Trajectory Book 1 (New Providence) (23 page)

Up in the cockpit, Vanessa was watching from a distance of 500 meters. The Pup was parked off the port side looking back at the ship with a powerful zoom lens.

Francine was reading the navigational charts, trying to find some indication of an asteroid field and coming up with nothing. She drew an ellipse on the map putting in a random value for the volume of space she thought might contain the debris and started running some orbital simulations. Based on the hole in the cargo pod, she figured they’d been struck laterally and forward, flying into a cloud sweeping about them in their orbit.

Francine could hear some faint banging around above her as Reggie worked on the antenna. “Don’t break my ship, Reg.”

“Don’t worry. We’ll get her back together.” The radio crackled.

Francine watched the repairs going on outside from the Pup’s eyes in a window on her console. Winston was on the cargo pod now, hauling out sheets of aluminum from the locker below.

“Guys, are you all locked down out there? I want to turn the ship so the shield’s covering you.”

Reggie. “Seriously?”

Winston. “Give me a minute.”

“Don’t worry, I’m gonna take it real slow.” Francine checked their positions. “Stay clear of the thrusters.”

Reggie. “No shit, Captain!”

Francine waited for Winston to report back. She felt stupid for not doing this before they left the airlock, but she desperately wanted radio contact restored. She also hadn’t been really sure of the directionality of the asteroid field until now. The scoring on the top of the ship confirmed her suspicions.

“Ok, I’ve got everything secured down here.” Winston reported back.

Francine took a breath. “Alright, maneuvering in five, four, …” She gave the stick a gentle bump and The Terror began yawing about its midsection. Winston was relatively stable near the middle of the ship, but Reggie had to contend with centripetal forces trying to fling him off the surface. Even at this low speed.

“Ahhh. I don’t like this, Captain!”

“Steady in three, two, one.” She bumped the stick again and The Terror stopped its turn, micro-thrusters kicking out tiny jets to steady the big ship in all directions. She’d about-faced almost a hundred and eighty degrees. “One more adjustment. Pitching up. In three, two, one.” She pulled the stick back and raised the nose slightly, then levelled it out.

“You OK, Reggie? Winston?”

“Winston here, OK.”

“Reggie?”

“Don’t you ever do that to me again.” Reggie was spread eagled above the nose of the ship hands and feet locked into the ladder rungs.

Francine grinned. “Sorry, Reg.”

A loud clang reverberated through the ship as a fast-moving rock blasted through the engine shield. Winston howled into his headset from his perch outside. “Hooo-wheeee! lookit that!” A new hole had been ripped through the dome with orange glowing edges.

Francine checked the view from the Pup and saw a line of sparks trailing over the ship off the tip of the shield dome. A frayed edge along the rim where the fast-moving chunk of rock had blown through it. “Vanessa, give me a close sweep of the engine section. Everybody else, hurry up out there.”

Reggie came on over the comm line. Voice quiet. “I think I’m gonna need a new suit.”
 

060

New Providence.

Tamra was still curled up on the couch wrapped in her blanket when her tablet beeped. She ignored it.

It beeped again.

Why were people sending her messages? She didn’t want to talk to anybody.

Her tablet started ringing. She saw Emma’s icon on the screen.

She picked it up and answered it with a groan. “Hi.”

Emma’s icon was replaced by her smiling face. “Hey! How are you feeling? You ignoring me now?”

Tamra wasn’t in the mood for Emma’s brand of exuberance. “No. I’m sick, remember?” They took Greg.

“Aw, I’m sorry. We were just overhead so I thought I’d say hi. No comm delay.” She paused, a concerned look spread over her face. “You should call my mom if you need anything.”

“Yeah, I will. I’m ok.”

Silence.

“Where’s Greg? I sent him some messages about some of the stuff we’re working on. Could use his help with some of it.”

Tamra started crying. “I don’t know.”

Emma’s eyes widened. “What? What do you mean?”

Tamra sniffed, exasperated. She blurted. “They took him this morning. He’s been taken for work detail. I don’t know where.”

“Oh, shit. I… sorry, Tam. I didn’t know.” She looked at something over her shoulder. “I’ll talk to Mancuso and see if there’s anything we can do.”

Tamra shrugged. “Thanks.” She didn’t feel like there was much Emma could do from there. But the station got all the best stuff so maybe they’d have some pull.

“Call my Mom, OK? Don’t worry, we’ll get him out of there.”

“Sure.” Tamra sniffled. The lag increased as the station pulled away from the colony and they were handed off to one of the communications satellites spinning above.

Emma scrunched up her face. “I’m sorry you’re not feeling well. Got to go. Love you.”

end transmission.

Tamra sat there sniffling and feeling miserable. She sighed and started coughing. Maybe she’d try going out later. Or calling Em’s mom.

She missed Greg.

*

Julie Franklin sat at her desk in the science building at Nicola Tesla University. She was supposed to be giving a lecture on the moment of momentum for the gyrodynamics section of her advanced navigation class, but had given her students a study period instead.

She was currently preoccupied with some more concrete navigational concerns.

Her tablet rang and she raised it on its stand on her desk. It was Emma.

“Hey sweetie. Anything new?” She put on her best face for her daughter. She didn’t want her to worry.

Slight delay. “Hi Mom. We’re waiting to hear from Calypso. They’ve been drifting for the past ten hours.”

Julie was well aware of the timeline. They only had another six hours until they were due to encounter the object.

“Anything new from the object?” Julie realized she was wringing her hands in her lap and made herself stop. Her palms were sweaty.

“Not really. I’m not supposed to talk about that.” She grimaced. “Sorry.”

“It’s ok, honey. I wish I could help. I…” She didn’t want to choke up in front of her daughter. She hadn’t been sleeping much. She’d been focusing on the Brunos instead of thinking about what was happening with her own family. It wasn’t really working for any of them.

“Mom, could you check in on Tamra? She says Greg got drafted for work detail this morning and she’s been sick.”

Julie nodded. “Of course.”

“Thanks Mom.” Emma looked behind her. “I’m gonna have to go in a minute. Just wanted to see how you’re doing.”

“I’m fine, Em. Thanks for calling.”

“OK. Love you, Mom.”

“I love you too.”

She stared at her tablet for a moment. The screen dark with some call details in neon blue against the black background.

She sighed and packed her tablet into her bag and got up. She left her office, closing the door behind her.
 

061

Making Time.

Jerem woke up from an unsettling dream, his eyes wide, returning abruptly to the present. What time was it, he wondered, even as his brain told him the answer. He looked at the clock beside his pillow. 12:33. Calypso was approaching their event bubble.

He unbuckled himself from the bunk and rolled out of it onto the crew deck. He clambered up the ladder into the cockpit, past his father in the pilot’s chair and bounced to his station, grabbing hold of the webbing hanging around it.

“Any word?”

Hal inclined his head fractionally, acknowledging his son’s arrival with a grunt.

“Nothing yet. I’m going to cut the engines. See if we can get something higher bandwidth from Control.”

“Do it.”

Hal killed the drive, the ship winding down from acceleration. The engine sending a wave of harmonics through the metal structure of the ship as it was released from the flow of power.

Jerem had his arms and a foot strung through the webbing. He hung there, weightless behind the copilot’s seat.

“Control this is MSS27 Making Time. We have had no transmission from Calypso in fourteen hours. Any updates? Out.”

They were five hours until Calypso’s rendezvous. Making Time was still ninety million kilometers from Mars, on a ten minute communication turnaround. Mars was a small red-brown dot ahead and to port growing brighter each day. They couldn’t make out the sliver of the planet without using the ship’s optics. The Sun further to port was also getting brighter, shining yellow light into the cockpit. The windows were bright letting in full daylight.

Jerem tried to shake the dream he’d just had. Emma falling away into space. He couldn’t reach her. Silent screams echoing in his head. Stop it.

He was overtired and he knew it. But he couldn’t sleep through this. There’d be time for that later.

He pulled his tablet out of his pocket and checked his messages. Nothing yet.

Waiting.

“I’m going to brush my teeth.” Jerem declared with purpose. He got up and floated down through the hatch.

He squeezed into the head and grabbed his toothbrush out of the case. Squeezed some toothpaste onto the bristles. Squirted a few drops of water onto that and started brushing. He turned on the drain vacuum and spit into it, the negative pressure sucking it away. He dried his toothbrush with a towel, then put it back in the case and into the drawer before anything could escape.

Jerem left the head and dogged the hatch. He swung through the galley on his way up and filled his water bottle then grabbed a breakfast bar out of the cupboard. He jumped up the ladder and pulled himself through, catching himself in the webbing on his seat just as the radio clicked on.

“MSS27 this is Control.” Nolan’s voice. “Still no word from Calypso or The Terror. Sending hails. Over.”

“Control, this is MSS27. We’re hailing too. Over.”

Jerem looked at his father, his concern increasing. “The Terror too? What the hell?”

Hal flipped the controls on his console. “MSS18 this is MSS27 Making Time. Please come in Calypso. What is your status? Over.”

Hal turned to Jerem, lowering the mic. “They’re drifting, so they should have full comms.”

Hal repeated his message, this time for The Terror.

Jerem checked his tablet. Calypso was only two and a half minutes away from them on comms. The Terror was four but gaining. He drummed on his console with his fingers.

Four minutes came and went with still no response from Calypso. Something was very wrong. Edson wouldn’t be running quiet unless he had a good reason to. Were they trying to run silent?

Maybe they were being jammed? That’d be strange since they still had comms with Lighthouse. Could it be localized?

Hal was reclining above his seat. Floating just behind his console. His flight suit puffing out around him. “They’re not going to answer.”

Eight minutes passed. Then Nine. No response from either ship.

Jerem was wondering what to do when his tablet beeped. New message from Emma Franklin. He opened it. A picture of her grinning on the command deck of Lighthouse Station. Mars in the background over her shoulder. She was smiling like a dork, one hand on her hip. His girl. Wearing a station uniform jacket.

He forgot all about the ships out there for a few seconds. He just stared at that picture with a dumb smile on his face.
 

062

Lighthouse.

Mancuso was sitting with his hands folded on the table in front of him. The screen lit with the face of the Council Chairman, Henry Grayson.

“What have you got for us, David?”

So much for formalities. “The clock’s still ticking, Henry. We have four hours until the object reaches Calypso.”

He adjusted his jacket and stared at the craggy face on the screen. “The object appears to be reacting to changes in Calypso’s trajectory. They missed a burn recently and the object altered its velocity to continue on target. This thing’s acting like it’s got a brain.”

The Chairman sat perfectly still. Mancuso wondered if the transmission had frozen until Henry blinked.

“Jesus jumpin’ Christ, Mancuso. When were you going to tell me this?”

“We had to be sure, sir. Until just this hour we could’ve written this off as unlikely coincidence. Evidence was not definitive.” I didn’t want to tell you about it, he thought to himself. He noticed his hand was shaking and tried to contain it.

Grayson’s facade began to break and he slumped in his chair. “What are we doing about it?”

Mancuso swallowed. “We’re trying to raise Calypso, but she’s not responding. She’s been drifting for the past … fifteen or sixteen hours. They might have a problem.”