Prelude to Extinction

by Andreas Karpf

  Don started, “There’s not much to say that you don’t already know. Based on Kurt’s data, we’ll pass the outermost gas giant in four days. The other three Jovians, unfortunately including the binary, will be on the far side of the star system, so we won’t see them on our way in. The only thing of real interest is the inner asteroid belt. We now know that it’s very compact, and its inner edge is a little over a hundred-million kilometers from Epsilon Eri-D – meaning it’s easily accessible from the planet. When you take into account the fact that we, I mean humans, have only been in space for about a hundred-sixty years, and already have some pretty sizable mining colonies in our belt, then there very well may be something to look for here. The reason that I bring this up is that our latest analysis of the planetary probe data shows that there are three nice sized dwarf planets in the belt that aren’t far off of our inbound trajectory.”

  Don hit a couple of keys and their holographic map jumped to an enlarged view of the inner belt and the Epsilon Eri-D region. A band comprised of thousands of small, irregularly-shaped, yellow objects, arced across the table. A region of open space extended from its inner edge to the red curve of Epsilon Eri-D’s orbit. The Magellan’s planned course was a nearly straight white line that stretched from behind Jack in toward the deep blue globe of their target. Not far from their course, and nearly hidden in the field of yellow specks, were three red circles. “These circles identify the positions of the three dwarf planets. Their diameters range from 400 to 700 kilometers, and back home would be prime targets for mining colonies. If Epsilon Eri has a space-faring civilization, we should undoubtedly find something here. At very least they should have left their mark on these bodies.

  “Since we’ve only just discovered them, we don’t currently have any plans to look at them. However, I think that with a small course correction, we could take one of the shuttles over to the larger one. It’s an opportunity we shouldn’t pass up.”

  Don was right about the opportunity, but the real question was whether it would be worth diverting from their inbound course now, as opposed to visiting them at some other time, after they’d arrived at E Eri-D. Jack turned first to Don and said, “It’s an interesting idea, but I’m not sure about slowing the Magellan down and navigating this behemoth in an asteroid belt.” Before Don could protest, however, Jack turned to Kurt and asked, “Just to be thorough, do an analysis on this idea. See what it would involve in terms fuel, adjusted ETA and any risks to the ship.”

  Kurt worked at his terminal for a moment and said, “The only real issue I can see right now would be with slowing the Magellan down so that we can park it while the shuttles investigate the asteroids. We’d have to increase our deceleration by maybe ten or fifteen percent. After the mission’s complete, we can run at high g’s again to make up for lost time. Then taking into account...”

  “Kurt,” Jack interrupted, “Take your time and do a full work up on this. Let us know later. We don’t have to decide right now.”

  Without missing a beat, Kurt continued, “What I meant was that running at higher deceleration might lead to some physical duress. I mean, with the resulting higher gravity on the ship, we’ll all be effectively gaining about ten kilos.”

  “I see,” Jack said thoughtfully. “Any comments?”

  “You’re not thinking of passing this up are you?” Don protested.

  Palmer replied before Jack could say anything, “Don, you have to realize that this would just be an extra. Our main goal is to reach Epsilon Eri-D safely. This little trip you’re asking will put the crew at some additional risk.”

  “This isn’t sight-seeing...”

  Jack put up his hand to stop Don’s response. Turning to Palmer, he said, “We’re not deciding anything one way or the other right now. Let Kurt do the work up. We’ll also need get a clearer picture of how clean that region of space is, which’ll require an additional review of the probe data. Once we’ve got all of the details, we’ll consider it.”

  Jack allowed a few moments of silence to pass before asking, “Is there any other business?”

  Kurt and Don answered, “No,” in unison, and Jack took Palmer’s silence to mean the same. “OK, we’ll have our regular status meeting here tomorrow – same time. Don, let me know when you think you’ll have some initial hi-res imagery from the probe.”

  Don answered with a quiet, “OK.”

  Jack knew that the next two days would pass interminably slowly as they waited for the probe’s Epsilon Eri-D video feed. There were too many unanswered questions and too much time before getting those answers. But, there was nothing he could do about that. He looked over at Kurt who was now preoccupied with analyzing potential course changes and said, “I’ll see you later.”

  Without looking up Kurt responded with something halfway between a wave and a mock salute. It was intended as much to acknowledge the ‘good bye,’ as to annoy Jack for saddling him with at least a half a day’s worth of course and propulsion calculations. Jack just shook his head and followed the other two out, before heading down a separate corridor to his office.

  Chapter 4 – June 9, 2124

  The buzzing of the intercom cut through the dark, quiet room, piercing Jack’s dreams before finally forcing him to sit up. Disoriented, he tried to focus on the clock on his night stand, but quickly gave up and barked, “Computer, time.”

  “Two thirty-eight a.m.,” was the answer.

  He grunted and said, “Lights on – low.”

  The noise continued as he looked at the communications unit sitting on the desk across from his bed. He forced himself to go to it and slap the “on” button. Palmer’s voice immediately came in over the speaker saying, “Captain, we’ve got a problem with the planetary probe.”

  He suppressed the urge to chastise his first officer for waking him at this hour, but realized the uselessness of it. It would be out of character for Palmer to overreact and bother him about something that could wait. Plus, Palmer would actually view any outburst as a sign of weakness. “What’s wrong?” he finally answered, matching Palmer’s tone.

  “We have a complete loss of signal from the probe as of zero-one-forty-five.”

  He asked the obvious, knowing Palmer had probably already checked it out, “Does it look like a comm. problem?”

  “No, I’ve gone through all of the standard recovery procedures. I called you because I think that you’ll want to see the final transmissions. I’ve taken the liberty of calling Dr. Martinez and Lieutenant Commander Hoffman as well.”

  Realizing he wasn’t going to get any more sleep, Jack sighed and answered, “Thank you. I’ll meet you at the command center in a few minutes.” As he disconnected the comm. channel, Jack pondered Palmer’s ever-present formalism. Never was there a, “Sorry for waking you,” or casual “hello.” Plus, it would have been a whole lot easier to simply call the others ‘Don’ and ‘Kurt.’ But, Jack thought, if that was the only thing there was to annoy him about the man, then he shouldn’t complain.

  He quickly threw on a T-shirt and pair of sweatpants, and headed out his front door. The Garden was dark but not pitch-black. Antique-style octagonal street lamps illuminated the road and footpath with a comfortable amber glow. He took in a deep breath of the “evening” air, and chose to jog down the path. It was as much to wake himself up as to get to the command building quickly. As he ran across the center of the Garden, he listened to the sounds of a summer evening – a combination of crickets and other assorted wildlife. Around a year into the voyage, someone had either gotten bored or homesick and programmed the night-time routine to include this little bit of home. Nobody ever owned up to it, but the sounds of nature were so well received by the crew, Jack let it stay in the system.

  It only took him a couple minutes to reach the building. Without breaking stride, he entered and jogged up a flight of steps, slowing his pace only at the end so that he could walk calmly into the conference room. Palmer was the only one present. “What’ve you got?” he aske
d as he headed over to the man.

  Before he could answer, Kurt and Don entered. Don, flush from his own run over, said between breaths, “Let me see those images.”

  Palmer ignored him and said to Jack, “As I mentioned, at zero-one-forty-five, we experienced a total loss of signal from the planetary probe. All standard recovery procedures have been unsuccessful. Rather than say any more at this point, I think that it will be more productive to see the following replay of the probe’s last transmission.”

  Jack took his usual seat across from Palmer. The large computer screen embedded horizontally in the table became active and displayed four separate windows, one in front of each of them. The view was black, prompting Jack to think that he didn’t have any video feed yet. On closer inspection, though, he was able to discern a few white points that he assumed were stars.

  Palmer began to narrate, “What you’re looking at is the probe’s navigation camera output at zero-one-forty-two. At this point, its main engines are directed toward Epsilon Eri-D, as it continues to slow down for today’s fly-by.”

  The image remained fixed as the chronometer progressed forward to 01:43:00. Jack focused his attention on a pair of stars in the center, and for a moment, thought that he saw the image shudder slightly at 01:43:15.

  “At this point, the probe has shut its engines off in preparation for a navigational maneuver,” Palmer continued. “It should turn itself around, analyze an image of Epsilon Eri-D against the background stars to confirm its trajectory, and determine if any final course corrections need to be made. This routine is done twice per day.”

  The chronometer counted past 01:44:30, and as the probe began swinging around, the stars slowly moved to the left. Jack noticed that a new indicator on the lower right appeared, displaying the apparent angle that the probe had turned. At 01:44:55, it displayed 90 degrees; the halfway point in its turn. Abruptly, several white streaks cut across the field of view. At 01:45:01 the stars jerked hard to the right, then spun wildly. A moment later the window went black.

  “What the hell just happened?” Don blurted out.

  “I don’t know. That’s what we’ve got to determine,” Palmer answered calmly. “The problem...”

  “You can’t be telling me that we’ve lost the probe?” Don interrupted.

  “I’m not telling you anything. I’ve just shown you what we know so far.”

  “That’s not...”

  Jack cut him off saying, “Palmer, is there any way to get some telemetry on it?”

  Before the first officer could answer, Kurt jumped in, “Not without directly receiving data from the probe. The comm-relay satellites can only echo what they receive. So, without a line of sight, we can’t see it, nor can we do a radar scan for it. Basically, the engines and blast shield are in the way.”

  “Unfortunately, he’s right,” Palmer added.

  “We can turn the Magellan,” Don pressed.

  Palmer started, “It wouldn’t be any use...”

  “What the hell do you mean? You don’t understand. Remember, we lost the first probe during launch. We need this one!”

  Palmer waited a second to be sure that Don was finished before answering. “Dr. Martinez, we’re still over 10 billion kilometers out. That means that the signal we just watched took a half a day to reach us. If you remember, we were supposed to receive the probe’s fly-by data this evening. That means because of the twelve-hour delay in getting the signal, the probe should be passing Epsilon Eri-D right now; if it’s even still in one piece. In other words, it’s over. Anything we do now won’t reach the probe until well after the fly-by is done. And we wouldn’t even know those results until this time tomorrow.

  “Captain, right now, I suggest of course that we keep listening in the unlikely case that we regain contact with the probe. But more importantly, we need to start looking hard at this last transmission to understand what happened. In about four weeks, we are going to have to travel through that region of space.”

  Jack looked over at Don, who was still stewing at being cut off. As they met each other’s gaze, Don turned to Palmer and asked, “And, what are you suggesting about that region of space?”

  “I’m just thinking that it’s way too coincidental for us to lose the probe just before it encounters the planet.”

  “What do you mean...someone shot it down? You’re the one who’s been saying it’s probably a dead world. Who’d be around to shoot at it?”

  “I’m just saying that we have to look at all the possibilities. This seems like a plausible scenario.”

  Jack cut in before the argument could escalate, “I think that’s enough guessing for now.” But, as he thought about it a bit more, he saw the answer already there in front of them. “Wait a minute. Palmer, let’s see those last frames again. Freeze on the one just before it began spinning.”

  Their displays again showed the sudden appearance of the streaks and then froze on the final frame. The image was pitch-black with a dozen narrow, gray and white streaks running nearly horizontally across the field of view. Jack focused on four that both started and ended within the frame. Without looking up, he asked, “The camera was at a right angle with respect to its trajectory, right?”

  “Yes,” Palmer answered.

  “What was its speed?”

  Palmer checked his terminal and said, “four-hundred-ninety-thousand k-p-h.”

  “Computer,” Jack said, “What’s the effective shutter speed of the probe’s camera?”

  The machine answered with its customary, wordy, over-precise answer, “Each picture is taken by exposing the image chip to light for one hundred-thousandth of a second.”

  “What was the camera’s field of view at that time?”

  The computer responded quickly, “For navigational purposes, it would have been using its wide angle lens, yielding a one-hundred-and-thirty-degree field of view.”

  Jack ran the numbers through his head, but was interrupted as Kurt called his name. Without looking up, Jack muttered mostly to himself, “We can prove right now whether something was shot at the probe.” Continuing his conversation with the computer, he said, “Assuming these objects were non-luminescent, they would have been illuminated by the probe’s lights. How far away would they have to have been, in order to show the observed brightness?”

  “Without knowing the type of materials, I cannot answer.”

  “Assume standard asteroidal or lunar type debris.”

  “These objects would have been at most about 150 meters from the probe.”

  “I see where you’re going with this,” Don said with renewed interest.

  Jack smiled as he followed up, “Now if the probe flew through a field of this type of debris, then based on the known camera angle, probe speed, and shutter speed, what length streaks would they make on the image?”

  “Between one-hundred-fifty and two-hundred percent of the width of the screen.”

  “Damn,” Jack said softly as he stared at the obviously shorter streaks. “What if the material was metallic?”

  “It would depend on the type of metal,” the computer replied.

  Frustration crept into his voice as he answered loudly, “Machined, unpolished.”

  “Based on the increased reflectivity, the material would be approximately four to five hundred meters from the probe. The streaks would then be fifty percent of the image width.”

  “So Palmer’s right? It was shot down?” Don said with disbelief.

  “No, this shows the opposite,” Jack said calmly. “My calculation was based on the material drifting in space. If those were projectiles, they’d have had their own velocity heading toward the probe, in addition to the probe’s speed – the streaks would have been longer. But, there’s more that we can tell from this.

  “Computer, using the width of the streaks, estimate the size of the particles.”

  “They range between five and thirty centimeters across.”

  “So you’re saying it flew into some sort
of debris field...wreckage maybe?” Kurt asked.

  “That’d be confirmation that there’s a space-faring race on Epsilon Eri-D,” Don quickly added.

  “Or there once was one,” Palmer added solemnly. “But wreckage isn’t the only explanation. We need to consider that it may have been placed there deliberately. It certainly destroyed the probe just as well as a projectile would have, plus static debris would be harder to detect.”

  “True,” Jack replied, “but…”

  “Sir, if I may,” Palmer said, “I’m not guessing. I’m just suggesting that one possibility is that this is evidence of some sort of violent confrontation, or possibly a trap that was laid for us.”

  “What do you want us to do George – turn around and go home?” Don sneered. “It’s not like we have a choice.”

  “Dr. Martinez,” Palmer answered firmly, “I’m saying that we need to prepare contingency plans; nothing else.”

  “Palmer’s correct,” Jack said.

  “Jack?” Don protested.

  “We sent a single probe through this region of space,” Jack said solemnly, “and it was destroyed in what I’ll for now characterize as a debris field. We don’t know how extensive that field is, nor do we know if there are other hazardous regions. That debris poses a serious risk to our ship.”

  The room was silent as Jack took a breath. He continued, “What was the probe’s position when it was destroyed?”