The Babes of Hephaestus

Chapter One

Callie Thorpe did not exist.

And then, slowly, a little bit at a time, she did.

She felt her renewed existence first in her lungs as they filled with air for the first time in… How long? She gasped, the oxygen flooding her throat with white fire, pain, and relief.  The violence of her own breath railed against her unconscious state, rousing her the rest of the way.  Her eyes fluttered open, blurry at first as they adjusted to the darkness.  Droplets of moisture clung to the inside of a curved glass panel only a few inches from her face.  She coughed a few more times, uncontrollably, then looked beyond the glass: tiny motes of red, orange, and green light faded into view, the sharpened angles of LEDs becoming clear as she examined consoles on the opposite wall in confusion.  Something was wrong.  Off.  But she wasn’t sure if it was the upright coffin she found herself in – a cryo-pod, this she could recall – or the darkness beyond it, or something… else.  She could feel it scratching at the back of her brain.

A few more moments passed before the darkness gave way to a line of lights up and down what appeared to be a narrow metal corridor.  Suddenly, she felt the weight of her body, which had previously been strangely absent.  Then, a hiss, and the glass panel flew open and away from her face.  Was that it?  No.  Soon after, the restraints holding her limbs loosened, and the prickling of a thousand needles rushed into her extremities as sensation returned to them.  She could feel the latch of the small compartment that bound her with her right hand.  Clumsily fumbling with it a few times, she managed to get a hold of the handle and its small button, then pressed them together.  There was a soft click, and the entire front end of the cryo-chamber slid down and away.

Relieved to finally be freed from the device, she unslung the straps from around her shoulders and stepped down onto the grated metal floor of what, she assumed, was either a ship or a space dock.  “Hey, Dante,” she called, rousing the A.I. she somehow knew was standard aboard military space vessels, “where am I?”  The A.I. should have answers.

“Lieutenant Commander Thorpe, you are aboard the Elpis IV, an Emissary class shuttle.  You have been in cryo-sleep for four months, fifteen days, five hours, and thirty-two minutes.  I hope you’ve enjoyed your beauty sleep,” it quipped back.  The A.I. spoke in a crisp but friendly British accent.  As it did so, a small drone about the size of her hand flew into the corridor with her, just above her head.  A small holographic data pad composed of cyan lights soon followed.  “Cryo-sleep has been known to cause memory loss.  Would you like to know your mission parameters?” it asked.

“No…” she croaked, still feeling groggy and her throat still sore.  “…mmph!  Yes,” she corrected herself.  “What is the mission of Elpis IV?”

“I’m sorry,” Dante replied, a little too eagerly, “that information is classified.  I’m afraid you’ll have to enter your security clearance into the data pad for classified access.”

She glared at the drone as if it were the physical embodiment of her annoyance.  “How am I supposed to remember the access code when I can’t remember my own name?” she asked.

“I’m afraid I cannot provide an answer to your query, Lieutenant Commander,” the A.I. responded.  “Your name is Calliope Ann Thorpe, sole occupant and commander of the naval space vessel Elpis IV.  You currently have sixteen queued personal messages and one priority alert.  Please input your security clearance for access to mission intelligence.”

“Jesus fu- …” she began to curse, then interrupted herself.  “Hey, Dante,” she said again, recalling her decorum, “please make some coffee and light a path to the mess hall.  I’ll take my messages there.”  Maybe with a little caffeine, I can figure out what the Hell I’m supposed to be doing here…

“Certainly, Lieutenant Commander,” it replied as the data pad faded from view and the drone buzzed away.

Sighing, Callie leaned against a metal wall, looking up and down the narrow hallway as a line of lights began blinking in sequence along one end of the floor.  “Well,” she mumbled, “may as well figure out what’s going on…”  Collecting herself, she hit a few buttons on the cryo-pod she had just emerged from and watched as the hatch clicked and whirred back into a closed and sealed position.  “I really hope I don’t need that later,” she whispered to the air, then proceeded to follow the lights to the mess hall.  And coffee.

She passed not one, but four small doors on her way, granting access to identical rooms.  As she peeked inside, she could see from the alcoves that these were the crew quarters.  This shuttle was designed to be manned by a crew of four to eight people.  Why was she alone?  The brass usually did not permit solo missions because of the psychological effects of long-term isolation, especially aboard smaller vessels like this.  Moving on, just a few yards further and she was at the door of what passed for the shuttle’s mess hall.

The drone hovered in a corner of the small room, a few feet above a long, aluminum alloy table.  Barely layered over the ambient sounds of the shuttle’s systems, she could hear the quiet hiss of boiling water dripping into a heated coffee pot nestled somewhere in a wall cubby.  Tracking the sound, Callie made her way over to it, then slid the clear plastic sheet that passed as a coffee station door to the side.

It would be a few minutes before the pot was done.  Looking around the room further, she spied a portable communications console.  It’s time to check in, she thought, and see what’s really going on.  Taking the tablet in hand, she sat down at the table and tapped a few buttons on its screen to log in.

PRIORITY ALERT, the screen read in bold red letters.  Personal messages would have to wait.  She felt the dread come surging back as she tapped the screen where it said View Message.  She knew what it was, even if she could not remember it.

“This is a pre-recorded message from Commander Alexander Hale,” droned a mechanical voice, “Audio follows”.

“Lieutenant Commander…” a familiar voice said, “As you know, you’ve been selected to captain one of our shuttles for the Elpis mission.  The importance of this mission cannot be understated, and- “

Callie felt as if she’d been punched in the stomach with a sledgehammer.  Memories came flooding suddenly back, unbidden, and unwelcome.

She could almost feel his breath on her neck again, an unwanted touch that made her want to rip her own skin away like it was a filthy coat that desperately needed burning.  The pressure of his body seemed to crush her, the forceful grip of his hands against hers, pinning her against the cold, unforgiving wall. The texture of the rough surface scraped against her back, a painful reminder of her helplessness. Her fingers curled instinctively, yearning to break free, but his grip held firm.

The world around her became a blur as he violated her, again and again, her mind recoiling from the brutality of the act. It felt like an eternity, yet it was over in an agonizing instant.  The violation had not only marked her flesh, but had branded the very fabric of her soul, and she wanted nothing more than to be cleansed of it – all of it, and to never think of it again.

And then, in the same amount of time it had taken Hale to rape her, Callie’s vision shifted back to her present reality.  Rage and bile rose from the back of her throat, turned into watery vomit, and cascaded out of her mouth and onto the table.  Memories flashed by in quick succession as she recalled his tribunal and his reinstatement… and her own humiliation as his JAG unit made her look as if she’d wanted it to happen.  The scent of her own fear and anger from the relived experience lingered in her nostrils; blended with her own vomit, the smell made for an unpleasant and heady mixture.  It took all of her willpower to calm her boiling blood, set aside her rage, and regain her equilibrium as the recording continued to drone on about the mission.

“You must follow protocol if you encounter any other mission volunteers, and retrieve the Hephaestus at any cost.  It means everything.  Humanity is relying on you,” his voice continued, “Your security clearance code is embedded at the end of this message.  Do not lose it.  And… Cal…” his voice began to take a softer tone as it shifted to something more casual, “I know that we haven’t seen eye to eye on everything.  And what happened between us, I just want you to kn- …” The sound of his voice was cut short as Callie hit the stop button on the recording with her middle finger.  She didn’t need his bullshit apology.  She wasn’t doing this for him, and what had occurred had nothing to do with the mission.  She knew that, somehow.  It was for her sister… and that feeling was still there.  Something was very, very wrong, and it had something to do with Cassie.

Wasting no time, she rose from the soiled table and grabbed a pre-packaged washcloth from the sink and wetted it down a little.  Wiping down the screen of the small tablet she’d retrieved, she scrolled to the bottom of the message and took note of her clearance code.  “Hey, Dante,” she called out, “bring that little hover-drone of yours back over here.  It’s time for you to tell me my mission parameters.”

“Certainly, Lieutenant Commander,” Dante responded flatly as the small drone came to a rest a few feet above Callie’s head.  The small holographic pad re-materialized shortly after, its input console swaying slightly back and forth with the drone’s movement.  “Please input your security clearance code and we may proceed.”

After tapping a few keys on the holo-display, Callie stared at the screen, her mouth slowly dropping open as she read the contents of her mission briefing and remembered why she’d signed up: Cassie was on the Hephaestus when it had lost contact due to an EMP… and Earth needed the ship’s tech to restore the ozone layer.  Bitter irony tasted like metal in Callie’s mouth.

A hundred years ago, mankind united on one thing: Save the ozone.  And it had worked – at least long enough for everyone to forget about how important it was to save everything else, too.  Global warming had gone out of control and there was nearly a century of one catastrophic weather event after the other before TerraTec came up with a solution to bring the Earth back from the brink.  And now this; a random, infinitely-impossible-on-the-scale-of-probability event had occurred and now humanity was in the middle of a mass extinction event.  And it was up to her to fix it.  No pressure.  “Hey, Dante,” she said, her voice breaking a little, “transfer my mission briefing to this console, please.”  As she spoke, she gestured to the communications console she’d left on the table, then rose and made her way over to the coffee pot.  She poured herself a mug, then returned to the table and glared darkly at the tablet, opening her mission report back up on the new device.

Callie sipped at her coffee and continued reading, even though she already knew what the document would say: Alpha Centauri goes unexpectedly dark – Earth hit by large gamma ray burst, causing massive electro-magnetic pulse and catastrophic atmospheric damage.  Ozone depleted by nearly 50%.  Mass casualties caused by global spike in cases of acute radiation sickness.  The public warned to stay indoors, especially during daylight hours.  And on it went, one horrifying detail after another.  Thinking of her parents, a tear slipped down Callie’s cheek.  Apparently, they’d been at the beach when it struck.

Callie couldn’t afford to think too long about that, though.  She knew that she would break down if she did, and she had a mission to complete.  There were still millions of lives relying on her and she could not afford to lose focus.  The Elpis IV was only one of seven manned vessels sent to retrieve Hephaestus, and as far as she knew at this point, hers was the only one still running.  She was also probably the only one with a sister on that ship.

“Lieutenant Commander,” Dante interrupted, “we are nearing our destination coordinates.  Shall we proceed with the scan?”

“Hrmm?  Yes.  Of course.  Thank you, Dante,” she replied, looking up at the drone from her screen even though the AI’s voice was being broadcast over the intercom.  She had become so absorbed in the reports that her coffee had gotten cold, a fact that caught her off-guard as she reached for it.  “Expand the scan to include any trails of proton particles with trace amounts of helium three and four,” Callie added, “that should give us an idea of where the Hephaestus may be headed if she’s gone off-course.”

“Calculating…” it announced.  The faux English accent sounded cold in its lack of emotion, or maybe it was just her new recollection of recent global events.  “The modified scan should be complete by zero-six-hundred-twenty-one hours, Lieutenant Commander.  Initiating modified scan parameters now, Lieutenant Commander.”

“Glad to hear it,” Callie whispered, looking at her watch.  “I guess I’ll see you in… an hour and a half.”  Getting up once more from the table, she made her way over to the coffee station and flipped a switch.  The small access door to the pot quickly snapped closed, and a whirring, suction-like cleaning sound could be heard from behind it.

“Need I remind you, Lieutenant Commander, that I am an AI and do not – “ Dante began, but was quickly interrupted by a wave of Callie’s hand.

“Yeah.  I know.  It’s an expression, Dante.” She sighed, somewhat exasperated.

“Glad to hear it,” it replied, seemingly just a little too glibly.  “Please remember that I am available should you have any further questions or require additional assistance.”  As it spoke, the small drone hovered over her head for a moment, then drifted away and out of the small dining room.

Callie, frustrated and tired, looked around the chamber.  Spotting what she needed, she walked over to what appeared to be a small cupboard-like food dispensary, and opened the aluminum door.  Inside were a handful of shelves that, when pulled out, offered a selection of MRE units.  She grabbed a bag, opened it, and inspected its contents.  It would have to do.  On her way out of the kitchen, she grabbed an eating utensil and made it her new mission to provide companionship to a lonely bunk in one of those crew quarters she’d passed in the hall – after she’d shoved down some of this gruel that passed as food, anyway.