Trajectory Book 1 (New Providence) Read online

  Carl could see Edson’s jaw clenching, the muscles around his temples pulsed, his goatee jutting out like a spike. He pushed on undeterred, “It’s just that… Look at the rendezvous point.” He pointed at the ball in space. “If we start braking now we can maybe stay outside of it. That thing’ll blow right past us.”

  Edson studied the map again. “And we’ll be blind.” If they flipped over, they’d be pointing their engines towards Mars. A good chunk of the ship would be in the way of their antenna array. They wouldn’t even be able to get low bandwidth telemetry from Control.

  Carl nodded. “I know. I thought of that. We can still do temporary flips to grab some data.”

  Edson floated around and looked at his crewman. “What’s Ben say?”

  Carl shrugged, floating off the deck plate. “I dunno. I didn’t want to ask him about it without getting your say-so first.”

  Edson exhaled and called down over the intercom. “Trig, can you come up to the cockpit?” Carl had done the right thing bringing it him first. He was glad for that kindness.

  A few seconds later Ben floated into the control room, hung from the ladder by the hatch. “Hey. What’s up?”

  “Hey. You get to play tie-breaker.” Edson looked down at his hands gripping the back of his chair, forced himself to relax. “Two options: First, we keep doing periodic heavy burns towards Mars. We flip once we’re past the rendezvous point with the object.” He nodded at the screen showing their flight path.

  “Second option: We start braking now. Decelerate, try to avoid the rendezvous completely and let the object fly past us. We’ll be in the dark while we’re braking.”

  Ben looked back and forth between Edson and Carl. Trying to read them. He realized he was now in the middle of some sort of power-play Carl had started and didn’t want anything to do with it. “Shit, I dunno, man. I break rocks for a living.” He grabbed some of the webbing above the co-pilot’s seat and hung from it. “What’s the best option to get me home to my lady?”

  “Depends who you ask.” Carl looked at Edson, didn’t see any resistance so he forged on. “Look, our board’s lit up with warning lights all over it. If we keep going the way we’re going now, we might not make it to Mars anyway. If something blows on our way in, we’ll be going too fast to make orbit and too hot to fix it. At least if we do a slower, steady burn, we’ll slow down enough to make Mars. An’ hopefully miss the bogey to boot.”

  Ben considered this. “That sounds safer to me.” He thought about the horrible monstrosity below him in the airlock. “We’ve still got our bomb if we need it.”

  Edson shook his head. He could feel the tide shifting against him. He was still the captain, but he had more lives at stake than just his. They had families too. It was the crew’s call.

  Carl looked back and forth between them.

  “OK, let’s go with option two. How much longer is that going to take?”

  Carl grinned. “We’ll add on about a week. I already ran some plots.”

  A message indicator rang on the console. Edson took a look at it.

  “New data from Control.”

  Carl winced. The last time he felt like he’d convinced the Captain to put a stop to their mad race, they got a message from his daughter and Edson just blew him away.

  Edson hunched over the console, reading.

  “What’s it say, Captain?” Carl tried to get a look. He could feel the captain’s decision starting to falter.

  Edson kept reading. “It’s Emma. They have some new data. Looks pretty math-heavy.” He skimmed ahead, looking for the break-down. The object was small and really fast. They knew it was fast already, but it explained how it was able to do what it did – somewhat. If this thing really wanted to get to them, it looked like it would be able to.

  Carl was fidgeting. He picked up his steel thermos from the co-pilot’s chair and sloshed the nearly empty water around inside it. “What’s it say, Edson?”

  “She says they figured out some stuff about this thing. Says it’s small and really fast.” Where’d it get its fuel? It must only have a limited supply. What could they do against something that small? “If what I’m reading is true, I’m not sure we can evade it.”

  Ben was watching the two of them, a feeling of unease welling up in his gut. Something about Carl wasn’t right. He was anxious. Fidgeting like he had worms. He watched him flipping the thermos in the air between his hands and suddenly realized what he was about to do. “Carl, hold on…” Edson was between him and Carl behind his station, Carl floating on the opposite side between the two pilot’s seats.

  Edson was about to put the data up on the screen. He was still reading through Emma’s message and trying to see if there was anything they could use in it to give them an advantage. He felt if that thing was that small and that maneuverable, it wouldn’t matter what change they made to their course. “Let’s take a look at this.” Unaware of Carl behind him.

  Time slowed down as Ben stretched out from the ladder, weightless, sprang forward behind the Captain, over the passenger couch towards Carl.

  Carl cocked his arm back and jabbed the thermos forward, hitting Edson in the back of the head with it. Edson fell forward and down as Ben reached Carl with an outstretched arm around his chest. Carl, braced against the co-pilot’s seat managed to keep his swinging arm free and rammed the thermos forward again, pushing up with his feet, driving Edson’s face into the console with a smack before Ben got his other arm around his crew-mate, tumbling upwards from their combined outward inertias.

  The Captain was already unconscious, blood trickling out of his nose and mouth onto the console and into the air around his head. His body hanging limp as Ben struggled with Carl locking him in a bear hug.

  Carl was strong, almost as strong as he was and Ben struggled to get keep his arms contained. He wrapped his legs around Carl’s and locked them at the ankles, squeezing, preventing Carl from getting away. “Stop.” Ben wheezed. “Stop moving.”

  “No, yer not thinking right! You’ll kill me.” Carl got his arm out of the lock and wrapped it around Ben’s neck, twisting around at the hips, trying to reverse the hold. The two men spun around in the cockpit for a second, neither able to get hold of or away from the other. They bounced off a panel and Carl used it to push them away, faster.

  Ben squeezed his legs together and felt Carl’s knee pop.

  “Alright, alright! I give! Cut it out!”

  Carl went limp and Ben pushed him away from him, disgusted, before they crashed into the co-pilot’s console. Each of them turning back around towards the other in the air, arms and legs spreading out to slow their spins, heads locked onto each other as their bodies rotated around their necks.

  “What the fuck did you do?” Ben grabbed a toe-hold on some webbing and pushed himself to their injured Captain. He lifted him off the console gently. “Captain? Captain Franklin?”

  Ben looked back at Carl hanging near the panels, breathing hard, holding his knee. He checked Edson for a pulse, found one.

  “C’mon, Edson.”

  049

  Making Time.

  Jerem lounged in his seat in the cockpit. He was reading a book for his Earth Literature class. Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut. He’d picked it from a list of books his prof said hadn’t been read in a long time and was surprised when he started reading it that it was funny. Or had humorous writing, at least. It jarred against the title and was a strange counterpoint to the horrors he described later in the book. A lot of the situations didn’t make a lot of sense to Jerem, and he made a point to do some more research on World War 2 when he got home.

  The Great War.

  Earth fiction was strange and foreign to Jerem; nostalgic, out of context, disconnected. He was fascinated by the late Twentieth Century, the last period before the inflection point of the technological age and the end of the industrial. It intrigued him because they had a lot of information in various media about it, yet contrasted with the Twenty First, comp
aratively little was known about how people actually thought in their everyday lives.

  When the internet took off, everybody started writing on-line and a lot of it made it to the Earth Archive. You could read newsgroup posts and social media from places that no longer existed. Later, came the videos by the millions on every topic imaginable from all over the world. Most of it was terrible, but it was personal and you could learn to understand the thinking of the day by reading or watching – there was a connection. All they had from the pre-Internet were the warped depictions from the fiction of the day. Music, movies, books… Sure, there was a lot of non-fiction too. But the published news and most of the periodicals never made the archive. The limited sampling of television programs from that era were of such low quality that they seemed like they came from deep space.

  You could see the cultural impact of the time reflected in later years. It left a tangible mark across the decades. Whether it was the population of people that grew up with it, or some fascination that occurred later, it was visible in the output of the generations that followed right up until the Collapse. The big movies of the last decades became increasingly disconnected with reality, larger and more fantastic. It was hard to know what parts of the technology were real and what was fabricated. For that you had to look at what the individuals were producing and they were missing nearly the last decade of that. Immersive virtual reality never made the Archive.

  All of Earth culture seemed pretty weird, he had to admit. He imagined what it would be like to return to Earth in the 1980’s, 200 years ago. He’d be an alien to them… A Martian, he corrected himself. His appearance strange by their standards. Tall and thin. Pale but with a greyer cast to his skin. Light hair and blue eyes with slight epicanthic folds. He’d tell them he liked their music and wanted to try a pizza and they should take him to their leader. Maybe it was a sitcom.

  The ship lights were dimmed, running the evening section of their automated program dipping into red past orange. The Sun, nearly 2.4AU distant was casting faint yellow light through the darkened windows overhead.

  22:00.

  Hal was racked-out in his bunk catching some sleep. They’d both gone over the last transmission from Control earlier. He was still trying to make sense of it.

  His father wasn’t really interested. He took in the information and then went to his bunk. Like he’d been shown a ship’s manifest.

  He’d always been a pretty reserved guy, but he was even more withdrawn since Mom died two years ago. They both missed her, but it was harder on his father. He wore it on his face.

  Jerem wondered what Tamra was up to. He hadn’t spoken to her in a few days. He hoped she was alright.

  He got up and hauled himself over to the pilot’s seat. They were still running a nominal 0.3G. Almost Martian gravity. The nav display showed them on their trajectory below the ecliptic on a steady arc towards Mars. Four days behind Calypso.

  The display updated to the latest from Lighthouse, showing the event a day ahead of Edson’s ship. A dash-dotted line representing the interpreted path of the bogey spread out into a curved conic projection ending in a sphere. A volume representing the possible position of the object given potential corrections. The other bubble labeled MSS18 overlapped a good portion of the object’s bubble indicating their rendezvous.

  Calypso was etching a wobbly line up until today. Current telemetry showed them on a straight line, adrift and powered-down. Their event bubble decreasing in size as it became more predictable. Inevitable.

  Jerem hoped they knew what they were doing.

  He picked up his tablet and continued reading his book, trying to stay awake.

  So it goes.

  050

  New Providence.

  Tamra woke up from a restless sleep. She’d been awake off and on all night, having weird fragments of dreams. She felt better, at least – didn’t feel like she was sticking to the bed anymore and that was a plus.

  She got up and wrapped her blanket around her. She slid her door open and padded into the living room. Greg was still snoring on the couch.

  Tamra went into the kitchen and got herself a glass of water which she started drinking immediately. She felt dehydrated, mouth dry. She felt like she’d slept for a week. Her head and eyes hurt, though not as bad as they did yesterday. Her muscles were sore all over.

  She went back into the living room and sat down on the floor by the couch and got her tablet out. Four messages from Emma.

  She opened the latest one.

  Hey Tam, Hi Greg,

  I’ve been working with the science team on the station. I think I have an idea about what this thing is.

  She’s on the station? How long had she been out?

  I’m pretty sure it’s a robot. Or an automated probe of some kind. The way it moves, there’s no other way. It can’t have a crew on it.

  Doctor-the-station’s-chief-scientist-Ortega (I call him “Nelson” or sometimes just, “hey guy”) and I are trying to figure out what kind of propulsion could make it move like it does. Nelson’s pretty good with The Science.

  Greg, we could use your help figuring out a trajectory for it. We have something but it doesn’t really make sense. Turns out ol’ Nellie isn’t too big on THEORIES and likes cold hard data. So, yeah. A lot of what I’m putting out there doesn’t seem to get anywhere, but I keep trying to help out.

  Anyway, miss you both! I could use some Tam-and-Greg time in the Lounge, y’know? *hugs*

  em

  A robot? From Earth? She shivered and wrapped her blanket around herself. She opened up the next message and was treated to an eyeful of math. Ugh. She started coughing, a wheezing hack from deep in her chest.

  She put the tablet down and looked over her shoulder to see Greg watching her from the couch. “Oh. Hey. You’re awake,” she rasped.

  “Hey yourself.” Greg shifted, lifting his head up, and resting it on his hand so he could get a better look at her. “How’re you feeling?”

  “Better.”

  “You sound pretty bad. You get Em’s messages?” Greg sat up all the way and dropped down beside her on the floor. “Give me some of that blanket?”

  Tamra opened up a side and he squeezed in against her. “Careful, I’m gross.”

  Greg smiled and wrapped an arm around her waist. “No you’re not. You had a shower, remember?”

  She leaned against him and lifted her face to give him a kiss. He gave her a peck on the cheek. “I still don’t want to get what you’ve got.”

  Tamra pouted. “I’m probably not contagious anymore.” She coughed and wheezed and Greg recoiled. “Ok, maybe I am a little.”

  They were interrupted by a banging on the door. “Greg Pohl? Are you in there?” A voice boomed through the metal.

  Greg got up and Tamra scrambled up onto the couch with her blanket. He walked over and opened the door on two uniformed men from the city.

  Greg sagged when he saw them. “A little early for a visit, isn’t it?”

  One of them shrugged. “Are you Greg Pohl? We’ve had a hard time reaching you.”

  Greg nodded.

  The city official continued. “Get dressed and come with us, please. You’ve been selected for work detail.”

  Tamra spluttered and got off the couch. “You can’t just take him!”

  The man who’d been speaking, ELLER, P. according to the badge on his blue city uniform, stepped in and motioned for her to sit down. “Miss… Wheeler?” He consulted his tablet. “We’ve sent Mr. Pohl here repeated messages to report in. We have draft paperwork here, which we’d like you to sign as a witness, if you could.” He turned his tablet around and presented it to her.

  Greg turned. “It’s alright. It’ll be OK.”

  She felt herself begin to tear up. “But, your degree… What about me?”

  “I’m sure I’ll be back soon. It’s not like they’re going to send me into the mines or anything.” He laughed uneasily and looked back at the two men. “Just a second, I
have to get my bag.”

  They waited as Tamra watched him gather up his things into his backpack and sling it over a shoulder. He gave her one last peck on the cheek then turned to the two men with a sigh. “Ready.”

  Eller, still holding the tablet out lifted it up and took a picture of Tamra looking miserable and filed that as proof of witness. “Have a nice day,” he said as they left the apartment, Greg in tow.

  051

  Lighthouse.

  Mancuso opened his eyes. He’d been awake for hours. He turned his head and looked at the clock.

  5:15.

  He hoisted himself out of bed and glanced out the window. Little Deimos spinning above as he got dressed, twenty thousand kilometers above, a tiny speck against the star-speckled black. The pain in his arm and chest ached.

  He looked at the untouched box on his desk, bow still hanging off the top. Antique gold and brown lettering from a time long past faded and worn. He had no time left.

  He felt like he’d been here before and failed. Maybe the next Commander would be able to do a better job than he did, if they had the chance. It was likely that this was it for them. This thing hunting down their ships was probably just the first strike. There’d be others. They’d been given a hundred years to figure things out and come up empty.

  Mancuso walked through the dark and quiet crew quarters to the mess hall. He picked a couple of rusks off a tray and poured himself a coffee into his mug. He nodded at the cook behind the counter getting the cafeteria ready for the breakfast crowd.

  On the command deck, The station’s lights were midway through their slow shift from orange to blue as the day began.

  The doors opened and The Commander walked in.

  Sunil Pradeep turned to him as he entered. “We’ve lost contact with The Terror, sir.”

  Mancuso went to his seat. The limn of Mars rolled past the windows and a flash of sunlight brightened the room for a couple of seconds.

  Ortega was watching him.

  He felt the room spinning, which it was, technically. The station’s hab ring rotating about the central hub once every thirty seconds giving them livable gravity. But that didn’t explain the commander’s vertigo.