Trajectory Book 1 (New Providence) Page 15

  “What time did we lose them?” He looked at the nav boards, MSS02H had become a dashed line on screen.

  Pradeep checked his console, though he probably didn’t have to. “0413, sir.”

  “Why wasn’t I notified?”

  “We, uh, figured you could use some rest, David.” Nolan was still sitting casually over by Ortega’s station. Relaxed tension. He was a good leader, had command presence without being overbearing. The crew liked him.

  Mancuso looked down at his hands, realized he was still holding the rusks and his coffee. He was aware of Ortega standing beside him watching intently.

  “What is it, Nelson? Tell me you have some good news, please?” He paused. “Wait, have you been in here all night?”

  Ortega cleared his throat. “Yes. I’ve just been going over our predictions. For the object.”

  “And? Anything new?”

  Ortega shook his head. Hesitated. “Calypso’s been drifting for almost six hours. They missed a burn one hundred and eighteen minutes ago.”

  Jesus Christ. “I asked for good news.” They were getting close to their window. Fourteen more hours.

  “Pradeep, see if you can raise them.” He looked around the room, felt a rising worry in his gut like an acid wash. “I’ll be in the boardroom.”

  Mancuso left the deck and entered the small boardroom, setting his rusks and cooling coffee down on the table. His hands were trembling. He pulled out his tablet and looked over the messages. The boring, repetitive ritual calmed him. Five incident reports, two points of interest.

  They had four ships in dock undergoing refits. One of them was due to be space-worthy in just over a week. MSS12 Happenstance. She was scheduled to meet up with AS20894 Krumeich in a month.

  Captain Joseph Randall commanding.

  He wrote a message to Captain Randall summoning him and his crew to the station. They’d be on standby for a possible emergency mission. He tagged it urgent and sent it out.

  He dunked one of the rusks into his coffee and took a bite. Crumbs fell on his jacket but he didn’t pay much attention.

  They still had one more bird in flight and she wasn’t listed on any of the nav boards. They were still out pretty far, but he should probably update them.

  Subject: Unknown Object

  Please be advised. An object of unknown origin is tracking our ships. It’s taken one of them down. Object is hostile. Please monitor station broadcasts for updates, but maintain silent running. Be careful.

  He signed it and sent it up to Watchtower for secure laser transmission. They were just in range for Watchtower’s comm beam to reach them. Just inside Jupiter’s orbit, four astronomical units from the Sun.

  They’d be towing their prize home if all was well. Gone for two years. Christ, two years in space. It was both terrifying and strangely appealing to him. He craved quiet.

  Mancuso sipped his coffee and swallowed, the pain in his chest already starting again.

  He opened another new message and began writing.

  052

  Calypso.

  “What did you do? What did you do?” Ben’s eyes were wild and bloodshot as he yelled at Carl.

  Carl couldn’t look at Ben, he lowered his gaze and saw the thermos spinning near the floor. Captain Franklin floated behind Ben, unconscious. A blob of blood drifting above him getting larger as it accreted more from the smaller droplets dripping out of the Captain’s nose.

  “Just calm down, Trig. Everything’s going to be OK.”

  “Don’t tell me to calm down, you maniac! What the hell are we supposed to do? You just murdered our Captain!” Ben was yelling so hard, he was firing spit into the cockpit at Carl. A vein was pulsing on his neck. His ears and cheeks were bright red under his freckles from wrestling with his crewmate.

  “He’s not dead, he’s just unconscious. And we need to get him into his bunk before he gets blood into these controls.” Carl grabbed the captain’s arm and began dragging him towards the hatch. “Little help please?”

  “Get the fuck off him. I’ll move him.”

  “Ok, ok. I’ll clean this up.” Carl tried to avoid smirking. With Ben focused on taking care of the Captain he could get to work on the controls. Start getting their course under control.

  Ben maneuvered the captain into his bunk paying careful attention to his battered head.

  “I need a towel. He’s still bleeding.”

  Carl shot past into the galley and made some noise digging out what he needed. He was back in the crew section a moment later with a towel and a first aid kit. “Here. Get him fixed up and tied into his bunk. I’ll need to get us turned soon.”

  “Goddamn … you’re a goddamn monster, you know that? I can’t believe you did this.” Ben was dabbing at the Captain’s head where Carl had hit him. I big black bruise was swelling up and bleeding through a crack. He couldn’t see skull, at least. He got some gauze and some alcohol out of the first aid kit and dabbed at the wound before wrapping his head up. Then wiped his nose. Another bruise above his eye on his forehead was swelling up, his eye socket turning purple. “What’d he do to you, Skip? You look like you been in a fight and never even raised a hand.”

  Ben pressed him gently into his bunk and got the belts out from the sides under his mattress. He pulled them over the Captain and buckled him in.

  Ben put a towel under Edson’s head and kicked up to the cockpit. He was angry and debating whether he should throw Carl out the airlock, but needed him to pilot the ship. “You sonofabitch.” He shook his head. “I can’t believe you did this.”

  Carl looked at him, wiping blood off the console with a dirty towel. “Why? You wanted to watch him melt the ship with us in it? The way it was cooking I don’t even think we’d have made it to Mars.”

  “Did you forget about the bogey that’s trying to blow us up? It’s still out there last I heard.”

  “We don’t know that. For all we know it could have blown up with Pandora. Besides, our slower trajectory’s gonna help us miss that thing.”

  “Bullshit. They had visual on that after the explosion. They sent us video!” Ben crossed his arms. “The Captain was just about to agree with your suggestion before you brained him.”

  Carl shook his head. “Oh, the video his kid sent us? You believed that? No way. I know him. He was going to tell us he’s the captain and we’d do it his way. Seen it before.”

  “Whatever man. You just fucked us all.” Ben couldn’t look at Carl. Didn’t want to talk to him anymore. He was unhinged. The pressure had gotten to him.

  “It’ll work. You’ll see.”

  He gave the console one last wipe then wrapped the towel around a stray blob of blood in the air above him. When he was finished he inspected his handiwork, arms folded over his chest. He’d done it. It looked good.

  053

  Lighthouse.

  Emma Franklin stretched and rolled around in her bed. She was awake and feeling rested. She was surprised at how comfortable she was after her first night on the station.

  She went to the washroom and turned the heat up. She opened a packet of clear bathing gel and spread it on her skin. Then splashed some water on her face from the sink which she towelled off. She brushed her teeth while she waited for the gel to do its thing, cooling on her body as it evaporated, leaving her clean and moisturized.

  Emma got dressed and put on her new station jacket. It had blank spaces waiting for a name tag and assignment. She pulled her hair back in an attempt to contain it. She probably needed it cut, but would have to live with the curls for now.

  Her stomach growled at her as she got ready. They’d brought her a snack last night in the boardroom but she hadn’t really eaten much. She grabbed her bag with her tablet in it and headed out of her cabin into the hallway.

  The smell of coffee drew her to the mess hall. A bunch of people already up and milling around for breakfast, while some of the nightshift were grabbing dinner. She found the coffee and poured herself a cup, then looked aroun
d for some breakfast.

  Emma put a hard boiled egg, some soy cheese and a rusk into a bag and wrapped it up.

  “Hi, you find everything you need?” a voice asked beside her.

  She turned to face the speaker and recognized Wilkins from the science team. “Oh, hi. Yes, I think so.” She added some soy milk to her coffee and some sweetener. “It’s Wilkins, right?”

  He nodded. “Dan. I’m just heading to the deck. I can walk you there when you’re ready.”

  “Cool. Thanks.” She tested her coffee and found it acceptable. “Ready to go.”

  “So, you’re still a student, right?”

  Emma nodded. “Yep. Senior year.”

  “Ah, almost ready to get out. Looks like you might have gotten an early pass.” Dan smiled.

  “Maybe. I’ll wait until I get my name patch to celebrate.” She indicated the empty spot on her chest with her coffee cup.

  He smiled at her, his eyes crinkling. “Well, it’s good timing. We need the help. I have a few things you can help out with if you have some spare time.”

  “Sure, maybe. I don’t really know what I’m doing yet, but it beats getting drafted into work detail.” She smiled. “I think we’re only going to get about 20 students through the science program this year. Out of a class of two hundred.”

  They left the mess hall together and entered the hallway. “We only had eight when I graduated five years ago. Courses were tougher then.”

  Emma looked at him, a laugh forming inside her, then saw that Wilkins wasn’t joking. A smug half-smile on his face. She just said “Oh” and dropped her eyes.

  They arrived on deck to the sounds of fingers tapping on tablets. Some quiet beeping occasionally from some of the instrument panels. Hushed voices. The lights were a low blue. Early morning.

  Emma walked over to her station and found Ortega still at his. “Hey, you’re up early.”

  Nelson looked at her, dark circles under his eyes. “I’ve been working on this trajectory.” He looked down at his tablet. Blank screen.

  Wilkins sat down beside him. “Hey Nelson. You should get some sleep. I’ll keep working on it.”

  Ortega stood up taking his tablet. He nodded and walked out without a word. Emma watched him leave through the door then looked back at Wilkins.

  Dan smiled. “He’s a bit different, isn’t he?”

  She looked around, still no Commander. She wasn’t sure what she should be doing today, so she just started pulling up the feeds from Watchtower and looked at the nav board.

  MSS02H had become a dashed line sometime around 0400. Loss of telemetry.

  She checked on Calypso and saw she was adrift. Getting some sleep, she hoped.

  She opened up her messages. Nothing since Jerem yesterday. She typed out a good morning message to her dad, then one to Jerem. She looked around. Still only 6:30. She’d call her mom later.

  Emma felt an uneasiness take hold in her stomach and she frowned at her panel, not sure what to do.

  “Um, Dan?”

  Dan’s head popped around the divider. “Yes?”

  “You said you had some stuff I could help out with?”

  “Oh do I.” Dan retreated behind the divider. “Computer, send all unidentified Points of Interest from before yesterday to Emma Franklin’s station.”

  A stream of notifications started pouring across Emma’s screen.

  “You’ll want to crosscheck those against the New Mars Near Space Catalog. When you’re done with those I’ve got some diagnostic reports from the imaging terminals for you to look at.”

  Emma frowned. “Thanks.”

  054

  The Terror.

  “We’ve lost our antenna!” Reggie had climbed up into the cockpit’s nose and was looking out over the top of the ship from the bubble.

  “You mean it’s misaligned?” Captain Pohl was at her console, checking systems.

  “No, I mean it’s gone. There is no antenna.” Reggie looked out at the stump that used to connect their antenna to the ship. A mass of wires were exposed. One of them tossed some sparks for a second as it flopped onto the hull.

  Vanessa shook her head. “Not good.”

  “Any other damage?” Francine was checking their navigation charts. There shouldn’t be anything out here.

  “Nothin’ I can see from here.”

  Vanessa sat down at her console beside the captain and reached into the bag for her FPV helmet. “Skip, I’m taking Spot outside.”

  Francine nodded acknowledgement as Reggie climbed down.

  Winston stuck his head up into the cockpit. “I can’t see anything else below. Cargo’s still leaking though.”

  “Ok, buckle up.”

  A hissing sound like sand on a sheet of paper filled the cockpit and the three of them looked up at the windows in the ship’s nose.

  “Dust. I think we’re in an asteroid field.” Francine turned to Vanessa who hadn’t put her visor down yet. “Be careful with that thing. That might be our only usable radio.”

  “Aye, mam.” Vanessa flipped her visor down and they felt a bump as the Pup detached.

  Francine put the video on the screen and the view switched from ship forward to that of the drone Vanessa was piloting. The hull of The Terror filled the screen as the drone moved off of them. The view tilted and the ship slid away as Vanessa pitched the Pup up and fired its main thruster.

  A brief boom inside The Terror as the Pup boosted away.

  “Easy Vanessa.” Francine grimaced, not relishing the idea of a stream of high-speed ions from the Pup’s hall-effect motor popping a hole in her hull.

  “Sorry, skip.”

  The view tilted again and The Terror came back into view, much smaller this time. The entire ship visible. The view zoomed in and the ship filled the screen. They went over the outside, the antenna breakage clearly visible. A thin line scored into the skin of the ship behind the antenna mount where something had ricocheted off the surface.

  “Like I said. Gone.” Reggie grimaced.

  “How long to make us a new one?” Francine figured she could make one in a few hours, but liked to let the engineers do their own estimates.

  Reggie rubbed his chin. Probably a couple of hours. If we can get the wiring right. He grabbed his tablet out of his chair and started pulling up schematics.

  Reggie to Winston. “We have some aluminum sheeting down in the locker, don’t we?”

  Avery nodded. “Think so.”

  “Yeah, we can do this.”

  Francine took the controls and started rotating the ship. The view on screen slid around until the belly of the ship was in view. Vanessa moved the view point around until they could see the hole that was causing their water leak.

  The hole looked to be about the size of a soccer ball.

  Reggie gaped. “Jesus. If that’d hit a fuel tank…”

  “Or the cockpit.”

  Captain Pohl gritted her teeth. “Everybody in suits! Vanessa, I want you to take one good look ahead and to port of us, narrow sweeps. I’ll coordinate with you on direction. Everybody else, get to work. We’ll do an EVA in 2 hours for repairs.”

  Reggie and Winston slid out of the cockpit down to the equipment room. Vanessa stayed in her seat piloting the Pup.

  Francine turned to Vanessa. “Vanessa, I want you to put Spot on station-keeping and get into your suit. On the double.”

  Vanessa considered arguing, thought better of it and locked the drone in place. “Aye, mam.” She put the Pup on auto, took off her helmet and disconnected from the station. She dropped below.

  “When you’re back I’ll get mine.”

  Francine started looking for a way out. Not an easy task considering she had no idea how large this debris field was. Nobody had ever taken this route below the ecliptic.

  She felt it had to be an asteroid group with a high eccentricity like the Hildas but without any large bodies their telescopes would spot. She couldn’t radio the station for additional details about the regi
on so what they had on board was it. Maybe that was the whole field, just remnants of a small rock blasted apart in some ancient collision.

  Francine hoped they were just on the edge of it and could head back into charted territory without any more danger. She raised the nose of the ship and vectored back up towards safer space.

  055

  New Providence.

  Greg sat in the cramped metal office of Merl Granger at the New Providence Civil Services Bureau. He was sitting across the desk from a large man peering into a battered old tablet through a pair of scratched-up reading glasses.

  “Mr. Pohl. Says here you’re ‘agoraphobic’?”

  Greg sighed. “It was a temporary condition. My first time on the surface.”

  Merl looked at him over the rims of his glasses. “How do you know? Seeing more of that, you know. People living underground can’t handle a sky over them anymore.” He looked back at his tablet and continued reading aloud. “Astrodynamics, engineering, math, geology, some arts crap. You were an ace student until earlier this year. What happened?”

  “I failed the suit test. Stopped going to classes.”

  “Yeah, but there’s still plenty you could do down here with that science background.”

  Greg shrugged. “I wanted to crew on my mom’s ship. Eventually get a ship of my own.”

  “Always have a backup plan, kid.” Merl sat back in his chair and flipped his glasses onto the desk. He studied Greg for a second, Greg shifted uncomfortably in the hard metal chair.

  Eventually, Merl broke the silence. “Here’s the thing. I wish you had more biology or agriculture on your CV. The flu’s got a bunch of the farm crews down. But this agoraphobia thing would probably not be helpful there. In the domes.” He pointed a finger up.

  Greg shifted in his chair. He had no interest in farming. He’d always been sure he’d go to space.

  “But I can use an engineer, kid. We’re down one tunnel crew and have a few more off sick with this flu. You wanted to work a mining ship. This is the next best thing.” Merl did his best to make it sound like it would be a good time.