Mission Origin View (Final Days Trilogy) (12 page)

The pressure suit
’s weight included all the environmental units that were needed to work in space for eight hours. The suit also used a powered exoskeleton system that allowed the person inside the suit to move with little effort. The user lifted a leg, arm, or even a finger, and the exoskeleton detected the movement and used a hydraulic system to move the parts of the suit easily.

“
I need to get this pressure suit to the aft air locks and check it out, sir. Anything I can do for you before I leave?” Joseph asked as Gideon stared at him in disbelief.

“
No, Sipes. I’m good.”

“
Yes, sir,” Joseph said as he walked away with the heavy, bulky suit over his shoulder.

As Gideon watched the big man leave, he got an idea.

“Sipes!” Gideon yelled before Joseph rounded the corner.

Joseph stopped, turned, and yelled back
. “Sir?”

“
Come by my quarters this evening. I want to talk to you,” Gideon said.

“
Yes, sir!” Joseph said with a smile and left.

Lieutenant Klaxton’s Living Quarters, SRS
Stephen Hawking

2013
—February 18, 2372

“
Gideon?”

“
Yes, Anna.”

“
Petty Officer Sipes wants to know if it’s okay to come by and talk now.”

“
Yes, now’s a good time,” Gideon said as he hurried to put the finishing touches on the plan to extract Dr. Kastriva. Captain
Neubauer wanted Gideon to develop his own plan, so they could compare his plan to Captain Neubauer’s plan tomorrow morning and come up with a single plan to present to Mary. A knock at the door announced Joseph’s arrival.

“
Enter!” Gideon yelled.

Sipes came in and stood at attention.

“At ease, Sipes. I want to talk to you about a mission we’re planning.”

“
Mission, sir?”

“
I’m sure you’ve heard we’ll be picking up three more scientists before we proceed with our mission.”

“
Yes, sir…I think I remember something about that,” Joseph said.

Gideon motioned to a chair
. “Sit down, Sipes. I’ll tell you a little about it and why I’ve asked you to come by.”

Joseph sat and Gideon began.

“Sipes, the marines have been tasked to extract the scientists and bring them along whether they want to come or not. There may be a scientist who doesn’t want to come, and we’ll have to force them. Understand so far?” Gideon asked.

“
Yes, sir, I think so,” Joseph said.

“
To get to the point, I wanted to ask if you’d be willing to help us out.”

“
I’ll help anyway I can, sir,” Joseph answered with a big grin.

“
I want you to come along on the extractions and be our heavy lifter. All you have to do is carry our breaching system and possibly a scientist. That’ll free us to maneuver around faster and protect ourselves if we have any resistance.”

Joseph though
t for a second and asked, “So, all I have to do is carry stuff, and you’ll tell me what to do and when to do it?”

“
That’s right. After I saw you lug that pressure suit around this afternoon, I figured we could use your muscle. Also, if any of us are wounded, I bet you can carry a marine too.”

“
I can do that, sir,” Joseph replied and stared as if looking at something behind Gideon.

“
Got a question, Sipes, or something on your mind?”

“
No, sir. I was just thinking about a dream I had the other night. My grandma said I was to help save the crew’s lives. Maybe this is what she was talking about,” Joseph said.

Gideon looked at Sipes and
, not knowing really what to say, said, “Maybe Sipes. I don’t know. I do know if I’m wounded, I’ll have a better chance to get back to the ship if you’re with us.”   

Combat Control Center, SRS
Stephen Hawking

1800
—February 19, 2372

“
Captain Bowser, I’d like to get your initial impression of the mission plan before we proceed,” Captain Neubauer said as he stood in front of the conference table where Captain Bowser, Lieutenant Klaxton, Gunny Xia, Dr. Jones, and Dr. Harper sat.

Mary said.
“The plan looks good to me on paper. I do have a concern about Petty Officer Sipes assisting you, but I’m sure you’ll explain it in detail as you brief us.”

“
Certainly, sir. I’d like to verbally step through the plan and see if you have any other questions or problems,” Neubauer said as he walked over to a holographic display on the wall.

“
Stephen, clear the display, pull up the latest intelligence picture of
Canton Mie, planet Gliese,
and enable me to sketch.”

Stephen
cleared the holographic screen and displayed a satellite image of
Canton Mie
. “Altitude and angle perspective?” Stephen asked.

“
Five thousand feet, seventy-five-degree angle, eastern perspective,” Captain Neubauer responded.

The display of
Canton Mie was magnified and rotated to the requested angle as
Stephen
automatically noted and tagged major structures in the city.

“
Okay. Here’s the layout of
Canton Mie. As you know from reviewing the image in the plan, there’re seven multistory buildings used as government offices and several hundred homes in the city biosphere,”
Neubauer said. “Here’s the last-known living residence of Doctor
Kastriva, and here’s his laboratory.”

A home on the northwestern quadrant of the city was illuminated in red along with a large government research center in the middle of the city.

“We suggest the following persons be included in the scientific envoy: Commander Steward, Doctor Jones, Doctor Harper, and Lieutenant Klaxton. The team will use the standard naval orbital VTOL and will probably land here.”
Neubauer used his finger to mark the spaceport just south of the biosphere.

“
Why’s Lieutenant Klaxton part of the scientific envoy?” Dr. Harper said. “We were specifically told that no military personnel other than the captain or first officer could be part of the envoy.

“
Lieutenant Klaxton will be introduced as
Doctor
Klaxton, quantum computer scientist. No doubt their intelligence agency has a dossier, and hopefully it’s not up-to-date on our active military personnel. If they discover he’s military and confront us, we’ll say that
Doctor
Klaxton resigned his commission, earned his doctorate in computer science, and joined the expedition. If they have records, they’ll know his IQ and shouldn’t be that suspicious.”

“
Lieutenant Klaxton?” Dr. Harper said. “Are you sure you can pass as a quantum computer scientist?”

“
Yes, sir. I read several books and white papers last night. I’m well versed in the subject,” Gideon said.

“
Any other questions before I continue?”
Neubauer asked.

Everyone remained qui
et.

“
One of the
primary reasons for Lieutenant Klaxton accompanying the envoy team will be to deploy an upgraded Technical Intelligence Collector, a TIC device. I think everyone here is familiar with the capabilities of this device; however, I want to point out that the upgraded version uses nanostealth technology and utilizes normal communications traffic to embed intelligence messages that’ll be picked up by the
Stephen Hawking
.

“
Lieutenant, why don’t you show us the Stealth Technical Intelligence Collector, or S-TIC for short, and tell us what it’ll be tasked to do.” Captain
Neubauer said.

Gideon stood and extended his left arm for everyone to see.
“The device has attached itself to the cuff of my sleeve,” he said.

Everyone looked at his sleeve but saw
only the green fabric weave of his uniform.

“
It’s in stealth mode right now and is invisible,” Gideon said. “I’ll command it to disable its stealth mode. ‘S-TIC, disable stealth mode.’”

The device immediately appeared as a black device about the size of a thumbnail. It had six robotic limbs protruding from its
“body.” “S-TIC, relocate to my watch,” Gideon commanded. The device slowly “crawled” off his cuff and climbed onto his digital camouflaged watch band. “S-TIC, enable stealth mode.”

The S
-TIC disappeared.

“
As you can see, or not see,” Gideon said with a smile, “its stealth technology is very effective. Once we’ve been escorted into a building, I’ll deploy the device as close to a communications network as I can. The S-TIC’s artificial intelligence computer is programmed to stay in stealth mode, drop to the floor, and begin collecting intelligence about the location of Doctor Kastriva. It’ll passively start collecting wireless communications immediately as it looks for a fiber-optic cable that it can tap into. It’ll collect and store intelligence information we’ve told it to look for and will transmit the information so it can be picked up by the
Stephen Hawking
every two minutes.

“
Any questions?” Gideon asked.

“
How will you deploy it?” Mary asked and then added. “You can’t just say ‘S-TIC deploy’ aloud without someone hearing you.”

“Before we depart the ship, I’ll program the S-TIC to deploy when I say the words
Stephen Hawking.
I’m sure I can mention our ship’s name any time in our conversations with the Gliese representatives
,”
Gideon answered.

Mary nodded approval.

“Any other questions?” Gideon asked, waited a few seconds for questions, and then sat down.

“
Let’s continue,” Captain
Neubauer said. “Here’s where we think the plan will go one of two ways. Our scientific envoy team will sit down with the
Gliese representatives
and discuss the mission and then return to the ship, or the
Gliese representatives
will take the team hostage and demand some type of compensation for their return.”

The lower jaws of b
oth Dr. Harper and Dr. Jones dropped, and their eyes widened as both tried to speak.

“
What’re you talking about, Captain?” Dr. Harper asked before Dr. Jones was able to speak.

Captain
Neubauer said. “We think there’s a good probability they’ll take the envoy team hostage to try and leverage something from what they think is an unarmed scientific research vessel. They may want technology, raw materials, computer programs, tools, things like that. It’s also another reason to have
Lieutenant Klaxton along.
”

“
I don’t think they’ll do such a thing,” Dr. Harper said. “I do, however, agree they’ll want something if they participate in the mission, but I don’t think they’ll kidnap us to get it.”

“
Hopefully they won’t kidnap the envoy team, Doctor, but we have to plan for either event,” Captain Neubauer explained.

“
Understood, Captain,” Dr. Harper said uncomfortably.

“If the team is not taken,” Neubauer said, “hopefully the S-TIC will locate Doctor
Kastriva
in a timely manner and we can proceed with the extraction phase of the plan.”

“
Once the S-TIC locates the doctor, our extraction team will land undetected aboard
Bernice
here, here or here, depending on where the doctor is located in Canton Mie,” Neubauer said as he used his finger to make three
X’
s on the holographic map. “The extraction team will then proceed to one of these points and breech the city’s biosphere.” Neubauer then marked three points on the parameter of the biosphere.

“
Once inside the biosphere, the extraction team will make its way to Doctor
Kastriva. After he’s acquired, the team will leave the way it came in, return to
Bernice
, and return to the ship. Also, Captain, this is why we requested Sipes come along. He will be tasked to carry the breach equipment and Doctor Kastriva, if required. That’ll free up my marines to cover our extraction if we run into any problems. Any questions before we discuss what we’ll do if the envoy team is taken hostage?”
Neubauer asked.

Everyone remained quie
t.

“
Very well,” Captain Neubauer continued. “The extraction plan to rescue Doctor
Kastriva
remains the same if the envoy team is captured and held hostage. It’ll be the responsibility of Lieutenant Klaxton to free the envoy team, contact the ship, and rendezvous with the extraction team. At that point we’ll all leave
Gliese
aboard
Bernice
. We’ll remotely fly the standard naval orbital VTOL back to the ship, and once both VTOLs are aboard, we’ll leave the system as soon as possible.