“We’ve got ten casualties,” the XO said. Everyone had their feet on the ground for when the gravity came up and when it did he simply bent his knees slightly. “All minor except for one cranial injury in engineering. He’s been taken to sickbay and Dr. Chet says that so far it just appears to be a concussion. No fractures.”
“Small favors,” the CO said. “Okay, Commander Weaver, what’s the consensus?”
“I’ve talked with Tchar and Dr. Beach,” Bill replied. “We apparently went into either a dimensional gate of some sort or possibly a ‘hard’ warp where we weren’t dropping in and out. Mimi is apparently pretty sure that it was a dimensional gate and based on some… objective effects I agree with her.”
“Both of you having been in a dimensional gate before,” the CO said.
“Yes, sir,” Bill replied. “The effect, as far as I can tell, other than the weird effects, was to… jump us to Epsilon Eridani.”
“That’s not just off course,” the CO said, frowning. “That’s way off course.”
“Yes, sir,” Bill replied. “More or less in completely the wrong direction. Our survey plan just went out the window; we weren’t supposed to survey the E Eridani area until late in the survey. But at least we’re in the same universe.”
“Are we sure?” the XO asked, sarcastically.
“Pretty sure,” Weaver answered. “The physics team is doing some pretty sophisticated tests. So far, quantum mechanics is working the same way as we’d expect with the exception of some gravitational effects. They’re asking if they can do an EVA and do more grav tests.”
“XO?” the CO asked.
“I’m for it,” the XO said. “We took some damage. Nothing serious, but it would give us time to fix it all before we take off again. If we shut all the way down we can chill, too. Question: Are we going to have that problem each time we hit one of these helio things?”
“Unknown, sir,” Bill said. “I’m hoping that if we approach away from the bow shock it will be lower. But I’m also recommending to the chief engineer and to Tchar that we install a better seat for the engineering watch crew. That way if we dimensionally jump again, they can shut down the power. That is what stopped us, this time. If Tchar hadn’t scrammed the power, I’m not sure where we would have ended up. The other side of the galaxy would have been bad. In the middle of a star would have been worse.”
“…A gravitational standing wave,” Berg said.
Most of the Marines in the compartment were either sticking their heads out of their racks or were out of them listening, since the Nugget seemed to know what he was talking about.
“What in the grapp is a grav…” Lujan asked.
“It’s…” Berg paused and shrugged. “It’s what you felt. It’s sort of like a wave that stays in one place. If it’s gravity, you get pulled this way and that. I’m glad it wasn’t any stronger than what we hit. I mean, the shearing stress could have torn the ship apart.”
“That’s great to hear,” Crowley said sarcastically. “But what was that thing that happened with… Did anybody else think the air tasted… yellow?”
“I thought it tasted red,” Clay from Third Platoon said. The lance corporal shook his head. “I can’t believe I just said that.”
“I don’t know what that was,” Berg admitted. “I’ve heard of the effect; it’s called synesthesia. I’ve heard of it before but I never thought I’d experience it. I think I puked up a soprano note.”
“I got the smell like green,” Tanner from Third said.
“It was a dimensional jump,” Top said from the hatchway. “But good job on the rest of it, Berg. I was dreading explaining gravitational standing waves. As for the dimensional jump, nobody and I do mean nobody, from the lowest engine tech up to Commander Weaver knows why it happened for sure.”
He stepped into the compartment and made his way down to the center.
“For your general information, we’re about ten light-years off course. For Crowley’s benefit, that’s a long way. And we made that jump in about a minute and a half if we can trust the clocks. The good news is that we’re still in the same universe. The command group is trying to figure out what to do about both problems, being off course and the grav waves at system edge, right now. And we’re going to leave it up to them because we are Marines not ship commanders or astrogators. Second Platoon, you’re on rest cycle. First and Third, you’re up. You’ve got training schedules, get with them. Anybody who is not supposed to be in their rack had better be out of that rack by the time I leave the compartment.”
Berg pulled his head back in as First and Third started throwing themselves out of their bunks, sucking up to the walls to let Top past.
“Synesthesia, huh?” Hattelstad said. “You know, I’m reconsidering this whole Space Marine thing. This maulk never happened to those guys in Aliens. All they had to worry about was being impregnated by an alien monster.”
“Hey, day’s young,” Jaenisch said. “I think that’s on the training schedule for tomorrow.”
“All hands! Stand by for chill!”
“Ah, hell…”
“All hands, all hands, stand by for chill,” the 1-MC announced. “Microgravity in five seconds. We Be Chilling!”
“They’re chilling,” Dr. Aaron Ratliff said, closing the connections on his suit gloves. “We have to work.”
He grasped a stanchion as the gravity faded to nothing, then cautiously donned his last glove.
“Apparently Dr. Becker’s theories on the interstellar gravity aren’t just the ravings of a deluded madman,” Beach said, pulling the astrophysicist over to check his connections. “You’re good.”
“Stand by for door opening sequence,” Ratliff said, pushing himself gently to the far wall. The airlock had two door controls, one on either side of the compartment. Both required a keycode and both had to be activated within a fraction of a second of each other for the door to open.
On submarines, outer hatches were set up so that they could only open outward. One reason for this was that the pressure was better managed that way; the pressure seated the hatch instead of trying to push it open. The other reason, though, was a tad more subtle. Sometimes people cracked under “pressure” as it were. And sometimes they very much wanted out, to the point of attempting to open the hatches.
One of the biggest refits on the SSBN Nebraska had been installing remote controls on all the hatches. It was impossible to refit them all so that they opened inwards, thus preventing such “accidental” openings when in vacuum. But the three true airlocks on the boat had to have two people open them. And the inner doors could not be opened simultaneously, the only exception being during a declared emergency.
The last thing anyone wanted was an “accidental” venting of the spaceship.
“Venting to death pressure,” Beach said, entering his code. “Pressure check.”
“Nominal,” the astrophysicist replied.
“Keycode entered,” Beach said.
“Same same,” Becker said.
“And three, two, one…”
Both twisted the hatch controls as close to simultaneously as human reactions and quantum theory allowed, and the airlock door opened outwards.
Everette pulled himself out the door one-handed, then spun to face outwards. When he was aligned he punched the controls on the air-pack and was puffed gently away from the boat.
“How far?” Beach asked. “I’d say that a thousand meters should do it.”
“Until we don’t pick up gravitational effects from the boat,” Becker replied. “Which I’m still picking up.”