Far Space (5 page)

The external view on the transmission display slewed, focusing on the huge tanks hanging from the rear quarter of Explorer’s frame.

White crystals were sprouting from one of the water tanks.

A second stream of crystals was emanating from the tank on the opposite side of the ship.

“Two tanks venting,” Campbell said after a moment of silence. He looked up at Detrick. “We’ve been holed.”

Detrick started nodding. He brushed the back of hand over his mouth and cleared his throat. “Okay. Impact checklists! Response Team Alpha, prepare for emergency EVA.”

“I’ve got good trajectories,” Ji said.

“And?” Detrick said, reaching for a red binder velcroed to the side of a console. “Whatever is hitting us is coming from the other ship,” Ji said.

Detrick stared at the main view screen and the dark ship arrowing toward his own and flexed his jaw.

“Whoever they are,” Campbell said, “they’re hitting us with high-velocity projectiles.”

“You can’t prove that!” Teft shouted as she turned on the engineer, “We pose no threat! There is no reason for them to attack us. It’s got to be some sort of coincidence!” She glanced around the command center, looking for agreement.

Explorer’s proximity alarms sounded, accompanied in the background by Mandi’s quiet, steady litany of warnings.

“Tell that to them,” Ji said and nodded at the main view screen. “Incoming…they’re from the direction of the other ship again!”

This time the bridge camera shuddered.

“Impact!” Campbell said. “Hab module 3 is venting. Activating all seals.” In the background the door to Explorer’s control center could be heard latching loudly.

“According to protocol, all crew members should move to emergency stations and don pressure suits,” Mandi added helpfully.

“It can’t be them!” Teft nearly screeched. “Any species intelligent enough to travel in space must have moved beyond the desire for reckless violence. This has to be some misunderstanding!”

In the background, Mandi was reporting on falling pressure levels and seal status.

“More incoming tracks!” Ji called.

The transmission became a mixed display of panic and silent destruction. The bridge feed showed several crew members erupt into argument while others frantically began to pull out pressure suits from storage bins along the walls. The scenes from the drones showed continuous flashes from the alien ship. Explorer’s hull flashed and quickly became surrounded by blossoms of debris and frozen atmosphere.

Amid the chaos, Detrick swayed, holding onto the seats in front of his station. All around him, the babble of voices washed each other out. The tortured sound of metal bending and the creaking of materials stretched beyond their breaking point joined the mix. Detrick looked around the bridge then forward again. He hardened his face in a resolute expression.

Detrick opened his mouth to speak but what the words would have been was lost when the feed from the command module rocked and then cut out. Only the peripheral information streams remained on the view screen. The net managers, shocked by what had just happened, appeared unable to decide what to replace the main feed with now that it provided only a hash of static.

In the corner of the screen, the external view from Explorer’s drone had widened to take in the whole length of the massive Earth ship. The spouts of vapor and debris were creating a sparkling, silent cloud around the inhabited sections near the bow and the tanks near the rear of the ship.

The massive storage containers located mid-ship holding provisions, equipment, and two small shuttle craft shattered, spilling their contents as high velocity projectiles found their mark.

Explorer broke in half with the fore and aft sections tilting away from each other.

The final image of the broken craft flashed out in a burst of static as the drone feed was finally cut off.

USS Schriever, Century-Class Orbital Patrol Craft

Geosynchronous Orbit

“Looks like the Cohou were right,” Pearl observed.

The Cohou had warned Earth’s inhabitants some twenty-three years ago. There were far too many dangers out in the galaxy to just start traveling about. Their advice: stop broadcasting every fool thing out into interstellar space, stay planet side, turn out the lights, and be glad they were the first ones to find us.

“Yeah, but who are we to ever take good advice,” Yates said.

“We were warned,” Mitchell said. “And we sent Explorer into a hornet’s nest.”

“Course, it could have been a coincidence,” Pearl said, leaning back in his seat. “Perhaps it was some sort of dust cloud and the other ship was maneuvering to avoid it or place the shielded portion of their ship between them and the onslaught.”

“You think that’s true?” Yates asked, still staring at the main display, which now sported a notice concerning some sort of technical difficulty.

“They got schwacked,” Mitchell said, taking control of the display. He switched over to some talking heads busy having the same discussion, albeit with more animation.

“Yep,” Pearl said, “they most certainly did.”

Bullard Space Elevator – Lift-car 47

Earth Space

“What happened?” Jennifer asked.

Ian opened his mouth to speak and found he did not know what to say.

Explorer appeared to have been destroyed without warning. Campbell’s assessment fit with what Ian knew about rail guns. Inert slugs were accelerated to extremely high speeds toward their target. The shear energy embodied in the slug was enough to smash through any armor or structure, especially the fairly delicate designs found in outer space.

The monitor came back to life with a real-time analysis of the Explorer footage. An ‘expert’ had been located and put on a video feed to fill the dead air.

“Oh good, maybe they know what happened,” Jennifer said, turning her attention back to the screen Ian stared out the window as the Earth continued to recede below him. He had the overwhelming feeling humanity had just entered a frightening new universe.

USS Schriever, Century-Class Orbital Patrol Craft

Geosynchronous Orbit

“Message on FlashNet,” Mitchell said. “I’ll route it to the main screen.”

The argument about what happened to Explorer and her crew cut out, replaced by a divided screen displaying a three dimensional representation of the Jupiter system on one side and a video of the presenter on the other. The briefing was already in progress. The fact it had started before all the ships, included Shriever, had been able to sync told Yates they would not be receiving good news.

“…disturbances appeared at six different spots around the planet followed by the appearance of six unidentified vessels.” The briefer, a Captain in the US Army, assigned to the Lagrange 5 station looked over at another screen for updates. “We have verified the ships left Jupiter orbit fifty-five minutes ago and are on a trajectory taking them sunward, we’re still working the numbers. Mars does not appear to be their destination.” He paused and listened to someone speaking off-screen. “Okay, the unidentified ships have accelerated and initiated a course correction. You can see the projected trajectories now…”

Yates followed the trajectories on the display. “Looks like we’re about to have guests.” He looked over at Pearl. “Fire up all the reactors.”

“But I just took number three off-line,” Pearl objected.

“Just do it,” Yates ordered. “Mitchell, warm everything up, priority on the close-in defenses.”

Mitchell nodded, already pecking away at this keyboard.

Pearl looked over at the commander. “You think it’s the same guys?”

“Let’s hope not.”

Bullard Space Elevator

Earth Space

The newscasters broke into the analysis of the Explorer events to report on even more disturbing news. “This is fascinating and horrendous,” the anchor said, his glee barely hidden as so many newsworthy events unfolded on his watch. “Unidentified spacecraft similar to those which apparently destroyed the Explorer starship have appeared in orbit around Jupiter and are headed toward Earth!”

“They’re coming here,” Ian said. He looked back out the elevator window and easily picked out the bright speck which was Jupiter.

“Can you believe this is happening?” Jennifer asked, leaning close to Ian.

Ian looked over at the young woman.

“What?” Jennifer asked, seeing the look on Ian’s face.

“I just wonder what they have in mind, that’s all,” Ian said.

“Who knows,” Jennifer said and gazed out the window. “This is only the second alien race humanity has ever encountered. Maybe there really was a mistake out at Alpha Centari.”

“You think they’re coming here to say they’re sorry?”

“That’s what they’re talking about,” Jennifer said, hooking a finger over her shoulder at the knot of people watching the newscast. “You?”

“Apologize?” Ian shook his head. “I really don’t know.”

“Best guess?” Jennifer asked.

“They, whoever ‘they’ are,” Ian said, tapping his chin, “traced Explorers trajectory back here. It’d be easy to figure out when the last transmission would arrive. They planned their arrival to coincide with our reception of Detrick’s final signal.”

“They could have sent a message of their own.”

“They could have,” Ian said, nodding.

“But here they are in person,” Jennifer said. “Which means…what?”

“Maybe they wanted to be sure we knew about Explorer,” Ian said.

“I hope for Earth’s sake you’re wrong,” Jennifer said, taking his hand in hers.

“Yeah, me too.”

USS Schriever, Century-Class Orbital Patrol Craft

Geosynchronous Orbit

“I’ve never seen anything move this fast.” Reeves shook his head. “It’s not possible.”

“Possible?” Pearl said, “Let’s talk about them popping into orbit around Jupiter. How the heck did they pull that trick off?”

“But, sixty-five minutes!” Reeves added, “no one can get from Jupiter to Earth so fast, it’s a twelve month trip!”

“For us,” Yates said. “Mitchell, are we ready?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Sir, all ships have just been ordered to stand down,” Reeves said. He put his hand on his ear-piece. “It’s a Presidential directive. All weapons are to be powered off and targeting systems are supposed to be disabled. Authentication checks for Colorado Control.” The Colorado Combined Aerospace Operations Center, or CCAOC, managed all United States military forces and assets beyond Earth’s atmosphere. With ships like the Schriever in orbit, the dreams of the Space Defense Initiative and persistent global presence had finally become a reality. Use of space for military purposes such as reconnaissance, surveillance, communications, positioning, and most importantly, timing had been going on since the dawn of the space age. Now, the U.S. finally had the means to project power off-world to protect its vital assets in orbit.

“Looks like the politicians are hoping not to provoke these guys,” Pearl muttered.

Yates leaned back in his chair, closed his eyes, and ran the Explorer encounter back in his mind. When he opened his eyes, the rest of the crew was staring at him. So here it was, the leadership moment of his career and probably his life.

Yates was surprised how easily the choice was to make.

“Open a line to CCAOC,” Yates said. When Reeves nodded back, he continued, “USS Bernard Schriever to Colorado Control, orders noted. Please be advised I consider this course of action to be contrary to my duty to my crew and my ship. Schriever will remain on highest alert until intent of incoming, possibly hostile ships, can be determined. End transmission.”

“Dang, Robert,” Pearl said, half rising out of his seat. “You trying to get us all tried for treason?”

“My command, my call,” Yates said after cutting off his mike. To Mitchell he said, “Keep the weapons on-line but hold off any laser ranging.”

“Yes, sir,” Mitchell said, unperturbed by his commander’s apparent violation of orders. “The fire’s stoked and the water’s boiling - we’re ready.”

“Uh, sir,” Reeves said, “General Hatterus is on the line and he’s really pissed.”

“How long until the incoming ships reach lunar orbit?” Yates asked, ignoring the call from the CCAOC Commander for a moment.

“Three minutes,” Mitchell answered. He reached up and plucked a dark brown cowboy hat from a niche above his console. Mitchell settle the well-worn hat on his head and ran his fingers along the brim. “Two minutes, forty five seconds…”

Yates tapped the mike button on his console.

“…you will stand down Schriever!” General Hatterus’ purple face appeared on the main screen and his angry voice filled the cabin.

“Sir, I have to ask you to clear this line,” Yates said in an even tone. “We have incoming threats on our position but will be streaming telemetry to you during the encounter.”

“Yates! You will not engage! Repeat, stand down all weapons!” Hatterrus growled. “You are deliberately disobeying a direct order from the President of the United States and me! Do you realize what this means?!”

“It means I will not allow my crew to suffer the same fate as Explorer’s,” Yates stated. “Schriever is a warship and I intend to use it as such.” He keyed his mike. “Kill it, Reeves.”

“Looks like you just nailed the lid on your career and your coffin,” Pearl snorted.

“Hopefully just the career,” Yates said.

Ballard Space Elevator

Earth Space

“They’re within lunar orbit,” Jennifer said, following the track of the alien craft on the nearest monitor

“Yeah, I see that,” Ian responded distractedly. He took Jennifer’s hand and started toward the ladder way at the center of the observation deck.

Jennifer raised a questioning eyebrow.

“Just want to be sure of something,” Langdon said. He paused at the ladder long enough to glance back at the other passengers and crew members glued to the monitors. Ian wondered for a moment if he was over-reacting. The crew would let them know if they were in danger and the elevator controllers would start them back down the line if there was a threat to the car.