On Mars
What they suddenly wanted done was just impossible.
With no less than fifteen strangers staring right at me, I dipped my head, looking down at the ground and then slowly shook my head from side to side, trying to figure out how to make this work.
“Okay, okay, let me consider this for a second,” I said as I raised my head and pasted on a fake smile for the bureaucrats.
I stepped away from the table toward Sarah and whispered a question to her. She looked up as if the answer was in the sky, then back down to me and murmured a seriously long, exception-filled response. I let out a low whistle thinking about what she’d said.
“I think we can make it without help from the tug,” I whispered.
I looked over at Huang, who had a solemn look on his face, so I gave him a grin and moved my eyebrows up and down a couple of times.
“Huang, what are we looking at here, four or five?” Huang looked at me and I saw the slightest smile appear on his face.
“Roger, sir, this is looking to be at least a five-WTFs-per-hour event,” Huang replied quietly.
I smiled more fully at Huang and Sarah to give them a reassuring look as we continued quietly exchanging thoughts until a crisp, but shrill voice crackled from the speaker in the center of the table.
“Captain Murray!” the sharp male voice said, “you will report on time with the required complement of personnel and cargo or face disciplinary actions consistent with the policies you are violating.”
“But sir,” I retorted, “It’s not safe to try and pull all this together and meet the space tug timeline. I just need a couple more days to get everything organized—”
“Listen Dave,” the voice started again in a softer tone, “I don’t mean to be unreasonable, but the senior agency leadership has received several reports concerning you and your crew…. And, well, the reports imply that you are horsing around and not tending to your assigned missions—so the order has come down from the Ops director—get your missions done and get back here on schedule. Earth Prime station out.”
Everyone around the table turned their heads in unison to look at me with a reasonably judgmental look in their eyes as my face started to flush in embarrassment.
Well crap, that sure seemed final.
“Sir, that’s just not true,” I retorted back into the speaker using my best super-deep tough-guy voice even though I knew it was going to take about twenty minutes to get a response.
In fact, these long-range conversations always seemed to be one-sided because of the propagation delay of sending a signal from Mars to Earth, which took about ten minutes, then another ten to receive the response.
Anytime HQ said “Out” at the end of a transmission, that pretty much ended the conversation.
I looked at the faces around the table, and, despite the sidebar conversations, I noted several staffers and military personnel collecting their papers and documents with intent to leave the meeting room now that the conversation appeared to be over.
I got the feeling that no one believed in me.
Well, regardless of everyone else in the room, I really wanted my crew to believe in me. But that’s been a tough road to travel because of some of my decisions, especially the decisions made under pressure that didn’t turn out so well.
Anyway, one man was looking at me with strong intensity, like I’d done something to offend him. I think his name was Max, I don’t know where I remember him from but yes, Max was his name. As I was contemplating Max, four people moved my way from the other side of the room, appearing to approach for what I hoped was a conversation and not a confrontation.
I recognized them as part of the Agency base-engineering team. Good people and innovative thinkers. You have to be creative in order to be stationed on Mars and handle the wide variety of challenges they encounter each day.
Leading this foursome was a person named William Castle, a man in his forties wearing a brown Agency engineer uniform. He strode right up to me and started a conversation. “Dave, I’m sorry about this. I don’t know what reports they are talking about; we haven’t sent them anything.”
“No worries, Billy, I’m sure there’s some sort of misunderstanding at the root here. We’ve worked out a plan that I think will work if you and your team can help us with a few details. Do you still have those container pushers?”
“Yes…I think so. They are pretty old, you know. If my memory is right, we have about thirty of them. I think using them in this situation would be tricky. Getting that many super-heavy lifts sequenced just right will require a lot more time than I think you have.
“You may not recall but those are the older leader-follower type that operate in a chain with one leader engine and four to ten follower freight cars.”
I smiled uncomfortably as I tried to control the anxiety that was creeping up and replied, “Billy, I’ve got a strategy that will work. Can we go over to your ops facility to discuss the plan? I mean, can we go right now as I don’t have a lot of wiggle room in the schedule.”
Billy nodded up and down in what looked like a firm yes and said, “A plan huh? Okay, roger that, we are heading that way right now—will see you there, Dave.”
I reached out to Billy and gave him an appreciative, strong handshake and said, “Thank you Billy; I owe you one.”
Billy looked at me with the broad grin that he gets when he’s trying to be funny and said, “Hell, Dave, that’s more like eight or ten that you owe me. I’m not sure if this is doable, but I’ll withhold my ‘expert’ analysis until we hear your plan.”
With that, Billy and his associates walked out of the room while Sarah, Huang and I collected our papers and tablet computers and prepared to follow them to the engineering ops center.
After a couple of solid hours of analysis and planning in the Agency station engineering main conference room, we started feeling a little bit better about our plan. Sidebar conversations continued as the Mars station chief Gerrard came into the room in his dress uniform, which was decorated with a pin and few insignias that indicated he was a very experienced, senior civilian leader in the Space Colonization Agency.
Gerrard owns a small but important chunk of Mars station, and he’d be held responsible if we created a major disaster trying to get the cargo and related items off Mars and back to Earth station.
Gerrard looked around the room, spotted me, then walked quickly to the table where Billy, Sarah, and I were working through final plans. Billy and I stood as he approached.
“Captain Murray, I see you’ve once again managed to make your unpreparedness an emergency for my organization to deal with.”
I looked around at the assembled team, feeling a rather severe sinking feeling developing in the pit of my stomach, so I faked a smile and prepared my deepest, calmest tough-guy voice. “Chief Gerrard, hello, it’s good to see you again. And I do understand your view, but there are other issues that we’ve not been able to highlight up to this point.”
Now Isaac Gerrard and I came up together in the Agency, and he moved fast. It was warranted, as he is brilliant, if not a bit too by-the-book for my tastes, but a good friend nonetheless. He’d treat me, my team, and this situation in a professional way, and I was fairly sure that the Agency was leaning on him as well.
“Okay Captain, let’s hear it, what are the issues?”
“We’ll have to talk in private sir as there are security concerns related to the issues.”
The Agency chief looked at Billy, then over to Sarah, finally refocusing back on me. “Okay, let’s go to my office, just you and me.”
I looked around at the team and focused on Sarah. Sarah Maxwell is the Algonquin’s Chief of Navigation and Sensors: Computer Science Track. She’s young, but she’s a smart, trusted leader, and most importantly, third in command. I asked her to finalize the sequencing of events because getting it right was important for success, and I knew she could handle getting it done.
A few minutes later I found myself seated across the desk from Chief Gerrard as we sat alone in his office.
“Alright, Dave, let’s hear it. What are the complicating issues?”
Now I addressed him as “sir” because he was senior to me, and that’s the protocol for the Agency. That’s just how our system works, but I must admit, I was surprised at his rather aggressive interaction with me given how long we’d known each other. I wondered if something else was bothering him. “Sir, there’s been a rather vicious outbreak of Snale pox in the hydroponics district….” Snale pox was a water-borne virus discovered by a researcher named Dr. Randal Snale just after we started colonizing Mars. Snale pox grows in algae that sometimes leaks into water or food supplies and could easily spread to take out a lot of people in a short time span.
Gerrard sat up straighter, immediately concerned. “Damn. Is it under control? What is the spread ratio?”
“Sir, the full details are classified,” I said and saw Gerrard wince slightly. “They’ve managed to isolate the sections of algae, moss, plants, and employees so spreading has been neutralized. Several employees remain hospitalized but most concerning ….” I had to think about what I was about to reveal because I was not supposed to do so, but I felt he deserved and needed to know. “There have been eleven deaths.”
Gerrard suddenly looked sullen and peered off into the distance over my shoulder. And with a deep breath, he replied. “Dave, my wife has not been home in two days. She’s been isolated over in the military barracks with several of her coworkers, and they’ve been very tight-lipped about whatever situation is going down. I knew something really bad must have happened if they were keeping the details from me. This is not good.” Gerrard paused and rubbed his eyes, then exhaled slowly. “Okay, so what’s the mission, and how can we help?”
I thought about the stress he must be feeling regarding his wife, probably more than he was letting on. An idea popped into my head about how to set him at ease. I pulled the tablet computer out of my cargo pocket and looked through the data.
“Sir, I see a Catherine Gerrard on the list at the military barracks. As of 2100 yesterday, she has reportedly experienced no symptoms, and I believe that’s where they are holding folks that were not exposed to the sections of plants where the Snale pox was found.”
Gerrard turned back to meet my eyes. He perked up a bit and said, “Thank you, Dave, I appreciate you sharing that information.”
He knew I must have been sharing sensitive info. His eyes contracted just a millimeter as he said, “What about our food and water, any risk to the supply chain you can share?”
I looked down at the tablet, scrolling through the data pretending to read it as I thought about how to provide insights without revealing classified information. The agency wanted to handle this carefully and restricted access to nearly all the information. Well crap. There’s no way for me to do that.
“Sir, there’s been a significant effort to trace the origin of many key supplies, and luckily most of the contaminated food and water has been successfully recalled or is in the process of being returned. Most colonists will not know how close we came to a disaster of epic proportions. So, this is why we are in a bit of a spot.”
Chief Gerrard glanced around the room, then looked back at me. “What’s the whole story here, Dave? HQ calls me out of the blue and says that you have been here screwing off and have failed to get priority cargo loaded for transport. Transport that will miss the scheduled cargo tug back to Earth, and, I guess, miss some timeline that’s not been mentioned. Dave, they indicated it was because of negligence. I told them that was uncharacteristic of you, but I never got a response or any details. The lack of response is puzzling. Have you made any new enemies back at HQ who you can think of?”
I thought about that for a moment. My mind shifted immediately to the run-in I’d had with that jackass, Max. But that had happened here, and it seemed unlikely that he would be linked up with anyone who mattered back at HQ. My brain raced. Max is tight with that Agency geologist, Sasha Rairkov. She’s a major pain and could have something to do with this. “Well, sir, I did have a run-in with one of the geologists that works for Dr. Rairkov, guy named Max Randolf, but I can’t imagine they would send secret reports about me back to Earth as our run-in seemed to be focused as much on the company I was keeping as some research effort he was working on,” I said with a perplexed look.
Gerrard nodded and looked as though he was contemplating something. “Okay, I’ll look into it quietly, Dave. Can you share some of the mission background?”
“Yes, sir. The short version is… we were on route to Outpost Yankee when we received a flash notification. So we immediately diverted within laser range of the nearest message buoy and downloaded our traffic including the sensitive flash message.” I moved around a bit in my seat but kept my eyes locked on Gerrard’s eyes, and he nodded as I spoke. “The message diverted us here to take part in the Snale pox response action as Big Al has a superb medical facility and staff. After arriving, we focused on the affected districts, working on the hydroponics systems and eradicating the Snale pox virus across the colony’s footprint, including performing supply chain analysis. Then, out of the blue I get this Agency request to load and deliver one hundred tons of important cargo back to Earth.”
“You’re saying it was a request, not an order?”
“Right, and I thought it very odd, but it just said priority-2 cargo transport request. Since it wasn’t an order, I decided I didn’t have to accept it. I made the decision to decline it, but did not respond with an official reclama. I figured the leadership back on Earth knew that I was dealing with the classified Snale pox issue, so I ignored the request. Then I got called to the carpet late last night which led to the session this morning over at the Colony HQ.” I sucked in a deep breath and continued. “We are packaging samples of the algae, moss, and other plants, along with the virus for transport, and we obviously want to get that right, so there’s not been a lot of time to get rock-transport plans calculated in. Now… I did stop by to see a couple of ladies, and on one of those engagements, while at dinner, the guy I’d mentioned before, Max, he and I got in a pushing contest, but after that he disappeared.”
The look on Gerrard’s face told me he was mentally assembling the situation. “So now I have to get all the virus-related packages stowed and secure plus figure out how to get one hundred tons of frigging rocks off the planet so that we can catch the inbound tugs in about twelve hours to transport everything back to Earth.”
I saw Chief Gerrard make a few notes on his tablet before he looked up at me. “What is the difference in time to Earth if you miss the tugs?”
Without looking at my tablet I told him, “The tugs will have the cargo and Snale pox samples to Earth’s logistics perimeter in 21 days. But I can take them directly from Mars Colony to Earth Prime Station in thirty days. So if you add the time it takes to get from the logistics automation perimeter to Earth Station, which is about six additional days depending on the level of traffic already in the line, we’d make it there three days later than the automated logistics system could get it there. Plus, my team could be conducting analysis of the Snale pox genetics and exchanging them with scientists back on Earth the whole way home.”
“Hmmm, I should think the Agency would go for that set of tradeoffs. Three days for direct transport. What about your op to Yankee?”
“They’ve redirected the Liberty to handle that visit. They don’t have the size or surgical staff that the Algonquin’s got, but they do have more modern medical and engineering capability to meet the mission.”
“Yes, Big Al is quite a capable colony support ship; too bad it’s being decommissioned,” Gerrard said.
I raised my chin just a millimeter or two before fake-smiling hard and replying, “We’ll see, sir, if that happens. Big Al has been up for decommissioning three times during my term as Captain, and each time I’ve managed to push the timeline.”
“I see,” Gerrard grinned at how hard I’d worked, angling to keep the mighty Algonquin in action. “When do you need to leave orbit to make it back to Earth on your own?”
I didn’t need to consult my tablet to reply, “We need to depart from Mars in twenty-eight hours. So we’ll be hustling to get the cargo up to Algonquin now that we have a plan. By the way, I really appreciate Billy and the team’s help. We couldn’t do any of this without it, so thank you for that.”
I could see Gerrard now realized how much of a time crunch we were under, and he smiled and stood up from his chair. He put out his hand. “Dave, we’ll do what we can to get you out of here as soon as possible. If you need anything, call me directly. I’ll let you know what I find out about this ‘request’ to transport the cargo.”
I stood and shook his hand heartily, then hurried back to the conference room. On my way, I submitted an urgent request to have Carrol Gerrard moved to the priority list for screening, and, hopefully, for her to be returned to duty status shortly thereafter. The Chief has too much responsibility to be alone here, I thought.
Back in the conference room, I went over the final details of using our cargo tether to yank the cargo into space to make sure we all understood what we were going to do. “Our glorified space hook should be able to pull this much weight up to the Algonquin if we can boost it high enough into Mars’s light atmosphere with the initial push; we’ve done this sort of thing before on planets and moons where the gravity is low, just not quite to this size and scale. To make this work, the Algonquin goes into low orbit, and, essentially, unreels a really long tether that has specialized vertical and lateral control hardware every few hundred kilometers. Attached at the bottom end of the tether is a specially designed hook, and a tiny aerospace ship to guide the hooking mechanism toward the target cargo.”
I paused to look around the room, but I could see they were all with me, so I continued. “The big idea is to use cheaper, unmanned rockets attached to big cargo boxes called ‘pushers’ to get the cargo off the surface to a certain elevation in the atmosphere. Then we catch the cargo with the hook and pull it toward the Algonquin. The pushers are not piloted, so there’s a lot less risk to human life.”
We all shook hands and departed the conference room heading in our different directions to execute our assigned tasks.
An hour later I arrived out at the pusher launch point, which was the Mars colony’s perimeter. We conducted all automated launches off the planet at that location to avoid risk to the massive colony complex if something failed or went wrong. We packed the cargo containers, wired them up and used wheeled drones to push them outside into the launch area. “Alright Sasha, this is the last crate of cargo, right?” I stated as definitively as possible, trying hard to be congenial, because Dr. Sasha Rairkov is a very reactive person, and I was hoping she would respond with a yes.
“Yes Captain. By the way, you are aware of the urgency to get this material back to Earth, right?”
I wonder if she knows about me getting called to the carpet by the agency ops director? “Roger Sasha, I’m tracking the critical timeline. Although it doesn’t make much sense to me to risk life and limb to get a bunch of rocks back to Earth. I’m not sure who would make such a request to the Agency, because it’s an inherently risky maneuver.” I was probing for more details.
Sasha stopped what she was working on, removed her gloves, stood with one hand on her hip, and looked at me for a few milliseconds before she finally replied. “If you are asking if I spoke to headquarters, the answer is yes.” Sasha let that sink in, and then she said, “I told them that… that you—Captain Dave Murray and his crew—were distracted by other missions and uhh, ‘visits.’ I need this material back on Earth as soon as possible.”
Sasha raised her fingers making air quotes around the word “visits,” which meant she was cognizant of my visits with a lady friend in the colony complex. That, coupled with the fact that she’d called home to Earth station to gripe about me and my team, pissed me off. “Well that was a cheapjack thing to do; why didn’t you just explain to me the urgency of this issue?” I said with annoyance.
“I tried several times,” Sasha began, ready to rant at me, just as her pet goon, Max, sidled up to our conversation.
“You mean you had your associate, Max here, bother me with this when I was having dinner with a friend. You know, I have many other roles on this mission that you are not aware of. Sometimes, things we think are important are not so important in the grand scheme of things. Hell, I’d like to find the person that invented round shoelaces and kick their asses on general principle, but that doesn’t mean something so petty is going to happen.”
I was looking at Max then, with a “just try it” smile on my face. Sasha started in on her priority list again, and Max just stood there, adding in what he felt were key points to support her argument, and the whole thing was starting to draw the attention of several folks working on the launch process.
Damn, I hate talking to her. I stood there as she railed on, stonewalling. She was brilliant, there was no doubt, but it was hard to look past that mean, ugly attitude to try and build any sort of relationship. I continued to be unresponsive, and she finally stormed off in a huff, Max trailing behind her. That was okay by me; I had work to do anyway.
We conducted the final cargo transport coordination meeting, then I headed back to my ship so we could employ the space hook and get this cargo loaded and get on our way.
On my way back to my transport ship, I stopped in at the colony shoppette to grab a few essentials as requested by the crew, and I also had to get peanut butter for me because I do have a thing for it, so for me, it’s an essential. Yes, that’s what I said, rich, nutty peanut butter. It’s a well-known colonist staple, but most non-colonists don’t realize that peanut butter sits by itself at the top of the colonist food pyramid… more or less. Then I headed back to the spaceport where our dinghy, Ranger-1, was parked. Huang Fei was sitting in the pilot’s seat in a video teleconference with engineers aboard the Algonquin and the Mars station.
Huang, a superb young leader and an outstanding pilot, looked in my direction, giving me the okay sign to tell me everything on the conference was proceeding as anticipated. I gave him a thumbs up and headed to the back of the dinghy to hide… err safely store the peanut… err… important crew supplies.
The Ranger-1 is quite the nifty little aero-spaceship that enables a multi-person crew to get from space to planet side and back, quickly using the latest in advanced, but small-engine, tech. After I had stored the precious cargo, I went back to Huang, who had completed his call. “All right Huang, how many WTFs per hour are we looking at now for this crazy cargo mission?” I asked with a big grin on my face.
Huang returned my broad grin, then pretended to be serious for a moment saying, “Zero, sir. I have a feeling this will go very smoothly.”
I smiled back. “Holy moly, zero? That would be something Huang!” We discussed a few notes resulting from the coordination with various points of contact involved, and, after checking in with the Algonquin, we decided it was time to bug out.
An hour later I was back on Big Al working through cargo storage plans with the crew while Zane, the Algonquin’s deputy commander and executive officer (XO) worked on the plan to hook the cargo from Mars’s light atmosphere.
I thought about Huang’s prediction of zero WTFs per hour but… my inner monologue was counting WTFs per hour at around the range of ten to twenty. Gotta think positive, I told myself, trying to control the apprehension twisting my gut. Especially in front of the crew.
Zane and Mickey, the ship’s co-lead engineer, verbally jousted about the space tether’s ability to withstand the strain of such a large load and debated whether or not to supplement the lift by using the older, less advanced space crane from the heavily modified Mars moon, Phobos to perform the initial catch.
I’d never bet against Mick; he’s the best mechanical engineer in the Agency. Miguel Romero, Mickey for short, is the one engineer you want on your ship if the going gets tough. And let me tell you, in space, the going is always tough. Zane and Mick opted against using the Phobos station crane, as it was better suited to shuttling lighter weight material, like people, between the surface of Mars and low orbit. Also, the complexity of maneuvering Phobos station at this late hour added too much additional operational complexity, as Phobos was mostly a small military station and not well equipped for this sort of work.
“Sir,” Zane’s voice crackled over my wrist-mounted computer, the FemtoCom. “Priority message from Mars Colony HQ, if you didn’t see it. It requires your response. Something about the tug is all I can see in the subject line.”
I raised my forearm to read the message and replied, “Roger Zane, I acknowledged their message. It was a notification that the tug was being taken offline for maintenance as there was damage to the main tug engine. There will be a navigation hazard notification coming in soon, so they are just letting us know.”
Zane’s face popped onto my FemtoCom. “Sir, did you say a tug suffered damage? The very same tug we were supposed to rendezvous with to ship this cargo back to Earth?”
“Roger Zane, that’s what it said. Very odd, as those tugs are really tough buggers.”
I could see Zane look down for a moment, then back up at me as he replied, “Wow, so I guess our renegade decision worked out for the best after all.”
I smiled back at Zane and said, “Yep, I think we are on the right path for getting both missions accomplished.” I wondered if Zane had thought my plan would fail. I need to work on building trust with the crew, especially Zane. Zane and I chatted for a bit as the time for launching the cargo from Mars approached.
The ship and crew were ready. Well, as ready as we could be to catch a hundred tons of rock being shot at us from the surface of Mars. “Sir, if we miss hooking those containers, there’s going to be a huge mess to clean up on Mars. The colony security channels are really buzzing with activity, hope it’s not focused on us.”
I thought about Zane’s comment and quickly replied, “Naawww, I’m sure there’s other issues to sort out down there. Besides, this is going to work flawlessly, I’m certain of it,” I lied.
My stomach started twisting up just thinking about the catastrophe that would occur if we screwed this up. Given my past mistakes, a blunder of this magnitude would end my career. They’d probably put Zane in charge immediately. No, I’ve got to think positively, this will work, I told myself. And when it does, I’ll buy back some respect from the crew. Nearly everyone was counting on us to execute flawlessly.
Zane looked back toward me and gave me a smile and a thumbs up.
“All right Zane, time to saddle up. Let’s get Huang checked in and ready,” I said, grinning at Zane as I got cowboy reference in.
A short while later, showtime came with the Algonquin moving into position, and Huang maneuvering the space hook several hundred kilometers below in what passed for an atmosphere, by piloting the fantastically delicate hook ship, making last-minute path adjustments. I was fidgeting in my command cubicle on Algonquin’s flight deck, with Zane and the rest of the crew on watch in their shallow cubes—they were in front of me but positioned slightly lower.
It’s ironic that nearly every manned deck on the ship looked like a 1990s multi-level cube farm where everyone sat together, yet were afforded some privacy if desired by raising their cube walls and sitting versus standing. The actual purpose of the movable cube walls was to provide radiation shielding and run oxygen, water, and other conduits to each person during long emergency sessions. In the early days of colonizing the solar system, the cumulative effects of radiation over long-term space travel caused significant health problems and resulted in retrofitting each deck with more granular, redundant radiation protection.
“Huang, remember the abort criteria, if the torsion rating exceeds 8.6, we abort—period, full stop,” Zane smoothly restated for what seemed like the tenth time. Crap, we were all tense; the whole event seemed to be moving at a glacial pace.
“Yes, sir, tracking 8.6 on the torsion meter,” Huang calmly restated.
I could see Zane was worried about Huang flying that hook ship as it wasn’t much of a ship at all, just a seat strapped to an awful lot of engines, a couple of wings, and a long protruding yet massive hooking mechanism all straddled by a pilot in a full space suit riding along.
A few minutes later, Mars Colony Base Ops started broadcasting that the cargo pushers had lifted off and sent out subsequent trajectory measurements in hundreds of meters. Zane coordinated activity between Mars, Huang, and Alex Singh, the second of two Algonquin pilots who was also a computer systems engineer. Mars slowly rotated into position while Huang maneuvered to get the hook into the right spot.
Everyone was watching the holographic event model that depicted Mars, Big Al, the hook ship, and of course, the star attraction, the cargo, as it lifted from Mars thanks to those massive pushers. Big Al had to have just the right amount of forward velocity to drag the cargo up into space without snapping the tether, so Alex was constantly making calculated thruster changes to reduce the probability that a tether-snapping amount of torque would build as the lift went down.
The cargo looked like a string of boxes hung below the massive pusher engine that did most of the pulling, bringing the boxes into the higher regions of Mars’s atmosphere. Each of the cargo containers did have sufficient thrust to get their boxes off the ground, but they were small and designed to wear out quickly, allowing the pusher engine to take over and remove the slack in the cables that connected the cargo boxes.
We all watched the holographic display tensely as Huang’s hook ship came up behind the pusher engine. As he approached, he carefully adjusted his course and speed to match the engine’s. “Almost there…” Zane said over the comms link. “Almost there…” once again, as Zane narrated his internal monologue for the rest of us.
Huang’s voice broke in, “Algonquin, this is Hitcher1, I’m in position, permission to hook? I say again, Algonquin, this is Hitcher1, I’m in position, requesting permission to hook the cargo.”
“It looks good to me. Zane, Sarah, Alex, do you see any issues?” Zane then Sarah, and finally Alex all replied stating there were no detectable anomalies, and that Huang should execute the hook.
“Okay, let’s do it. Hitcher1, Hitcher1, this is Algonquin; you are cleared to hook the cargo. Execute, execute, execute,” I said as clearly as possible, knowing that despite microphones in his helmet, Huang was buffeting in Mars’s atmosphere so he couldn’t hear as clearly as he’d like.
A few seconds later Huang successfully hooked the cargo, slowly ascending from the surface of Mars. Huang blurted out, “Got it! Wow, that took a lot longer than expected. Algonquin this is Hitcher1, the cargo is hooked.” His excitement caught me off guard, but we were all happy the hard part had finally been completed.
Minutes ticked by as Mars Base Operations Engineers, Zane, and Huang, coordinated the cargo’s ascension from Mars’s light atmosphere. “Huang, what is the torsion reading?” Zane calmly barked as the Algonquin’s forward momentum increased, and the slack started popping out of the tether.
“It’s 6.6 and rising fast sir. I’m not liking this—7.2 now,” Huang stated with concern grinding into his voice. Mickey commented to Zane that the velocity numbers looked right on and that the tether’s smart controls should be able to handle the load.
A sudden snap jolted Huang’s little ship as a large portion of slack snapped out of the Algonquin’s tether, despite the built-in controls to prevent this type of event from occurring. “Huang, disconnect now, now, now, now!” Zane yelled over the microphone.
“Zane, what’s happening?” I said, while the milliseconds spent waiting for a response seemed like hours.
“Sir, the tether’s built-in controls are having a difficult time balancing the twisting and tension as the Algonquin pulls out of orbit; the weight is right at the edge of being too much… and we really need Huang to disconnect as there will likely be more tether snaps. Also, I’m pretty sure that snap hurt the hook ship and potentially Huang himself. That ship’s not designed for significant cargo adjustments, remote piloting, or pilot protection. Besides, there’s not much he can do down there now that the cargo is hooked. We’d originally planned for Huang to stay snapped to the cargo and tether so he could help mediate any severe motion, but it’s too late for that now, only the tether’s lateral controls can do that work for us.”
“Huang, are you okay?… Huang!” I yelled over the radio—no response. I started mentally working through the list of things that could have gone wrong with Huang when suddenly a series of alarms went off on the Algonquin. Mars Colony Ops broadcast loud buzzing sounds with a computer voiced narrative repeatedly stating: “Proximity Alert, inbound spacecraft trajectory too near the Algonquin.”
What the hell is going on? I thought. Well, I guess that’s one WTF.
I mentally backgrounded the Huang hook ship and cargo situation and started working on the proximity alert. I looked over to the XO’s cube, “Zane, what ship is getting too close? I don’t have a visual; what’s the NavRadar show?”
Zane glanced at me, an alarmed expression on his face. “Sir, two inbound moving targets, no ID signals being emitted, and they are coming in freaking fast and from the IR sensor it looks like they are executing a massive burn to slow down.”
Oh crap indeed. The chances of two ships coming in this fast and having some sort of ID signal emitter failure at the same time was nearly impossible. This likely meant pirates. Not the fun, storybook pirates of ole, modern vicious pirates that steal, kill, and generally destroy anything or anyone that gets between them and their prey.
“Mars Ops 3, we’ve got visitors up here. Need support ASAP!” Zane called out with noticeable strain in his voice.
Two very long minutes after Zane repeated the warning, the Ops Officer at Mars Station finally replied, “Roger Algonquin, we’ve dispatched two SkyLarks from Phobos Station, ETA twenty-six minutes,” the ops officer from Mars Station responded.
I looked over at Zane and Alex who both looked back at me. “Crap, we’ll be dead in twenty-six minutes! Zane we need to—”
“Sir, I suppose now is a bad time to mention that I took the coils out of the rail gun for maintenance and have not had time to reassemble the weapon,” Alex said with both courage and a moderate amount of cracking in his voice.
Under my breath I quietly said, “Crap,” and then aloud I blurted out, “Mick, you’ve got to get that railgun reassembled, like minutes okay?” I barked into the ship’s intercom.
“I’m on it, Dave,” came the rapid reply from Mickey.
“Zane, where are the two bogeys headed?” I barked.
Zane rapidly scanned multiple screens and the holographic display. “Sir, pick up the events trace in the Holo Map. I’m sending you the trajectory estimates,” Zane replied.
I quickly flipped on the Holo Map’s events trace display which showed Mars, Phobos station, the Algonquin and tether. “Okay, okay… looks like they are after the cargo, one ship to whack us and the other ship to tow the cargo away I’m guessing,” I replied.
“Sir, I’d say we need to execute evasive action plan Charlie then accelerate away,” Alex offered.
Zane quickly cut in, “We can’t go evasive Charlie as we’d likely lose the tether and cargo, and we can’t risk dropping those rocks on Mars station. Sir, recommend evasive Alpha+, that will make it hard for their rail guns to target us while hopefully not jerking the cargo and tether around too much.”
Thinking for a millisecond, I shot back, “Roger that, Zane, execute Alpha+! Mick, what’s the deal with that rail gun?”
After what seemed like a long minute Mickey replied, “Sir, the rail gun will take hours to fix; it’s not helping us in this fight.”
“Okay that’s two WTFs people; lets try to avoid getting to three,” I said as I thought through courses of action, “Okay, plan C it is. Zane, you have command; I’m taking Ranger-1 out to protect the Algonquin as best I can. Please try and get a hold of Huang; I’m worried something serious is wrong down there.”
Zane, Alex, and Sarah all looked back towards me truly shocked. “Sir, Ranger 1 has no weapons. How are you going to defend Algonquin?”
“Well, if I have to I will ram the attackers as carefully as possible to keep them away from Algonquin and to try to protect Huang. I’ll figure out the details on the way.”
Zane checked some instruments and looked at me. “Uhhh, sir, I’m probably the better selection to take Ranger-1 out—”
I cut him off. “Roger, totally agree if this were a different situation. I’d send you but I’m a much better pilot than you,” I lied with a smile. Zane looked back at me with that quiet understanding he had, and I jumped up and hurriedly traversed the ship’s inner core. I made my way to the docking bays where I found Ranger-1 right where Huang, Sarah, and I had left it earlier.
I realized every second counted, as the pirate ships streaked toward us, and I needed to get moving. I hopped into a transport quality space suit and then into Ranger-1, backed the ship away from the Algonquin, and began maneuvering.
I had done a fair amount of flying with Ranger-1, so this part was no problem. I scanned the instrument panel and asked the NavComp to populate the NAV Holo Map with the ships in the vicinity of Ranger-1. The computer complied, and I saw the two bogeys on screen tagged as unresponsive ships, noted as Moving Target Indicators 3 and 4 respectively. I then looked up, and out the overhead portal in the direction I’d expected them to be. There I could easily see them both firing retros hard to try and slow down from the crazy speed they had put on in order to attack us with surprise. The bigger one was heading toward the tethered cargo, and the smaller one was heading toward the Algonquin.
I did a couple of calculations to figure out how I could be in position to ram the ship headed toward Algonquin and started thinking about Huang again, but there was no time for that, and I needed to get moving. “NavComp! Mark MTI-3 as bogey 1 and MTI-4 as bogey 2 and plot an interdiction path to MTI-4 prior to 3811354892 EPS standard time.” The NavComp dutifully plotted the course and warned me of the extreme stress my body would encounter trying to accelerate to that location in spacetime.
No sooner did I click the “I Acknowledge Risk” button and Ranger-1 freaking’ took off! I always enjoyed flying Ranger-1 because the overhead canopy portal allowed the pilot to see a full 180-degree view of the sky, and it was always beautiful to see the stars this way. In this case, however, I felt like Ranger-1 was an evil giant, trying to crap me out of its exhaust pipe using acceleration as a crapping mechanism. “Ahhhhhhhhh!” I screamed into the radio to no one in particular. “This truly is going to be a four or five WTFs-per-hour event!” I blurted out for no apparent reason. I nearly blacked out as I focused on the Holo Map. Finally, the acceleration backed off, and I could see MTI-4’s trajectory changing course on the Holo Map as the NavComp adjusted its trajectory based on real-time sensor readings of its flight path.
I looked around the cabin and tried to get myself into a position where I could ram the attacking ship and eject through the emergency escape hatch just before impact. Just then, I noticed two new signals on the Holo Map. The NavComp recognized them as Skylark-3 and 4 from Phobos station.
Damn! Those guys must have really pushed the limits to get here this quickly.
A voice came over the comms link from Skylark-3, “Ranger-1 please abort current course! We’ve launched a field of railgun munitions that will pretty much destroy your fancy little ship if it continues on its current flight plan.”
Okay dokey, better turn now… say, I’m trying to do something brave here… I thought. “Acknowledged SkyLark-3, really appreciate the effort you must have committed to get here; we certainly owe you one,” I said, feeling better about the situation. “NavComp, return to the Algonquin: best, safe speed,” I said. The NavComp acknowledged the command and started to comply.
Crap, I think I left part of my ass back there after the initial rush to intercept MTI-4. “And NavComp, please be sure to avoid the railgun munition field emitted by the Skylark-3 and Skylark-4.” Ranger-1’s NavComp AI dutifully contacted Algonquin’s orchestration AI, which relayed a munitions field trajectory report from Phobos station’s orchestration AI, so that it could calculate and execute an avoidance maneuver along the path back to Algonquin. Fifteen sweat-drenched minutes later, I made it back to the Algonquin in one piece, and after reaching the bridge, I asked Zane what was going on and if Huang was okay. Zane laid out the events as they occurred, with the Skylarks running off one of the Pirate ships and severely damaging the larger one, taking it in tow back to Phobos station.
Man, those pilots are bold. Huang was back on board the Algonquin, and the hook ship was tethered for repairs outside the maintenance portal on the ship’s port side. Huang’s comms had been knocked out by the snapping motion of the tether, but, thankfully, he was okay.
We conducted an extended after-action review to identify and work through remaining issues that needed to be addressed prior to planetary departure but overall we were in good shape—and wouldn’t you know it, Mickey managed to get the rail gun working again.
What a day, I thought, just another day in the Space Colonization Agency I suppose. Oh well, at least the hard parts are done. It should be smooth sailing from here. We’d reeled in the cargo from Mars, picked up a few people from Phobos Station, and started organizing the crazy amount of cargo in preparation for tomorrow’s trip back to Earth.
The doctors started looking at the latest Snale virus data, and after talking with Gerrard, I found out that the pirates went after the tugs first, which is what precipitated the earlier report. Pirates were on the prowl for something, we all agreed. I posited that they somehow knew about this high-priority cargo, and Gerrard thought it was a possibility.
We were overwhelmed with cargo and ended up mounting some of the sub-containers outside the ship to the external docking points as there was just no room left in the internal cargo bays.
Dinner in the galley that night was indeed fun. “Captain…” Zane started, “just what exactly did you intend to do with Ranger-1 and the pirate ships?” he smirked.
I looked around the table as everyone looked back at me, and I described how my plan was to try to give them a more difficult target to shoot at, and, if I had to, I would have rammed them to keep them from damaging the tether or boarding the Algonquin, ejecting myself at the last possible moment. “No matter the situation, I never give up, but, as you know, I do reserve the right to cuss the entire time,” I said with a lilt of humor in my voice. From there, the conversation descended into humorous jabs at me by the senior crew members as the junior members looked on trying to judge how much of the conversation was in fun, and how much was serious.
“Flying the hook ship was complicated, exhilarating and terrifying all at the same time,” Huang said as he relayed how events unfolded for him while the crew and I listened. Huang used his hands to simulate how he flew to hook the cargo as he told the story. “The tether was easy to shift around which made me a little overconfident. I was not expecting the strong snap that stunned me when the slack came out of the cargo tether. The snapping motion scared the absolute crap out of me and knocked out my comms. Luckily, I was able to stay conscious enough to disconnect and recover.” Huang looked around at the crew as he told the story. He finally looked at me to gauge my reaction, so I responded with a wide grin. “Well done Huang, you are a superb pilot with nerves of absolute steel. I love your optimism too as I recall you estimated this would be a zero-WTFs-per-hour operation! Very optimistic thinking Huang; very optimistic.”
Just then our stunningly beautiful, Agency-contract surgeon, Abby, walked slowly toward my table, and she smiled as she sat down across from me. Damn, she’s beautiful: tall, blond hair, and glowing blue eyes.
“Hello, sir, just wanted to let you know I completed all the surgical consults here on Mars and Phobos Station.”
“Err, hi Abby, that’s great to hear; they really needed your expertise, and you didn’t let them down,” I replied with my best low, tough guy voice accompanied by an attentive but restrained smile. I tried to look uninterested as she spoke, but I could tell she sensed that she was a bit of an outsider from the regular crew, so I shifted my attention to her more fully. “How many surgeries did you manage to fit in this tour?” I asked.
“Seventy-seven, and all recovered well, except for two patients who had multiple complicating factors. And, they were older and quite fragile. Algonquin’s MedBay really is world class; it’s great we are able to bring advanced medical help to the colonies.”
We chatted about the virus, the challenges with medical care, and the people we encountered in our missions. Abby seemed pretty happy with how things had concluded. She smiled at me, then got up from the table, noticing someone float-walking by that she wanted to talk to, but she looked back at me, and we locked eyes for just a millisecond longer than normal. Then she calmly smiled and said, “It was good to see you, Dave. Let’s talk again later,” and then she walked away with purpose.
My inner monologue started. You lost an opportunity there. Abby is into you.
Well crap.
Okay, calm down. Abby has a lot of work to do. You’ll see her later. It’s difficult to get access to critical or urgent medical treatment out here so I’m glad the Agency regularly rotates these doctors, surgeons, and other specialists to help keep the apparatus that is the Space Colonization Agency—commonly known as the SCA—moving materials and building and fostering colonies. But it can get lonely. It’s generally frowned upon for a ship’s captain to carry on in a romantic relationship with a member of the permanent crew. However, relationships with rotational staff, like medical or scientific specialists becomes the best chance at having a meaningful relationship given all the time away. And Abby. Well, we’ve had a few off-duty hours together playing chess and talking. I really liked her. I was just thinking that maybe she liked me too…
I ended up eating more than I needed, and then I headed back to the bridge to check on Zane and the team. All was well there, so I checked out of active status for the evening giving Alex command for the off-shift so Zane and I could get some rest. I headed back to my cabin, cleaned up a bit and strapped myself into bed.
At first, as tired as I was, my mind kept replaying the brief conversation with Abby, wondering how I could have done better, and wondering if any of the crew noticed us talking. It was ridiculous how much I was thinking about it. Thankfully I finally managed to calm my mind and get to sleep.
