Read Asteroid Crisis: Star Challengers Book 3 Online
Authors: Rebecca Moesta,Kevin J. Anderson,June Scobee Rodgers
Asteroid Crisis: Star Challengers Book 3 (4 page)
Six
Even though the Star Challengers had done this twice before, JJ felt more excitement than ever—less anxious mystery, more anticipation.
The first time Commander Zota had used his hidden time-travel machine to send them to Moonbase Magellan in the future, she and her friends had expected nothing more than a realistic and entertaining Challenger Center simulation. The second time, traveling to the space station, JJ had known what she and her companions were in for, but their adventure aboard the International Space Station Complex had changed everything. In addition to learning about living in microgravity and functioning aboard a complex orbiting facility, they had seen the extent of the continuing alien invasion plans. Worst of all, they had learned of an opposing group of humans bent on scuttling the efforts of the Star Challengers.
This time, with the asteroids approaching, JJ and her friends knew that the fate of the Earth itself was at stake.
“Weightless again,” Song-Ye said, not looking forward to her queasiness in space. “My stomach prefers gravity.”
Dyl was the next to enter the connecting room that served as the “transport shuttle” for students and field trips going through a Challenger Center exercise. JJ’s younger brother leaned his crutches against the outside wall, and Song-Ye held out an arm to give him support as he moved ahead. “I won’t be needing
those
on this mission,” he said. “If you ask me, gravity’s not all it’s cracked up to be. You need to
lighten up
on your weightlessness problem.”
JJ admired Dyl’s positive attitude after recovering from the car accident that had severely damaged his leg. The young driver who’d been texting while driving had altered her brother’s life, crossed off a great many items from the list of things he could do. He might eventually have additional surgeries that could strengthen his ability to walk, but he would never run or ride his bike as easily as he had on that fateful day. In orbit, though, Dyl regained his freedom of movement, just like anyone else. During his recovery and physical therapy, he had done exercises in a pool, where he was buoyant—but nothing was like swimming around in zero-G.
“Next stop, the future.” Tony flashed a smile at JJ. “And this time, I’m not going to be taken by surprise.”
“I can’t wait to see what they’ve changed at the space station,” King said. “There isn’t much time, but I have faith that the human race can pull together and solve the problem.”
“As in, putting aside their differences and looking at the big picture?” Song-Ye let out a snort. “You should hear my father talk about some of the other diplomats, everybody arguing about silly little things.”
“Let’s hope an invasion fleet of squidbutts is enough to make them put aside old quarrels,” JJ said, her mouth a terse line. She grasped one of the wall handles. “Everybody hold on.”
Commander Zota stood at the door of the transport room that led into the classroom mockup of a moonbase or space station control center. “Learn and experience what you can, but most importantly find out how the combined space programs plan to defend against the oncoming asteroids. Then activate your pingers, as I’ve shown you—I’ll retrieve all of you cadets. Afterward, I can send you forward to the next part of your mission.”
‘“Mission sounds so formal,” Dyl said. “I prefer to think of it as an adventure.”
“We’re not doing this for fun, Junior,” Song-Ye chided.
Dyl snickered. “You mean you didn’t have fun when Red Spot sticky-globbed you to a wall in the ISSC?”
“Next time I’ll remember to duck,” she shot back.
“If you cadets are quite ready…?” Commander Zota said, then waited until they all acknowledged. He closed the door, sealing them inside.
JJ knew that Zota would be returning to the time-machine controls and setting the date and the coordinates to the space station complex in the future. The alien device would project some sort of field to transport them more than a century ahead. Having experienced it twice already, JJ knew she and her friends wouldn’t feel the time-travel jump, but when her stomach lurched and she suddenly felt herself falling in all directions, she knew they had made it back up to the orbiting facility. She found herself spinning and disoriented; her feet lifted in the air.
Dyl let out a long sigh and immediately nudged himself, drifting across the cramped chamber until he bumped into the opposite metal wall. They were crowded inside one of the node rooms, a connecting chamber between modules on the ISSC.
“First piece of good news—the space station is still here,” Song-Ye said.
“It’s a bit cramped,” Tony said. As he moved, he jostled against JJ, and they all bumped and bounced into one another like too many fish in a fishbowl.
“We don’t know who’s aboard.” King pressed his face to the window port on the hatch. “There could be a new Kylarn welcoming party out there.”
But the hatch controls blinked, and the metal airlock door opened. They found themselves facing the skeptical physicist, Dr. Kloor, who looked decidedly uneasy. Next to him floated Stationmaster Noor Ansari. The familiar chief smiled at them, relieved.
Without greeting the Star Challengers who filled the node room, Kloor turned to Ansari. “Just as I thought, Stationmaster—trouble was bound to show up sooner or later.”
***
Seven
The International Space Station Complex had changed dramatically in the eighteen months since their last visit. Earth was throwing significant effort, funding, and resources into the revitalized space program. JJ was glad to find out that the ISSC’s crew complement had doubled since then, and ground-based monitoring stations and the orbiting space station remained on high alert.
“Looks like they’re finally taking the Kylarn threat seriously,” King observed, when the five Star Challengers reached the central command module.
“The destruction of Moonbase Magellan was enough to wake everyone up,” Stationmaster Ansari said. “But even in times of great urgency, the governments of Earth often take too long to get major programs moving. Fortunately, many entrepreneurs and private companies recognized the potential disaster and acted immediately, assigning some of the best researchers and significant money to building up the support industries to meet our needs.”
As they pulled themselves into Central, the ISSC’s nerve center, JJ and her friends saw familiar faces, including communications specialist Anton Pi, Dr. Romero, and Specialist Lifchez. They exchanged warm and excited greetings, while a dozen new crewmembers regarded the young people with skeptical looks. After the last two missions, Stationmaster Ansari had issued a detailed report to Earth authorities, so everyone on the station knew about this handful of ambitious teens who had such a baffling habit of arriving and disappearing at unexpected times.
Although Ansari believed that the Star Challengers were true allies, the crew’s easy and naive acceptance of Mira last time had taught them all a lesson. Security Chief Napali now had a team of four combat-trained men and women who could defend the station if the Kylarn ever tried to capture it again. In addition, the combined space agency had installed some emergency defenses to protect the station from an alien attack: an array of small rocket-propelled missiles was mounted to one of the modules on the ISSC. They could shoot at any oncoming Kylarn starfish ships that might try to cause trouble. So far, though, the system hadn’t been tested in actual combat.
A replacement surveillance satellite, Eye in the Sky II, had been constructed and launched in secret under tight security so that no saboteur like Mira could expose it. The spy satellite had unobtrusively drifted across space until it reached the gravitational stable point L-5, ahead of the Moon in its orbit. The images from the satellite showed the extensive alien lunar base with its convoluted structures, spaceship landing zones, mines, and factories—a termite-nest of squidbutt activity.
“I will personally vouch for all of you,” said Ansari, “but we’re keeping an eye open for Cadet Mira—or anyone else who might intend us harm.”
“If you wouldn’t mind, Ma’am, we could use a quick briefing,” King said, sounding businesslike. “What exactly has happened since our last visit?”
Dr. Kloor made a sound of disbelief. “How can you come here so unprepared? It’s not as if we keep our operations secret—this is a worldwide emergency.”
“We’ve, uh, been kept out of the loop,” JJ explained quickly.
“Then you all must have been in suspended animation,” Kloor replied, shaking his head, then paused. “Is that the real answer? Is that why you haven’t aged a day since you left the station last time? It’s been almost two years.”
Feeling alarm, but knowing she shouldn’t give away any answers, JJ avoided the question, “I’m sorry, but we really can’t give you any information.”
“It’s classified. We could tell you, but then we’d have to shoot you,” Dyl quipped.
Song-Ye rolled her eyes; everyone had heard that line before. “Not funny, Junior.”
Kloor turned to Ansari. “Stationmaster, it’s absurd that these kids won’t trust us when they ask us to accept
them
at face value.”
“It’s not that we don’t trust you,” JJ said. “I … we have … orders.”
How did military people put it?
“Telling anyone could adversely affect the mission.” Dr. Kloor didn’t look convinced, and even Ansari, their closest friend among the personnel aboard the station, seemed disappointed by JJ’s evasiveness.
“We do know there are three asteroids heading straight toward Earth,” Tony said. “And everybody here is obviously scrambling to do something. Can you get us up to speed?”
King added, “How are you going to make sure those rocks don’t hit the planet?”
“We’ve already sent three automated probes to study the composition, size, and shape of the incoming asteroids,” Ansari said. “We adapted some old designs for comet flyby probes and used the blueprints to build new probes. Those probes have gathered vital information. In order to deflect the asteroid orbits, we need to know the parameters: the geology of the rocks, the density, the general structure.”
Pi looked up from the comm station. “We had to know how solid the asteroids are. We’re planning to use massive explosions to shift their orbits, and we had to determine whether the asteroids would be deflected or just broken apart.”
“Wouldn’t that help, either way?” JJ asked. “If one of the asteroids broke in two, that would decrease the threat.”
“Maybe not, Cadet,” Ansari said. “Two five-kilometer-diameter asteroids slamming into Earth would be nearly as bad as the impact of one ten-kilometer-diameter asteroid.”
“I see your point,” JJ said.
“It’s important to know whether the asteroids are primarily composed of rock and metal, or ice and frozen gas,” Ansari said.
“Ice and gas? That sounds more like a comet than an asteroid,” Tony said, a little confused.
“Asteroids and comets are similar—leftovers from the cloud of gas and dust that collapsed to form our solar system 4.5 billion years ago.”
“But I thought there were obvious differences between asteroids and comets,” Song-Ye said.
“The line of distinction can be fuzzy. Most asteroids orbit in the major belt between Mars and Jupiter. They’re generally composed of solid rock, with some pockets of ice. Comets, though, have more elongated orbits—they head farther out into the solar system and then swoop in close to the sun. That’s when they become visible, as the gases evaporate.”
“That’s what makes a comet’s tail,” King said, “the fresh gases streaming out away from the Sun.”
“Asteroids or comets, anything that big smashing into Earth is a disaster,” Dr. Kloor said. “Our probes showed that these asteroids are all between three and five kilometers in diameter—large enough to cause serious damage if they impact Earth. On the positive side, they’re small enough that we have the capability to affect their movement.”
Ansari nodded. “Hence the mission we’re planning. A sufficiently large explosion should deflect them, change their orbits. That still won’t take care of the Kylarn, but we’ll have breathing room in the meantime.”
The gruff, bearish Russian captain pulled himself the rest of the way into the command module and grinned to see the Star Challengers. JJ brightened. “Captain Bronsky!”
“By sufficiently large explosions, the Stationmaster means nuclear warheads,”’ he said. “Most nations on Earth dismantled their stockpiles of those old weapons, but some were hidden here and there—and a good thing too. Otherwise we wouldn’t have any way of moving the asteroids.”
Over the station intercom, a clipped British voice said, “Stationmaster, we are prepared to detach Hab Module 2. This is the third and final module for independent launch on the asteroid missions.”
“Is that Major Fox?” King asked. JJ remembered the stiff and formal British officer who had helped them at Moonbase Magellan.
“It’s
Colonel
Fox,” Song-Ye reminded them, then glanced at Ansari. “Unless he’s been promoted again? Is that why he’s up here?”
“Colonel Fox was never satisfied with a desk job on Earth. While we were prepping the asteroid mission, he insisted on being transferred up to the ISSC during the next crew rotation. He’ll pilot a module out to one of the three asteroids. I’ll be in charge of the second module.”
“And I will fly Asteroid Mission 3,” said Bronsky.
King pulled himself over to Central’s windowport and stared at the interlinked, bus-sized cylinders that comprised the ISSC. A flurry of spacesuited workers surrounded one of the node rooms, preparing to detach Hab Module 2 from the main framework. JJ drifted beside him and spotted two other modules already separated, hanging in space not far from the station. The self-contained cylinders were covered with construction girders; on the bulky framework, a large engine was being connected to the rear of the modules.
JJ suddenly realized what was happening. “You’re flying
station
modules out to the asteroids?”
“It was the best and fastest solution,” Ansari said. “Although I hate to dismantle part of the ISSC, our modules are already built and equipped with life support. We’ve got to make use of what we have, and the modules are already here. We’re still installing the new ion spacedrive propulsion systems, and we have to bring up the nuclear warheads that will move the asteroids.”
“Look at the size of those modules,” Dr. Kloor said. “It’s an enormous problem to get something so large and heavy out of Earth’s gravity. Do you know what escape velocity is?”
Dyl answered, with a slight teasing tone, “I’ll bet you’re going to explain it no matter what we say.”
The physicist immediately began. “On Earth, if you toss a baseball straight up into the air at a velocity of one kilometer per hour, it goes up and comes down. If you throw it
hard
—at, say, fifteen kilometers an hour—the ball will go higher into the air, but still falls back to the ground. You could even use an artillery gun to shoot the ball upward at over 5000 kph, and it would still come back down.
“Escape velocity is the speed you have to achieve to throw something completely out of Earth’s gravity. From the Earth’s surface, it’s about 40,000 kph! That’s not an easy speed to hit, even with something as small as a baseball—try lifting a giant space station module! That requires a lot of thrust and rocket fuel, and our time was already short.”
“After you get to orbit, space travel is much easier. But lifting objects
into
orbit has always been a barrier to the exploration of space,” Ansari said. “Imagine you’re riding your bicycle along a flat desert road. It’s easy enough, but what if you need to get from the base of a cliff up to the top of a mesa
before
you can start riding? Once your bike is on top of the flat mesa, you can ride easily. But getting up the cliff? That’s the hard part. But even up here, 300 kilometers above the Earth with the hard part out of the way, it’s still over 11,000 kph faster than the 27,000 kph we’re already traveling to stay in orbit.”
JJ remembered where she had read about this. “That’s why it’s so important to have a base on the Moon or in orbit for further space exploration.”
Moon, sweet Moon,
she thought. “The Moon has much lower gravity, which makes the escape velocity from the Moon really low. So if we could use lunar materials to build spacecraft or space stations, the cliff is a lot smaller to climb.”
“Correct,” Bronsky said. “In fact, the Moon’s surface escape velocity is only about 8,000 kph, and you then have to add the escape velocity from the Earth at the distance of the Moon, which is another 5,000 kph for a total of 13,000 kph—still much easier than escaping from Earth’s surface.” He sighed. “But we won’t have a moonbase again until we defeat the Kylarn.”
“Commence detachment,” Ansari ordered into the intercom. “And when you’re finished, Colonel Fox, I have some people here who would be interested in seeing you.”
“Do you indeed? I look forward to it. Fox, out.”
JJ, King, and their friends watched as the busy space construction workers sealed off the node room and removed the connector bolts. Then they used small propulsion jets to nudge the large cylindrical module in a slow and graceful drift away from the ISSC.
“So that thing is going to make it all the way out to the asteroids,” Tony said.
“All three of them are,” JJ replied with a growing smile. “And it looks to me like those modules have enough room inside for a couple of short-term visitors during the mission.”
***