VOTE: "APHELION PROJECT" CHALLENGE, pt. 1

[kailhofer]

The Aphelion Project Challenge, pt. 1:

These stories take place on the journey to Mars. They are set onboard Aphelion 2, the 2nd ship that will land on the red planet. The ships are halfway there. Aphelion 1 is a day ahead, and six souls crew each vessel.

Authors had to end their stories with a character, Lt. Cmdr. Dunsirn, discovered over the body of a crewmate. That body could be alive. That body could be dead. It could be accident, or it could be cold, bloody murder. It was all up to the authors.

They were not allowed more than 1,000 words.



THE FOLLOWING ENTRIES WERE RECEIVED:


[center]Old Wounds

By:
Bill Wolfe[/center]



[center]Aphelion-II[/center]

Lieutenant-Commander Ophelia Dunsirn didn't believe in intuition. She had earned her way to second-in-command of Ap-Two through hard work, intelligence and perseverance. She'd flown strike missions in Iran and Tibet, and had scored the highest ever on the EuroNASA physical/emotional fitness exam. She had complete trust in herself and didn't worry about her place in history. She'd earn that too, eventually. But the butterflies in her stomach since Captain Al-Hassanieh had made the announcement just wouldn't seem to go away. No other way to say it, she had a bad feeling about this.

She'd been wearing her Com-Officer hat when the priority, eyes-only, encrypted message had been recorded by Ap-Two on its way to Ap-One, nine light-seconds ahead on their trajectory to Mars. It was only the second such message she'd heard-of in the three months they'd been underway. The first was when Roberson's mother had died. Within ten minutes of this latest transmission, however, the Captain had issued a communications blackout with Earth. The computers would continue to record but the entire crew was completely locked-out until further notice. This was unprecedented. All ten members of the Martian All My Children Fan Club were going to throw a fit when the signal was interrupted from the 'Live' broadcast.

[center] Aphelion-I[/center]

"Relax Ensign." the Captain's manner was grim. Ensign First-Class Archana Yarlagadda, was trying hard to float at attention. It wasn't working well.

"You have my word that this conversation is both completely confidential and quite necessary. Clear?"

"Yes, Captain!"

"You were at The Academy with Lieutenant-Commander Dunsirn, were you not?"

"Yes Captain."

"Tell me about her pregnancy, Ensign. Everything. I want facts, rumors, anything you overheard and anything you suspected. That's an order."

"Sir?"

"Shall I repeat myself, Ensign?"

"No Sir!" The Ensign paused, collecting his thoughts. "It surprised us all, Sir. She never so much as flirted with anyone—man or woman—when she was a Middy. She just didn't seem interested.

"Continue."

"Well, Sir, she started showing during our last semester but she refused any special medical restrictions on the physical part. She never spoke to anyone about it and my understanding is that she gave the child—uh, boy?— up for adoption after graduation."

"Speculations, Ensign." He wasn't asking.

"Several, Sir. There was the usual, of course. Admirals and Commodores and even the pizza delivery guy, but nothing really believable." The young officer took a deep breath. "And then there was some scuttle out of the civilian sickbay staff that she might have been raped."

The Captain didn't flinch, but his dark complexion seemed to blanche. "Explain."

"My roomie was dating a civilian nurse and he claimed that he'd heard that Ophelia—uh—Lieutenant-Commander Dunsirn, came-in about oh-five-hundred one Sunday morning, she was scratched-up and bruised and asking for a morning-after pill. There was no physical exam but the nurse said she'd worked plenty of ER's and knew a rape victim when she saw one. If she'd reported an assault, we would all have heard about it."

[center]Aphelion-II[/center]

". . .Sidney Barnes? I'd have a lot of trouble believing that, Captain. For one thing, Ophelia's one of three people that ever knocked Hideki Yoshizawa out-cold in his own dojo. If ten Navy Seals went after her at least three of them would be dead before they could subdue her. I'd stake my career on it. And Barnes, Sir? If you'll pardon the expression, my ten-year-old niece could kick his scrawny geek civilian ass. Captain, there must be some mistake. I don't care if he was working in Annapolis at the time. And furthermore, Captain, Barnes is still a member of my crew and Ophelia would never disobey an order to leave him alone. I strongly advise against confining either of them to their quarters. Over."

Commander Alexandru Macridin released the transmit button and decided to review the news clip that the Captain had forwarded to him on the secure laserlink. He had a minimum of sixty seconds to burn until he received an answer from Captain Al-Hassanieh aboard Ap-One. The decryption/encryption time for these super-secure links was nineteen seconds.

It was a TurnerFOX[sup]TM[/SUP] International Report and he had fast-forwarded to the salient part. Atop the screen was the headline, "Sex and Scandal in Space" and there were two, stock EuroNASA head-shot photos side-by-side. One was an excellent, professional shot of a bespectacled young man, pale and gaunt, with thinning blonde hair and a toothy smile. The other might have been a mug shot but even the poor lighting, lack of make-up, and severe hairstyle couldn't mask that this was a striking woman. Of African-Armerican/Pakistani lineage, she was dark, exotic, fit, and didn't give a flip about anything but the mission.


". . . has now confirmed that medical genetic testing done on all the Mars crews and their families prior to launch has indicated that Doctor Sidney Barnes, the only civilian on the mission, is the biological father of Lieutenant-Commander Ophelia Dunsirn's illegitimate child who was born shortly. . ."


"Al-Hassanieh to Macridin on squawk-two-fiver-nine-orange. Mac, I understand your concerns and I trust your judgment. Just go—and I mean personally—and order Barnes to his quarters until further notice. No explanation. And let's get Ophelia in your office for a little chat, shall we? Blackout will continue until we sort this out. Thanks Mac. Over."

According to the duty log, Barnes should be at his station on the aft reactor.

When the Commander approached the little den next to the Pu-Be/Thermocouple Generator bay, he heard a voice.

"Barnes! Wake-up, Barnes! Awwwwww—Crap!"

He had just turned the corner when a bloody hand reached for the com panel and Lieutenant-Commander Dunsirn's stern, calm voice began to echo throughout the ship.

"MEDICAL EMERGENCY IN AFT-FIVE-C. REPEAT. MEDICAL EMERGENCY IN AFT-FIVE-C. WE HAVE A MAN DOWN. SLOW PULSE, RESPIRATION ZERO."

When she looked-up and saw Macridin floating there, she released the button and lowered her voice.

"There's been an accident, Commander. I'm starting CPR."

[center]To Be Continued...

[hr][hr][/center]


[center]Dead Bored

By:
Casey Callaghan[/center]



He sat.

He watched the radar screen.

He sat.

He watched the radar screen.

Technically, Lt. Cmdr. Dunsirn was doing sterling work in ensuring that the spaceship "Aphelion 2" did not run afoul of some bit of unmapped space debris, drifting into its path and ruining a few billion dollars of taxpayer's money. The fact that if it happened, it would kill him and the other five members of the crew as well, was considered less important to the people back on Earth. People were replaceable. A few billion dollars lost, however, would lead to embarrassment on the part of some official of the chairborne division back on Earth, and that was inexcusable.

Hence the radar screen. Everyone had a watch - even the Captain came down for his daily four hours.

But there never was anything more than an odd grain of dust, an excuse to - oh, the excitement! - take out the logbook, note that a dust grain was not on a collision course and not moving fast enough to do any damage even if it was, and put the logbook back.

Dead.

Boring.

There was the clicking noise of someone moving down the corridor in a pair of magnetic boots. Automatically, Dunsirn's mind attached itself to the clicking. It would naturally be Jones, who had vertigo if he moved without the magnetic boots, no doubt headed off to check on the plants in his little greenhouse once again. After two months on the same ship, everyone knew almost all there was to know about everyone else. Their hobbies; Captain Curtis had his bonsai tree (a smile still flickered over Dunsirn's face whenever he remembered the man back on earth - "You want to bring a tree for your recreational allowance?" and the Captain's deadpan answer - "And my clippers and other tools, yes."), Jones his greenhouse, Smith and Zwelitini their interminable philosophical discussions on the nature of the both universe and free will, and finally Chang, who would simply practice some esoteric form of martial arts, sometimes for hours on end. He said it cleared the mind.

Dunsirn himself had taken a collection of his favourite books. It had been a mistake. One can only fit so many books into the recreational weight allowance, and he'd now read them all, except one, a dozen times each, and hardly felt capable of facing them again. He wondered briefly if Smith had finished the one that he had borrowed yet.

Books. History books. Once again, the point popped into his mind. No-one knew who the second person to step onto the moon was. No-one could tell who who had run a four-minute mile... second. No-one, he was sure, would ever know who had been the second in command of the second spaceship to land on Mars. Probably no-one would remember even Captain Curtis' name, though he had a chance of making it into the history books if something happened to Captain Dahl soon after arrival.

But for Lt. Cmdr. Dunsirn - not a hope. Unless something happened on the voyage, of course.

He stared at the radar screen again. Someone had arranged that it would show the time at the bottom. This, Dunsirn felt, merely made the torture more exquisite, as it showed you quite clearly how long was left in your shift.

In this case - another three hours until Zwelitini arrived.

He sighed, and tried unsuccessfully not to think of depressing subjects.

--------------

The boredom of their voyage was taking its toll on the other crew members too, Dunsirn noticed later at lunch. They'd decided to spend some weeks sampling the food of other cultures, just for a bit of variety. Unfortunately, Chang's cooking skills were poor enough in full Earth gravity; under the conditions imposed by null-grav, when a stray crumb could wreak havoc by getting in someone's eye, and with the limits imposed by their food stores, his efforts were... well, "abysmal" was probably the wrong word. "Abysmal", Dunsirn felt, might even be an improvement.

"Chang." said the captain, "these eggs are burnt."

"Yes, Captain." replied Chang meekly. "I don't know how it happened."

"Humph. What did you do? Put them back because you thought they weren't done yet?"

"I only did that once!" objected Jones immediately.

"It might help," observed Zwelitini, "if someone could have spared the budget for a proper chef."

"He'd have problems, too." pointed out Dunsirn, morosely. "All the equipment is so different from standard Earthside systems, that -"

"He'd have to relearn cookery from the ground up." chorused everyone at the table.

A few bites later, Zwelitini asked "Do we have nothing better to do than moan about the food over lunch?"

"You're right." said Chang. "We must think of a different subject to occupy our minds. If we are happy, time will pass quickly, and we will get to Mars sooner."

"Before someone snaps and kills somebody?" asked Dunsirn.

"Now, you see," replied Chang, "that is the wrong action. You are infecting us all with your negative moods. Think of sunlight, of happy things. If you cannot, then keep your negativity in and your mouth shut."

Dunsirn sighed inwardly, but he knew that Chang was right. He kept his negativity in and his mouth shut.

As always, of course, he spun out his lunch as long as possible. Eating involved at least doing something.

Straight after lunch, he went off to the radar room to ask Smith if he'd finished the book yet. One wasn't supposed to disturb the radar operator, but radar operators nonetheless prayed for disturbances.

He headed off the the radar room, knocked, opened the door, and went inside.

Two minutes later, Captain Curtis arrived for his shift.

He did not expect to see Dunsirn in there. And he really did not expect to see Smith dead, a hole drilled through his chest, his head at an unnatural angle, his sightless eyes staring at Dunsirn, who was sobbing and frantically checking Smith's neck for a pulse.

[center]To Be Continued...

[hr][hr][/center]


[center]Best When Served Cold

by:
N.J. Kailhofer[/center]



She pulled down the visor on her helmet. Earth would see her face less that way.

"Dunsirn," Jericho called over the radio, "How aboot we wrap this thing up, eh? Your elapsed EVA time is nearly six hours, now."

Canadians, she thought. How can Heidi stand Pete's accent?

Dunsirn replied, "The housing is stuck. I'm working on it."

"I think you just like showing off for the cameras, but I'm pretty tired of wearing this suit all day as your backup, you know. It's hard as hell to push buttons with these damn gloves on."

She peered over her shoulder toward the CCD camera on the dish. She had little doubt that a lot of Earth was indeed watching her struggle to fix the next mechanical hiccup of the mission.

No, she reminded herself. They're watching the ugly astronaut try again, not Lieutenant Commander Amanda Dunsirn doing her job. After Aphelion One touches down a day ahead of us, they'll forget Two even exists. If the main electrical junction hadn't fried, I wouldn't even be getting airtime.

The nut finally budged. "I figured it out. We should change the manual that the top two bolts are reversed so you have to turn them the opposite direction from the bottom two."

Jericho laughed. "I'll add it to today's glitch list right after the beef jerky that was mislabeled as freeze-dried broccoli."

"Oh, great," she said with a mocking tone. "Can't wait to see what your wife cooked up."

Jericho didn't answer for a minute. "Heidi says Francesco and Yosuke kept it down, so whatever it is, it will fill you up. All righty. You're in the way of the camera, but I see the housing is open. How much longer on that bypass, Commander? Let's get it done out there, eh?"

'Commander?' Oh, I dared to criticize the wife. Heidi's just a mission specialist without much to do until we land... added at the last minute. She had less time in space than anyone, and she's the worst cook I've ever met.

Men. Anything for a set of big boobs.

"Almost there, sir. You should see some subsystems start to flip green."

"Roger that."

The last connection. "Wait. Something's wrong. That shouldn't--"

[center]#[/center]

"Amanda? C'mon, wake up, sailor." Jericho sounded worried.

Dunsirn's eyes struggled to open. Dr. Jandrain's face floated in front of her, with Jericho's behind.

"Do you have to shine that light in my eyes, Chandra?"

Jandrain looked relieved. "How are you feeling?"

"Why won't my arms move? What's wrong with the right side of my face? It feels numb."

The doctor frowned. "With luck, your arms will regain movement when some more of the swelling near your spinal cord goes down. I'm sure the hundred doctors Mission Control has working on your results will know more."

"What?!"

Jericho leaned in. "One of the units in that panel exploded. Shot right through your helmet into your face and neck. By the time I could get you back in, you were pretty damn close to dead."

"How bad is it?"

Jandrain glanced at Jericho, but then put on a calm expression. "We'll know better about after we've run tests, but I have no doubt there will be significant scarring. This was beyond my skills. If One hadn't slowed so both Doctor Adams and I could work on you, I believe you would not have survived."

Dunsirn swallowed hard. "I want to see it."

Jericho shook his head. "I don't think you want to do that just yet."

"Pete, I deserve to know."

The two looked at each other, then Jericho sighed. "All right, but look, Amanda. Just remember you're lucky to be alive. It was a miracle it didn't hit your jugular."

Jandrain lifted the bandages and Jericho held a mirror. A wide, jagged gash, held together by a swath of stitches started high on her right cheek and ran down to the nape of her neck.

"My God." I'll be known as the hideous, ugly cripple that went to Mars.

Her whole career passed in front of her eyes, from basic to flight school to the competition to be the Navy's representative on the mission. In the end Dunsirn always believed she was chosen over the others because her face made for a better photo op.

"Do they know what caused the explosion?"

Jericho sighed. "Human error."

[center]#[/center]

"You need to eat." Heidi brought the fork to Dunsirn's mouth. "C'mon, let the choo-choo in."

"Drop dead."

"Squid wimp."

Dunsirn's eyes narrowed to slits. "Yeah, not tough like you, jarhead. But at least I'm smart enough not to switch on the electric heaters while a shipmate is working on the lines."

"You know about that?"

"Pete told me."

Heidi broke the long, uncomfortable silence. "Ironic, isn't it? You always thought you were better than me, and now you're laying here like a lump, dependent on me to keep you fed and alive. Who's the important one now?"

Dunsirn spit in her face. "I don't know what Pete saw in you."

Heidi smirked. "Everything he didn't see in you."

"When I can move again, I'm going to strangle you with my bare hands."

Heidi laughed. "Ooo. Scary. Here, eat your mush."

She shoved in a fork full.

Dunsirn gagged. "What is this crap?"

"Humble pie, as far as you know."

Dunsirn's fist leapt up from the bed, connecting with Heidi's chin. Amanda stared, moving her hand in front of her face. Her other hand joined it.

Heidi smiled at her. "Chandra was right. I just needed to make you mad enough to get the connections working again."

Amanda smiled, too.

[center]#[/center]

The airlock cycled. Dunsirn thought about her recovery during the months since: tests, exercise, and improvised physical therapy. Hardly anyone on Earth remembered her name, but they all knew her wounded face.

"Aboot time you got in. Longest EVA of the mission--" Jericho froze in the doorway.

Just inside the airlock, Heidi's body floated at her feet.

[center]To Be Continued...

[/center]


Pictures of the ships and information about the Aphelion Project Shared Universe can be found here:
http://www.aphelion-webzine.com/series/bwsu/index.html


[hr][hr]


Results will be kept hidden on the poll until it closes. Guests are welcome to vote.

Open and frank discussion of the entries is encouraged, but an author politicking for votes is bad form, so please don't do that.

[kailhofer]

I'd be lying if I said I was happy about how much participation this time out. 2 entries and the story I originally wrote as an example.

I'm grateful to Bill and Casey for their entries, don't get me wrong. Good stuff, guys.

But this contest depends on all of you, the greater community of reader/writers out there. Obviously, something about this one didn't appeal to a broad base. Next month will be the continuation as advertised, but if I want to keep improving on things in upcoming months, I need to know what people didn't like about this one, or things that you did like from previous ones you'd like to see more of.

I want this to be fun for you. What would you like to see?? What don't you want to see??

No wrong answers here. Please! I'd really like to know what you think.

Nate

[kailhofer]

Which brings me to my point. This story took some research from everybody who entered. if nothing else, they had to carefully read the Bill Warren link, think about how the ships were constructed and also think about how everything was laid-out before they could even start to develop a plot.

Not only this, but it's set-up to be a mystery story. . .it almost has to be a who-dunnit. That's not an easy thing to do with flash.

So this challenge kind of had a double whammy going against it. It was going to take some research and forethought just to develop the 'world' that these folks live in. Add to this that it was also going to have to set-up a mystery with motive, opportunity and a dead-or-dying body floating around.

I wouldn't be surprised if several folks decided to take this challenge on and were simply overwhelmed by the magnitude of it.

Well, supposing that's true, why then aren't many people voting on it? They only have to read 3,000 words to vote. That's shorter than one story can be in Robert's section.

On the other side of the coin, while you would have to look at the Bill Warren pages, you're given a setting, a character, and no hard science was required. And all of the stories seemed to make the plot about friction between the characters. You could just as easily had the junior crew member nailed in the head by a micrometeorite or mechanical failure, but that isn't what seems to be the case. So, 6 people in a big can, not getting along... somebody's going down.

It didn't seem that hard to me, but obviously I've thought about it more than that just trying to create the challenge.

The part of this challenge that is truly inspired is the concept of first picking the first half and then everyone trying to finish that story in their own unique way.

The problem, I think, was that the first half was a real booger.

My two cents and worth every nickel of it.

Bill Wolfe

Well, I thought it was cool, of course, but it was based on a suggestion from a previous entrant. I can't claim sole inspiration. Plus, I really, really hope more people take advantage of the longer deadline to join in on part 2.

I'd love to hear from someone who didn't enter this time but has before. Those people know what a normal one is like to complete and why this one didn't win them over. Dave? Jaimie? J.B.? G.C.? McCamy? Anybody?

Nate

[kailhofer]

Congratulations to Bill Wolfe, for his story "Old Wounds", winner of part one of the Aphelion Project Challenge, and well won.

His story will serve as the one to be completed in the second half of the challenge, which will be posted immediately. (Everyone now knows which story to complete, so there's no point in waiting.)

My thanks also go out to Casey Callaghan for his entry, his first in these challenges. I hope he will try again in the 2nd half, as well as in the future. At the least, we shall have to give Bill a run for his money, as it were.

Nate

[kailhofer]

I thought I'd be the boldly clever fellow who made Lt. Cmdr. Dunsirn a female officer. Turns out I wasn't the only one thinking along those lines. Nate did it, too. But his Dunsirn is much less the supergirl that I imagined and much more flawed, more human, more interesting. So now I'm as interested in the ending to Nate's story as I am my own.

Congrats to Bill! I can't wait to see how the story ends. Actually, I'd like to see how each story ends. They're all good. Perhaps after the contest we can see not only the winner's ending, but the endings proposed by the original writers, too.

I think I can respond to both of these at once.

I think there's no problem with hearing what I or Casey had in mind, and no reason to wait. We didn't win, so there's no reason for secrecy for us. Only Bill's intentions should be kept to himself, especially if he wants to enter in the 2nd half.

In all honesty, I never thought mine all the way through. Instead, I was just trying to make sure there were enough undercurrents that someone could pick and choose between them or instead turn them into blind alleys in the second half. If I had to choose, I guess I would have done something that switched the reader back and forth as to whether or not she killed Heidi or if it was suicide, who-dunnit style, until some kind of sudden reveal that shocked at the end. Maybe even that Heidi wasn't dead. Then again, I thought it might be cool for the series to have a villain, and since there's a good possibility there aren't people on Mars, they'd have to bring the villain with them. Her scars would visually set her aside, but the mental scars that went with them maybe would have given her a skewed perspective as well. Plus, I wanted a person that felt deep and real. At least, as much as can be done in only 1,000 words anyway.

I became hung up on a visual image of her scarred face looking out through her helmet visor on EVA with the long body & main dish of Ap II stretched out behind her with the field of stars behind that (maybe even with a smaller reflection of the oncoming Mars on her visor). Kind of cried out to be a poster or illustration to me... since the whole series is based on an illustration to begin with... I just tried to write a story that made that image seem plausible.

That was the intent, anyway.

Nate

[Robert_Moriyama]

...However, after submitting it, I did have a thought. What if a micrometeor approached at almost exactly c? It would punch through the ship like a bullet through a tissue - and anything (or anyone) in its way...

It would have to be more like a picometeor (or is "nano" smaller than "pico"?) to avoid vaporizing the whole ship. Kinetic energy = mass x (velocity squared), so if an eentsy bit of dust happened to strike the ship at something close to ('c' minus ship's velocity, assuming the ship and particle are moving in opposite directions along the same 'line'), it would release an enormous amount of energy on impact. We're talking heat, concussive force, and maybe even gamma rays. The hull breach at point of impact would be (I would guess) AT LEAST large enough to make it difficult to patch; if there was anything left of the dust particle after that, it would do progressively less damage with each successive impact, but there would be little doubt about what had happened (what with the trail of destruction and venting atmosphere and such).

Bill? Other physics types?

Of course, the particle could be going a lot less than 'c' and still penetrate the hull and Smith... but again, I'm pretty sure it would cause an easily detectable leak with a continuing pressure loss that loose debris could not stop. (If there was leakage at all, it WOULD be detected fairly quickly -- loss of atmospheric pressure is BIG TROUBLE on a spacecraft or space station, especially if there's no lifeboat handy.)

RM