate stars whizzed by. Disoriented, she pushed herself back to the couch. Six hours, even at light speed, seemed like a ghostly reality. How long did it take for light to get to them from the asteroids? A mere matter of minutes. But at six-tenths light speed it would be hours. She added time segments to time segments. Nuclear ships reached nine-tenths light speed.
Solar winds streamed all about them now. Lestrade could hear the radio chatter of the captain and the Earl of Cameron checking their coordinates. In the distance, she spotted the familiar doughnut shape of the mid Mars Lowell space station. It hung in space, with invisible wires that kept it spinning rapidly. Completely independent of any planet or moon, the Wheel was one of the Deep Space relays for incoming ships bound to the outer solar system.
"William Wallace requesting landing clearance."
"Lieutenant Lernov here. Please identify."
Lestrade drifted to the intercom, and depressed the ancient button. "This is Inspector Lestrade, of New Scotland Yard. Request clearance for landing, please."
"Been a short vacation, eh Maliska?" came the precise Russian accent, with amusement.
"I'll save that for a personal confrontation." said Lestrade, smiling ruefully.
Slowly the William Wallace drifted up to the station, on momentum alone. Several space-suited technicians jetted up to the glistening network of wires and sheets. Carefully they attached the docking clamps that would draw the craft to the airlock. In a strange duet, the William Wallace matched rotation with the Wheel, till it would match the correct orientation. Holmes glanced up from the synthetic tea and biscuits, and said, "I say Lestrade, why are we suddenly drifting off course?"
"What?" she asked. A jarring suddenly shook as they heard a snapping, and a jolt. Past the starboard and aft windows Holmes glanced to see two ropes streaming away and their ship drifting back from the station.
"Zed… what's going on?" Lestrade demanded.
They struggled to keep their course straight and down in the cabin, Holmes and Lestrade clung to the console as the ship lurched sideways. Lestrade fell backwards over the chair, and Holmes went flying overhead. Lestrade's hair fluffed up into a rounded fluffy blob. Two cups of tea on the table before them turned into small drifting globules that rose lightly out of the containers. A chessboard drifted up from the table, and both Lestrade and Holmes were literally floating an inch or so from their chairs.
"Good gracious," Holmes gasped, flailing his arms. His Inverness floated around his body like an undulating pool of brown, giving him the appearance of a sheet waving in the breeze. Every jerking movement of his body sent him drifting in this direction, and that. Up and down ceased to have any meaning when he spun completely around so floor was ceiling and ceiling was floor. A queasy feeling erupted in the pit of his stomach, and his deerstalker drifted off his head, his cane rising from the chair it once rested upon.
"What are those zed heads doing up there?" Lestrade gasped as they drifted towards the far wall. "The gravity's gone!"
"Gone west, temporarily I hope," Holmes mumbled as he twisted arms in wide circles, and flipped his legs up and down, trying to keep from spinning around yet again.
"This isn't water, you can't swim," Lestrade cautioned him.
Bright flashes surged from outside and a haze of plasma filled the aft and starboard solar sails. Pushing off with her feet she grabbed Holmes by the arm and pulled him along with her by inertia. The craft vibrated with repeated pulses as the radiance grew, and they threw their hands before their face as the solar sail vaporized. Lestrade stabbed buttons on her COM link, shouting, "What's going on there?"
"We're approaching Deimos and Phobos… the left sail's gone!" shouted Gregory Stuart. "We've lost gravity. You have to…." came the tinny voice, blurred with a crackling sound before it faded into nothingness.
"Radiation must be jamming the EM signals, ZED!" cursed Lestrade.
"Watch out!" Holmes pointed out the window. Lestrade shouted as he pushed her back from the wall, and a blaze of fire suddenly blared brighter then a supernova, outlining them in black shadow and blinding radiance flared. The whole ship lurched sideways, and the gravity suddenly kicked on. Lestrade and Holmes toppled to the floor, and then the deck pitched seventy-five degrees to starboard.
"The other sail's caught fire… I mean… look… its vaporizing… almost evaporating!" Beth Lestrade exclaimed. Lestrade rolled back quickly, and slammed chest first into something solid, but not as solid as the wall.
"Oomph!" Holmes voice immediately under her.
Lestrade felt the sensation of weight apparent in her body again, and it seemed hard to lift her arm suddenly. As she opened her eyes she saw wall and Holmes' reddish blonde sideburn right next to her nose and the sensation of his breath in her left ear. Under her chest something rose and fell, and her heart pounded ever faster when another pulsed close to hers.
"Oh zed," Lestrade gasped, pushing down on either side and trying to lift herself off of his body splayed under hers.
"This is getting to be a habit," he remarked dryly. "No harm done… no lasting harm other then a few odd black and blue marks that YOU get to explain to Watson!"
"Sorry!" Lestrade apologized quickly, trying to untangle herself from him because she could feel her face flushing bright red.
"Must be the solar generator feedback!" Holmes bit his lip, and their faces were within inches of each other as more flashes of light illuminated the micro world around them.
Through Holmes body she could feel a vibration that they could not hear, but it permeated their muscle and bones. As bad as it was for her, targeting her stomach and making her feel ill all over, it must be worse for Holmes because she looked into his face, seeing the discomfort there. She pushed herself off of him, and helped pull him up to what was once the port wall, but was now the floor. Plastic tea service thudded to the floor, and brown liquid slid down the incline of their 'wall'. What was once the starboard wall was the ceiling above with its bank of square windows through which where more violent pulses threatened to blind them.
"WE got to get to the flight deck…" she pointed to the cabin door, which seemed so far away.
They scooted along the wall, grabbing into the ornamental railing for stability with the shuddering and complaining ship. Already Holmes saw debris streaking past, and if he glanced down at the 'floor' underneath he saw the reddish curve of an impossibly huge sphere swirling with clouds just beneath his spat covered shoes. He felt for a dizzy moment he was standing on nothing, and quickly stumbled after Lestrade who gripped his cane to help him along.
The deck pitched again, and Holmes hooked the end of his cane around the light fixture between two windows, caching Lestrade as she shot past him. His arm around her waist tugged but held her securely against his body, and she caught her breath. "Hold onto my back," he told her as he reached up to find another handhold.
"I'm FINE!" she shouted. "I DID take rock climbing!"
