Steven McDonald - Event Horizon

Cooper looked up at Miller. Some of the playfulness was creeping back into his expressions, his voice. “Skipper, do we get hazard pay for this?”

“You heard the tape, Coop,” Miller said. The Captain had a wry expression.

“We’re looking for survivors.”

The bridge was suddenly filled with the sound of a blaring alarm. Miller looked up, consulting readouts.

“Here we go, people,” Miller said, his voice gruff. “Stations.”

The bridge cleared as Peters, DJ, and Cooper raced back for their standard stations. Weir clambered down the bridge ladder, heading for the flight seat that had been made ready for him.

Strapping himself in, he noted that he was almost excited. He was coming home to his ship.

His creation.

He smiled.

Lewis and Clark was closing on Neptune. Miller looked over the Heads-Up Display on the main window, squinting at the bright blue light pouring in through the thick quartz. It was easier to draw the pertinent data from his own readouts, so he turned his attention to those instead.

Starck, also ignoring the HUD, announced, “Crossing the horizon. Optimum approach angle is fourteen degrees.”

Miller looked over his instruments and made some quick decisions. Weir could twist space to his heart’s content, he thought, but he could never gut-fly a ship like this one. Miller was in his element, no matter how far out they were.

Miller said, “Come around to three-three-four.”

Scanning over his displays, he wondered what they were going to find when they met up with the Event Horizon. That gut-wrenching racket Weir had played was an indication that something strange was going on here. As far as Miller was concerned, second-guessing these situations was a bad idea, sometimes fatal. You could not set expectations and go charging into potentially deadly situations with preconceptions locked into place. You had to be flexible.

Smith said, “Heading three-three-four.”

Miller felt the ship shifting. “Make your approach vector negative fourteen degrees.”

“One-four degrees,” Smith echoed, and Miller felt the ship adjusting course again. There. He could feel the thrusters moving to new positions, firing a controlled sequence of bursts that would kill some of their velocity and tighten their orbit. There was something else now—a mild vibration that traveled through the frame of the ship. They were starting to encounter the fringes of Neptune’s atmosphere and from here onward the journey could turn into quite a roller coaster ride.

Miller watched his instruments as the Lewis and Clark continued its cautious descent. Blue light was replaced by blue-tinged gloom as methane clouds rushed by the bridge windows. The hull temperature was rising as they ploughed into the atmosphere, but the ablative shielding and heat tiles were holding up beautifully, keeping the heat away from the main body of the ship.

Graphic images flashed and scattered across the displays, with one significant image locking into the center of the HUD. Miller scanned this new display with some satisfaction. The information in the display came from the main ID transponder for the Event Horizon, and included the ship’s registry codes and other identification.

Smith said, “We have a lock on the Event Horizon’s navigation beacon.” He made some quick corrections, focused on his boards. At times like this, Miller would have sworn that Smith somehow fused his mind to the main piloting computer. “It’s in the upper ionosphere. We are in for some chop.”

Some chop. There were times when Smith displayed a mastery of understatement. “Bring us in tight. Justin, how’s my ship?”

Justin was looking from display to display, continually gathering information. He glanced up for a moment, at Miller. “Everything green on my boards, Skipper.” He turned back to his boards again as the ship shuddered, buffeted by Neptune’s outer atmosphere.

Miller had to wonder how the Event Horizon had managed to stay aloft. As its orbit decayed into the atmosphere, the Event Horizon should have been slowed by friction, pulled down by Neptune’s gravity and torn apart before the atmospheric pressure crushed the pieces.

Answers. They needed answers.

“Matching speed… now,” Smith was saying. “Range to target ten thousand meters and closing.” The pilot looked up and around at Miller. He had a worried, almost fearful, expression that told Miller that Smith had been asking the same kind of questions about the Event Horizon. “Captain, this is… this is wrong.”

Sympathetically but firmly, Miller said, “We’re all on edge, Smith. We’re a long way out.”

Smith shook his head. Miller could read the tension in the man, watch it ripple under the skin. “That’s not it, sir. That ship was built to go faster than light… that’s just wrong.”

Miller did not want to debate the issue or to discuss oddities and fearful symmetries. Smith was making the mistake of thinking things through. At a time like this, it could lead to disaster.

“Keep us slow and steady,” Miller said, his voice firm. Listening to him, you might have thought he had not heard Smith.

Smith knew differently. “Yes, sir,” he said crisply, turning back to his controls.

Miller turned to Starck. “Starck, get on the horn, see if anyone’s listening.” He doubted there would be a response, but there were protocols to be followed here.

Starck’s fingers flickered over her boards as her eyes took on a slightly unfocused look. “This is U.S. Aerospace command vessel Lewis and Clark hailing Event Horizon, Event Horizon, do you read? This is the Lewis and Clark hailing Event Horizon…”

Miller shut out the sound of Starck’s voice as she did the contact mantra.

He leaned to the side, looking down in the direction of the extra seat and Bill Weir. Give the scientist credit, the man had not budged from his position since being sent there.

“Dr. Weir!” Miller called. Weir was in the hatchway in a flash, looking up at Miller with undisguised excitement. It made Miller feel like a fresh steak placed before a starving dinner guest. “I think you want to see this.”

Weir clambered up the ladder and onto the flight deck, giving every impression of not noticing the shuddering of the ship as it pushed its way through the fringes of the Neptunian atmosphere. The scientist peered through the thick windows, trying to pick out his ship.

“Where is she?” Weir said. He looked back at Miller, then at Smith.

Without turning, Smith said, “Dead ahead, five thousand meters.”

The Lewis and Clark shook violently and rolled sideways. Weir grabbed a stanchion and braced his feet. Starck was silent for a moment as Smith’s hands flew over the controls.

“We’ve got some weather,” Smith muttered. The ship righted itself but continued to vibrate.

“I noticed,” Miller said. He swallowed hard, trying to force his body to relax and quit trying to find a good place to run and hide. Surprises like that were never easy to deal with. They were fine, they were okay, Smith had it under control. “Starck, anybody home?”

Starck looked up, shook her head. “If they are, they’re screening then-calls.” - “Range three thousand meters and closing,” Smith said.

Weir was leaning forward, still holding on to the stanchion, peering out through the windows, trying to see past the clouds of methane crystals. “I can’t see anything.”

Neither could Miller, who was trying the exterior cameras. The weather was thickening out there, as though trying to force them back, or into a change of course. Compounding the visual difficulties, the camera mounts were icing up as the icy clouds struck. The deicing systems were being hard-pressed to keep pace.