Trajectory Book 1 (New Providence) Read online

  The plots appeared on the screen against the stars. A dash-dotted line indicating an inferred path with each dot representing a flash.

  Ortega continued. “We can tell where it’s headed, and we’re starting to get better depth data, but we’re still not certain. Last known point of contact — Pandora — gives us a pretty good line.”

  Emma stared at the plot. At the right of the image, were a few dozen blips until the Pandora explosion. It was illustrated by a larger dot. Then the smooth curve where the object radically altered its course putting it on track to Calypso.

  “Do you have an extrapolation for Calypso’s destination and a prediction of where the object should be around their intersection?” She had a pretty good guess where they’d be.

  “Calypso’s burn pattern and velocity are making that hard to predict.” Ortega hadn’t really moved since they had set up in here. Other than to type his hands remained in his lap the whole time. Sitting straight. “Today, they’ve been altering their burn direction. Their orientation keeps changing, adding what appears to be a spiral to their trajectory.”

  Emma smiled. Her dad was being tricky. He used to tell her about yacht racing on Earth. How you could sail in a zig-zag course to throw off your opponents. “Yeah, he’ll keep doing that. Expect it to get crazier.” She hoped he wasn’t going to mess up his orbital insertion. Or miss Mars altogether. “We’ll have to keep plotting his course. They may need some corrections from us if they get off-line.” Or worse.

  Ortega nodded.

  “So, we should be able to get a rough destination volume where we can expect them around encounter time.” She wished Greg were here. He was really good at these navigational calculations. She looked again at the object’s path and its too-fast line across the stars. “Can we infer anything about the object from this data?”

  Ortega looked at her. “All we have is velocity and direction on two axes.” He thought for a second. “And one known point on the third axis, backed up by some emerging parallax data.” Emma could see his brain working the way his eyes defocused.

  Emma sat forward, hands on the table. “Right. But we know that velocity is too fast for that position. So we know it’s not in a regular orbit, if it’s in an orbit at all. We also know it was able to do a massive course correction in a very short time,” she pointed at the curve, “we should be able to establish some bounds on the object’s mass and maybe some values for–”

  She stopped. Ortega watching her.

  “I’m an idiot. These things aren’t reflections. They’re burns!”

  Ortega blinked at her. “Wasn’t that obvious?”

  Emma’s eyes widened. “Are you serious? You knew that?”

  Ortega fidgeted. “It was obvious when it performed the S-curve. The course change implied an exerted force.”

  Emma felt her face get warm again. She felt like an idiot.

  Ortega carried on, oblivious to the tiny crisis forming in front of him. “But if I am interpreting what you’re suggesting, we should be able to infer the mass of the object based on these ‘burns’ and the course corrections required to maintain an intercept course with our ships.” He smiled, pleased. Not necessarily with himself but for having a conversation based around his observations and data.

  Emma nodded. “Yeah, that’s what I’m wondering.” She was thinking again. “If these things are burns, they’re tiny. They barely show up on our optics they’re so short. Like, sub second burn times. What kind of engine can do that?”

  “I don’t know.” Ortega unconsciously rubbed his chin with a knuckle.

  Emma’s tablet beeped and a new message notification popped up on it. From Jerem. She smiled but forced herself to put it aside to read later.

  “It could be a small fission pulse.”

  Emma looked at him.

  “Freeman Dyson proposed a space ship design back in the mid-twentieth century based on a theory by Stanislaw Ulam using nuclear fission for propulsion. Gamma ray lasers fired at uranium pellets to produce fission inside a directed cone would produce directional thrust…”

  “That sounds huge.” Emma considered this. She’d read about Project Orion in her History of Physics course. The proposed designs were massive. “Also, dirty. Wouldn’t we be receiving a lot of extra noise from the boosts?”

  Ortega remembered Pradeep’s x-ray bursts and put them aside for now. Wrong emissions. “Yes, we’d be picking up wide spectrum noise if these detonations were in the terajoule range. Most of the theories around these devices were never tested and measured in kilotons of TNT explosives.”

  Emma looked at the chart again. She got up and walked over to the screen. “How much force would it take to move a ship like that along this curve?”

  Ortega started entering some values into his tablet.

  Emma stopped him. “A lot.” She pointed at the screen again. “I think we’re looking at something much much smaller.”

  045

  New Providence.

  Tamra had been awake for a few hours. She was cold and clammy in her bed. Unable to get comfortable.

  She heard the door slide open and close and some thumping in the living room. “Greg?”

  More thumping. Footsteps outside her room. Then her door slid open and Greg stuck his head in. “Hey babe. How’re you feeling?”

  Tamra felt miserable and started coughing. “Where did you go?”

  He came in and sat on the bed. “Was at the Reef. Can I get you anything?”

  “No.”

  “You feel any better?” Greg tried to fluff Tamra’s pillow with her head still on it, failed.

  “Not really.”

  “Well, at least you’re not passed out on the floor.” Greg smiled and brushed a hair out of her face. “You’re still warm though. I’ll get you some more water and some ibu.”

  He left the room. Tamra sighed and tried to get comfortable.

  Some rummaging sounds from the kitchen. He came back a minute later with a glass of water and a couple of gels. “Here ya go.”

  She sat up with some effort and took the pills. Sitting made her feel woozy and she dropped back down onto her pillow.

  “You heard from Emma yet?” Greg sat on the floor.

  “Haven’t really been checking my messages.”

  “Oh.” Greg looked at his feet. One of his socks had a hole in the toe. “Wonder if she made it up there ok?”

  Tamra struggled with her blanket. “You don’t have to sit here. I’m fine.”

  Greg smiled. “You’re sick. Get some rest. I’ll go sit on the couch.”

  She tried to argue but was cut off by a coughing fit.

  Greg got up and left the room. He felt guilty leaving her earlier, but he wasn’t doing much good here. She didn’t really want him making a fuss either. Or did she? It was hard to tell.

  Greg took out his tablet and turned it on. He re-read the message from the work assignment people asking him to report in. He wished he had more vodka.

  046

  Lighthouse, 19:00. The boardroom.

  Mancuso winced as he lowered himself into the chair at the head of the table. The room was lit up by screens showing various orbital plots and mathematical equations – lots of differential calculus, transform matrices and greek letters.

  “Ok, tell me what you’ve got.” It had been only an hour and a half since Ortega and Franklin started breaking down the object’s path. It looked like they’d been busy. Wilkins joined them with Mancuso and sat at the far end of the table, his back to them reading the math on the board.

  Dr. Ortega blinked. He seemed to be collecting himself.

  Emma broke the silence. “Commander, we’ve been working on calculating the trajectory of the object and have come up with some new data as a result. The data suggests certain physical parameters.”

  Mancuso nodded. “Do we have an accurate trajectory for it yet?”

  The chief of science almost smiled. “Oh, yes. That’s the easy part, but given the object’s capab
ilities it seems like that could change dramatically.” He and Emma had spent the last hour going through their findings. He was reasonably confident what they had was accurate now. He liked being accurate.

  “I see.” Mancuso gripped the arms of his chair. “Broadcast that telemetry out to our ships right away. Send them your calculations so they can verify. Ms. Franklin, I’ll let you have the honors of sending the message.”

  “Ok, but… don’t you want to hear the rest of it?” Emma was having a hard time containing her enthusiasm. Oh, to be young again. Mancuso was having a hard time just staying awake.

  “Sure. Give me the executive summary.”

  Emma smiled. “Based on the motion of the object, we know a couple of things: Velocity and position. Velocity we have to infer based on known coordinates…”

  Mancuso held up a hand. “I said ‘executive’ summary. That means short and sweet, Ms. Franklin.”

  Wilkins snorted, lounging in his seat at the end of the table.

  Emma ignored it. “Uh… Right. So, after Pandora, we saw the object make a really rapid course adjustment and then it shot off in a different direction. If the flashes we’re seeing are burns, and Nelson seems to think so,” she indicated Ortega with a brief glance, “then we’re able to make some guesses about the object’s mass. And it’s thrust capabilities.”

  Mancuso raised an eyebrow. “OK, you got my attention. What are we looking at?”

  Ortega pointed at one of the screens covered in force calculations. “We think it’s around one to ten cubic meters in volume, mass is less than a tonne. Anything larger than that would require more thrust to create the motion we’re seeing. It’d be producing more light when it flashed.”

  Mancuso digested that for a moment. “But… that’s tiny. We’re talking about something the size of this table.” He pounded it lightly with his fist for emphasis.

  “I know, right?” Emma reined in her excitement. Reminded herself that this object was chasing down her father’s ship. She continued more soberly. “There’s more.” She began typing on her tablet and brought up the video of the Pandora’s last moments.

  “I hadn’t been thinking too much about this until today. I didn’t get much time to really spend with it before the flight. There are two flashes. Bright, normal flash, then a smaller one.” She looked back at Mancuso. “I think it fired a projectile. Maybe a missile.”

  Wilkins sat up and leaned forward on the table. “That’s a bit of a leap, isn’t it?”

  Emma paused the looped video at the first flash. “This first flash is out of sequence with its normal blinking. This happened a few milliseconds before…” She advanced the frame, “the next, smaller flash. I believe that this smaller flash is a weapon boosting towards Pandora.” Emma looked between Mancuso and Wilkins.

  Mancuso took in this new information like he’d been given a piece of mould and told to eat it.

  “There’s more too. The next flash from the object didn’t happen until after Calypso’s next burn and course correction. Roughly 312 seconds later.”

  “Roughly.” Mancuso smiled.

  “The object’s next boost was almost ten arc-seconds higher than its previous track. It’s burn right before Pandora was nearly straight up.”

  Ortega was nodding.

  “It boosted away from the missile and Pandora. Got out of the blast before it happened.”

  “This thing’s a goddamned acrobat.” Mancuso banged on the table with an open hand. “Ok, send out the current telemetry to our ships. Then I want you both to get this data into a separate info package and broadcast it out. They need that telemetry first.”

  Emma nodded making a note on her tablet.

  Mancuso continued, “I don’t want any of this information outside of the command deck. This is classified. If anybody on Mars asks about it, you are to say nothing and direct them to me. Is that clear?”

  Emma looked at Ortega and they both nodded. Wilkins made a sour face.

  “Alright. Get that data out there.” Mancuso got up slowly, knees cracking, and added, “Nice work.” He limped back to the deck.

  047

  The Terror.

  Francine and Vanessa were in the cockpit going over the latest telemetry from Control. The ship cruising on autopilot at a comfortable 0.2G.

  Vanessa wolf-whistled, “Edson’s trying to set some kind of record.”

  Francine grimaced. “Not a good one.”

  The latest data showed Calypso’s expected route extend out conically from its last known position with a spherical destination around the expected rendezvous point with the object.

  The sphere represented a volume of space roughly half a million kilometers in diameter. Nearly half the distance from Mars to Watchtower at the L2 Lagrange point.

  “That’s a pretty big playground he’s building.” Vanessa munched on a carrot.

  “Let’s hope its big enough, but not too big.” Francine looked at the remaining distance to Mars. It was already beginning to move away from them and she wondered if Edson could get his ship back into safe orbit. It was a tight window and they had a lot of velocity behind them. The Terror’s trajectory was relaxed by comparison.

  More crunching.

  Winston’s head popped up into the cockpit. “Hey ladies.”

  Vanessa inclined her head at him slightly, the stub of her carrot in her teeth.

  Francine turned to look at him. “Hey. I’m showing a slight imbalance from our cargo. Wondering if it’s shifted. Can you check it out? I’m having to compensate more than we did yesterday and it’s throwing us off course.”

  “A’right, skip. I got it.” Winston slid back down the ladder and into the equipment bay.

  He radioed back up, “Hey skip? I think I see the problem.”

  Francine was surprised. “That was quick. What is it?”

  “We sprung a leak.”

  Through the porthole in the equipment bay, Winston could see a stream of shiny water crystals spraying out from the cargo pod underneath them.

  They were losing their cargo.

  Reggie dropped into the equipment bay and peered through the porthole beside Winston. “Holy shit!”

  “Looks like a slow leak, at least, but it’s near the aft end of the pod. Means it’ll keep leaking if we don’t seal that up.” Reggie nodded.

  Winston frowned. “Slow or not, we’ll lose a good chunk of that H2O before we get home.” He clicked his intercom back on. “Captain, we should cut the engines and fix this.”

  Francine radioed down on the ship’s intercom. “Let’s meet in the galley and talk it out.”

  The crew rattled up and down the ladders and met in the middle section. Reggie filled the kettle and put it on to boil while everybody else took their seat at the small table bolted into the floor.

  Francine hung onto the ladder, keeping close to the hatch in case she had to climb back up to the cockpit. “How much have we lost?”

  Winston shrugged. “We don’t know yet. Fact that it showed up on your instruments makes me think we’ve lost a lot. Maybe a ton?” They had no real instruments in the pod itself. It was just a dumb can they could fill up via an assortment of hatches and valves.

  Vanessa. “How’d we get a hole back there, anyway? You said it’s aft. If we hit something it’d be at the front.”

  Reggie’s kettle started boiling and beeped at him. “Not necessarily. Could have been a fast-mover hit it going sideways.” He poured some of the boiling water into bulbs, micro crystals of coffee foamed inside. He passed them around and took a seat.

  Vanessa took hers. “Lucky shot. Lucky for us.” She shuddered and put her hands around the bulb for warmth.

  A loud ping rang through the ship.

  Everyone’s eyes widened and Francine bolted up the ladder, jumping up past the bunks and into the cockpit. She yelled down on her way up, “Get me eyes outside! Now!”

  The crew scrambled. Untouched bulbs of coffee sitting on the table. One rolled off the edge and bo
unced off the floor, spilling.

  048

  Calypso.

  “Engine shutdown in thirty seconds.” Edson called out over the intercom. Straining against the gravities. Several warning lights were flashing on his console.

  Calypso shut down her engines and slid into a drift. The tail section glowing from the intense heat. The gimbals turning a slow rotation as the ship tumbled forward. Edson gave a shot of orientation thrust to level them out.

  Edson scanned the console. Radiation. Temperature. Fuel imbalance. The ship needed a break. They all did.

  “Engines will be offline for three hours. Get some rest.” Edson slid the controls to the sides and locked his console. He released the belts from his seat and drifted up over the controls. He stretched out and rotated his head about his neck trying to loosen his stiff muscles. He was sore. Feeling old.

  Messages started coming in from Control as the wide-band radio locked onto Mars.

  Carl floated into the cockpit and pushed over to the console. “Jesus, Edson. Are you trying to kill the ship yourself?”

  Edson heaved himself back down to the deck from a wall panel and grabbed onto his seat. “As opposed to what? Letting something else do it for us?”

  Carl grimaced. “The reactor’s way too hot. You’re gonna melt it down. If something fails back there we won’t be able to get near it to fix it because of all the radiation.”

  Edson looked at Carl, could see the anxiety on his face. “The ship’ll hold.”

  Edson flipped through the messages and put up the latest batch of telemetry data on the big screen. He compared their version with his own inertial data. They were spot on. He considered altering his flight plans further to add some additional variability.

  Carl looked at the rendezvous estimation. “Skip, I know you made your call earlier today. When I was talking about starting deceleration burns. I wanna ask you to reconsider. We should start braking now.”

  Edson gritted his teeth. He didn’t like it when his crew questioned his decisions. It was his ship.