Trajectory Book 1 (New Providence) (7 page)

“Uh, Dad, I think I’ve found the problem. Looks like one of the injectors had a bad link with the power system. I don’t think it’s fried, but we’ll probably want to replace the connector when we’re back in dock. I’m going to try seal it up in the meantime.”

Jerem could sense his father looking at the video feed from his helmet cam. “Jer, can you get some more light in there? Disconnect that conduit completely and let me see it.”

“Aye.” Jerem unscrewed the connector, struggling through his suit’s gloves to get a grip on the knurled plug. Only a turn and it came loose. He wriggled the connection apart and popped it out of the injector housing. He peered in, positioning his head lights and camera into the hatch. He didn’t see any other issues besides the scorch marks.

“I don’t see anything else, do you?”

“No sir. The connector wasn’t screwed in all the way. Or it came loose.”

“Ok, reconnect it and use some resin glue to pin that down and get back inside. We need to get going.”

“Yup.” Jerem had already begun trying to reattach the power line and get the screw ring to mesh with the base. He managed it, tightened it down and got out his glue gun. He warmed up the surface, careful not to get near the conduit and then carefully squeezed a blob of molten resin out of it around the ring.

He kept heating the resin to begin the cure, shaping it around the joint, then switched the heat off and watched the white blob begin to solidify. “How’s that look, skip?”

“Looks good. Come on in.”

Jerem cleared the ejector and holstered his glue gun. He closed up the maintenance hatch and locked it down, pushing the lock into place. He took a moment to look around, spotting Jupiter glowing brightly off to the side. The milky way cutting a bright path overhead. Antares burning redder than Mars beside it.

He kicked off and began boosting around the shield. The Sisters of Mercy still playing “First and Last and Always”.
 

016

Lighthouse.

“I know, Mrs. Bruno. Right now, we’re just trying to make sense of the logs. We’re broadcasting and looking for signal. We’re looking into sending a ship…”

Chloe Bruno was crying. This was one of the hardest pieces of news Mancuso had ever had to deliver in his long career. There had been accidents before on the station – even fatal ones – but they’d known what happened. Right now, he just didn’t know anything for sure.

She wiped her tear-streaked face. Her youngest daughter, Raven was sitting on her knee, almost ten years old. “Is daddy alright? Are you alright, mommy?”

“You have to do something to … to see if there’s anybody out there. They could be in a shuttle or …”

“I know Mrs. Bruno.” They didn’t have shuttles. Or escape pods. And it would take days to get a ship into position and worse, the vectors would be complicated to match up, if not impossible. He didn’t want to tell her that though. “We’re doing everything we can from here. I’ll be in touch as soon as we have anything new.” He wanted to give the woman a hug. He killed the channel and sat back in his chair, exhaling loudly. Fingers digging into his forehead.

Two terrible calls to the surface out of the way. What’s next on the menu? He was in the small boardroom on Lighthouse off the command deck. The lights were dim and he sat there rubbing his chest absently.

His pad said he had two missed calls from Dr. Powell. Both marked urgent. He activated a connection and put it on the screen in front of him. Doctor Tadeuz Powell replaced the dialling screen almost immediately, pushing his glasses up his nose. “Hello David. I’ve been trying to reach you.”

“Hi Tad. What have you got for me?” He waited for a count of three for the reply to make it back up. They were on the other side of the planet and bouncing their signal out to a comms satellite in high orbit and back. Communications from orbit sometimes required patience and touch of protocol. The lag would drop in a few minutes.

“I heard the news about Pandora. Funny timing. Some of my students spotted something on an intercept trajectory with your ships.” Powell was fidgeting with something on his desk off camera, a light tapping sound came over the speakers.

This is not the conversation Mancuso was expecting. “Go on…” three second pause. He felt a dizziness completely separate from the slow turning of the station’s ring section.

Powell took a sip of coffee and put his cup down. “The students, Emma Franklin actually, found this thing while reviewing logs from Olympus as part of her course work. She and her friends plotted it. She figured out it was going too fast to be an asteroid in any regular orbit.” He waved his tablet’s stylus in the air in front of him. “I think it was Pohl that figured out the intercept part.” More tapping.

Mancuso recognized the names immediately. His stomach rolled not for the first time that day and he fought down some heart burn and a feeling of nausea. “An object?” Pause. “What are you talking about? A rock? Comet?”

The pauses were getting shorter. “We don’t know what it is. I reviewed their data and it looks solid. The object is moving across the near belt in an almost straight line. Very fast. It’s either coming in from out-system or is accelerating from further out in the belt. If it is accelerating, well…” he swallowed, his moustache obscuring his lips. “It’s under power, David. A probe or something.”

Mancuso absorbed this, blinking. He opened a drawer and took out a roll of antacid tablets. He popped a couple into his mouth and started chewing. He realized he hadn’t eaten in fifteen hours. The pain in his chest reminded him why.

“You’re kidding. It can’t be one of ours…” He trailed off. Incredulous.

Powell leaned closer to the camera. “Grayson’s putting together a committee meeting to discuss Pandora. He doesn’t know about this thing. Yet.” He cleared his throat. “I … my students think the object… It’s heading straight for our ships. If it’s still out there after the collision or whatever happened… At this speed it’ll reach Calypso in less than fifty hours.”

Mancuso couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Was this a joke? “Good Christ. What do you mean if it’s still out there? Send me everything you’ve got. Can you keep this from Grayson until we know for sure what we’re up against?”

Pause. “I don’t know what to say to the Council. If they ask me, I’ll have to tell them what I know.” More tapping.

“I know. I just.” Mancuso felt like chewing through something. “Why didn’t we see this sooner? Tell the kids… just thank them for me, will you?” Mancuso stood up.

Powell frowned at the screen, his lips bunching up under his moustache. “What a time for this to happen, hey David? How are you doing anyway? Any results yet?”

Mancuso was already leaving the boardroom. He didn’t see the concerned look on his friend’s face as the screen switched off leaving the old professor frowning at the blank screen in his office.

He walked through the red-lit command room and sat down in his chair. “Someone give me a status update.” He ignored the inbox messages growing on his dashboard. Wilkins was coming onto his shift. Ortega was getting ready to bug out for some necessary rack time. They all needed some sleep. Jill Sanchez had already relieved Pradeep an hour ago.

“Come on, people, give me some good news! Anything to report?”

Bryce shook his head. “No sir. No change.”

Mancuso looked around the room from his seat. People had stopped what they were doing and were looking at him. Wilkins had stopped on his way to his seat to stare, having just come onto his shift. Ortega went to him and whispered something in his ear.

Powell had informed him that there was something out there. Something tracking directly for his ships that he hadn’t known about. There had to be something wrong with Watchtower’s processing. No way it could have missed this.

Mancuso stood, walked forward a few steps and turned back to face the room. “OK, everyone, listen up.” The room turned to watch him. “I’ve just received word that Pandora’s accident may have been the result of a collision with something. Some students on the ground picked up an object in some images taken by the array on Olympus Mons. They plotted that thing and predicted it was on an intercept course.” He looked around the room, looking at each of the faces watching him. He looked pointedly at Wilkins and Ortega of the science team. “Could someone explain to me why the fuck we didn’t spot this sooner?”

The room collectively exhaled. Looked away. “Do we have any more information from that video?”

Wilkins’ mouth opened and closed. He got it under control and blurted. “We’re still running through the analytics, sir.”

A couple hours earlier, Chairperson Grayson had demanded answers from him that he didn’t have. It was an accident. An anomaly. A collision with some kind of debris. An engine mishap. He didn’t have a lot to offer. He realized he just did the same thing to his crew and felt bad for it.

He remembered the conversation with Grayson. Yes, he was aware what a loss of one, let alone potentially three more ships would cost this colony.

It was a death sentence.

Nolan came over. “Sir, why don’t you get some rack time. We can manage this. We’ll figure it out.”

Mancuso stared at Nolan for a moment, then checked the clock. They had about forty eight hours until the object reached Calypso and not one bit of new information. If it was still out there, they didn’t have any data since Pandora.

He nodded suddenly feeling very old. “Ok, Mister Nolan. You talked me into it. Message me if I’m not back in four hours.”

“You got it.” Nolan turned back to the room and clapped his hands. “Alright people, we want some solid answers. Get on those instruments, please.”

Mancuso made the walk to his cabin on automatic. When he got to his door he barely remembered walking there. He had a sense he was forgetting something. He needed more eyes on this thing.

He leaned into his tablet and sent a recorded message to Powell: “You said it was your students who decoded that thing’s orbit? I need to speak with them.”
 

017

New Providence.

The three students sat in Emma’s cramped living room listening to music. Occasionally talking. They’d already exhausted what they could do with the limited set of data they had from Olympus so they wrote messages to their families in space.

It had been a few hours since delivering the report to Doc Powell. Since then, the news feeds had erupted with stories about the lost ship. Most of it sensational, very little factual information since they didn’t know anything.

“Do you think they know?” Tamra asked no one in particular of the people on the newsfeed. She was writing a message to her father. …
It looks like it’s heading towards you and probably has a few days before it gets there. Please be careful.

She copied Jerem and hit send just as the door to the living room slid open and Emma’s mother entered. She looked tired.

Emma’s mom, Julie walked through the room, dropping her bag on the floor. “Hi Emma. Kids. I have to make a casserole.” She hung up her jacket on the hook beside the door and walked into the kitchen.

Emma got up. “I’d better go help. Wait here.” She walked into the kitchen. Sounds of pots, bowls and casserole dishes could be heard over the music.

Tamra looked at Greg who was still head down on his tablet, doing his best to ignore everything around him. “Hey.”

Greg looked up. “I was just sending my mom some new graphs. You send your dad a copy yet?”

“I sent a message, yeah. I need a text copy of the data when you’re done.”

“Yeah, it’s in our folder.” Greg put his tablet down.

“Thanks.” Tamra felt her forehead and slid closer to Greg. “I don’t feel so good. Do I have a fever?”

They could hear some low voices coming out of the kitchen. A bang of dishes. Some crying. Emma’s voice drifted out through the door trying to console her mother.

Greg looked uncomfortable, but gave Tamra a squeeze. “Do you think we should go?”

Tamra smiled weakly. “Nope.”

Emma and her mother Julie came out of the kitchen. “I’m sorry. I was just over at the Bruno’s apartment. They’re pretty upset. I’m going back over there in the morning.”

Tamra looked up, feeling increasingly tired. “How are they doing, Mrs. Franklin? What about the kids?”

“Oh, you know. I don’t think they really understand yet. They have a lot of questions.” Julie had a far-off look in her eyes, her brain elsewhere. “We all have a lot of questions.”

They nodded, not really looking at each other. A concerned look crossed Emma’s face, said what everyone was thinking. “What if this thing’s going after Dad?”

“Oh sweetie.” Julie hugged her daughter. “What thing? They’ll figure it out. Probably just a fluke accident.” Then, decisively. “I have to make this casserole.”

Tamra sniffled. “Anything we can do to help?” She squeezed Greg’s hand.

“No, that’s ok. I think a couple of astrophysicists can handle a casserole.” Julie smiled at them and bravely went back into the kitchen, Emma in tow.
 

018

The Terror.

Francine Pohl, Captain of the Terror, re-read the transmission from Control. They were still two weeks out from Mars on a twenty minute delay under a comfortable 0.2 gravities. They were a long way from whatever happened to Pandora.