“The reason your attempts have failed is because there’s a significant amount of obstructive matter inside the lens mechanism.”
“Obstructive matter?” asked Jonas, not used to Ileana’s official descriptions.
“Ash,” said Will.
“More specifically, volcanic residue that has permeated the internal lens assembly. This was a known defect in Dr. O’Neil’s design.”
“The lens seal is only broken with a significant jarring of the rover,” snapped Will, sounding offended. “Telos five had the most violent landing due to a failure with one of the lander’s retro rockets. It was totally unforeseen, and I assure you it was addressed on every subsequent mission.”
“Despite your assurances, there has been no significant effort to address this and make this resource worth the price that was paid for it. Your staff hasn’t had the foresight to try to fix the problem in any substantive way other than…scraping it against trees.”
Ileana sneered at Jonas, assuming this was his solution to the problem. Both Will and Jonas knew her motivation was simply to have another area to search for her brother. They also knew deep down she was right. They had always focused on the next step in the Telos project, and going back to solve big problems wasn’t really a priority for them. He actually was glad to have Ileana’s fresh perspective, even if she had her own agenda.
“OK, Dr. Karkovich. What do you suggest we do?”
“Each rover has a helium canister used for soil analysis and other tests, does it not?”
“Yes, there are many different gas canisters used for many different purposes,” answered Jonas. “Why are you focused on the helium?”
Ileana walked to the Telos console and pulled up a detailed schematic representation of the rovers.
“Notice the positioning of the canister itself,” she said, pointing to the screen. “The release valve of the canister sits behind the lens assembly. If we reverse the flow and release the helium through the valve in short bursts, it should clear the material, providing us with visibility.”
“You’re blowing on it?” said Jonas sarcastically.
“I wouldn’t use your simplistic terms, but for all intents and purposes, that’s the end result.”
“Well, we’d lose the ability to use the helium gas in any further experiments, boss, but that’s actually not a bad idea.”
“Considering we can’t even see where we are now,” said Will. “I think we can sacrifice the helium. Jonas I’m putting you in charge of this. See what else might be affected if we go forward with this, and report back to me as soon as you have a full understanding of all the repercussions. Now if you’ll both excuse me, I have some other issues to attend to.”
Jonas and Ileana left Will’s office, shutting the door behind them. He sat back in his chair, staring at the view screen that sat on his desk. After some hesitation, he punched up an image of Anna Trace that he’d saved when the Victory left port. It’d been a long time since he’d thought about her, and Ileana’s demands forced him to recall that period of his life. He remembered it as both painful and wonderful, and he never thought their paths would cross again. Clearly, Ileana was intent on getting his programming code, and Trace was the only person who could make that possible. He had no intention of giving it to her and was sure he’d think of something when the time came.
Will emerged from his office into the main lab, having spent the majority of the day trying to come up with a plan to disrupt the EC2 mission. The thought of an entire species being eradicated due to the greed of men was an unthinkable prospect.
“Walker, where’s Ileana?” asked Will.
“She said she was quitting early today. She got a call and took off shortly after that—seemed pretty important.”
“It was nice of her to let me know. Did she say what she had to do?”
“She doesn’t exactly share her schedule with any of us, to be honest. I’m just happy she focuses her dissatisfaction on Jonas and not me,” laughed Walker.
Jonas came up behind him, overhearing his comment.
“Yeah, well, if you don’t get back to work, I’ll stick you with her for the whole day tomorrow studying Fat Bob’s feces.”
Walker immediately excused himself and went on his way.
“Boss, you got a minute?”
“Yeah. What is it?” said Will.
Jonas walked to the main Telos console, sat, and pulled up a schematic representation of rover five.
“I’ve been looking into Ileana’s plan to clear up rover five’s camera, and it actually has a fair chance at working.”
Will leaned over Jonas’s shoulder to get a view of his screen, now feeling the excitement of the possible outcome.
“Don’t sound so surprised. She’s many things, but she’s not stupid. What do we need to do?” asked Will.
Jonas punched a few keys on his console, and the dust-shrouded view of five’s camera came on screen.
“That’s the thing. It’s a relatively easy thing to do, and I actually was hoping we could take a shot at it now,” said Jonas.
“Great! Let’s give it a shot.”
“Shouldn’t we wait for Ileana?” asked Jonas. “It was her idea, after all.”
Will stared at him, waiting for him to realize what he had just said.
“Sorry. For a moment I thought of her as a member of the team, not a psychopath with a chip on her shoulder.”
Jonas quickly caught himself and looked around nervously to see if she’d overheard him. He let out a sigh of relief seeing she was nowhere to be found. “OK, let’s do it.”
Jonas continued typing at his console, and another monitor came on line with a representation of rover five’s helium gauge. The red indicator on the gauge showed the helium tank at ninety-seven percent full. Rover five’s camera failed so early in its life cycle, they never had a chance to use the helium for any experiments, as visuals were usually required.
“All right boss, I’ve already prepared the command that will signal rover five to let out short bursts of helium behind the lens assembly. It will wait after each burst for a command that tells it to stop. I have it set to get stronger each time in case the one before it didn’t do the trick.”
“How many attempts will we have?” asked Will. “Those canisters were pretty small. We only planned for enough to do a few soil experiments in combination with other gases.”
“I figured we’d have at least five, maybe six bursts, each having a higher intensity then the last. The monitor will tell us when the tank is nearing empty.”
“Let’s end the suspense. Do it!” said Will.
Jonas keyed in a few commands, which Will watched on the view screen, and then the final command: RUN.
“OK, it will take a few minutes to execute and for the signal to reach Earth, but we should see something happen in a few minutes.”
They both stared intently at the view screen for rover five. The minutes seemed to drag on with no response.
“Did you see anything yet?”
Just as Will asked, the first burst shot out, and they could see some of the dust disrupted on the camera lens. It was insufficient to do anything but stir things up inside the lens chamber.
“Nothing. Now in exactly two minutes it will look for an abort signal, and if it gets none, the next burst happens one minute later.”
They both looked at the reading on the helium gauge, which was already down to eighty-three percent. They could see dust swirling around as the next burst came, but it was as ineffective as the first in clearing up the view.
“This isn’t looking good,” said Will noticing the gauge now down to sixty-five percent.
“Give it a chance; the next three are significantly stronger. The first two were just testing the waters.”
The third burst was, as Jonas had said, much stronger and cleared a small portion of the lens, allowing for a small view of the surrounding landscape. The dark rock surrounding the rover was lava that had cooled, forming a
rough porous surface. Will was familiar with this, as the rover had provided a clear view for several weeks before the ash and dust had made it unusable.
“This just might have a chance,” said Will, now staring intently over Jonas’s shoulder at the view screen.
The fourth burst shot out and almost totally cleared the lens, leaving just a light dull coating, but allowing for full visibility.
Jonas and Will both jumped up with excitement at the prospect of this new chance at exploring this region of Earth.
“Pan it around; let’s get a lay of the land again.”
Jonas sent the commands to pan the camera slowly left. As the minutes passed, Will felt an excitement in him that he used to feel when the project was at its height of success. A few minutes later the camera began to slowly pan. Smoke rose from a volcanic mountain far in the distance. There were still signs of green vegetation that had begun to come back after being devastated by volcanic activity. For the most part this area of Earth was barren in comparison to other areas he’d come to know. As the rover continued to pan its camera, a rock obstructed the view for a few seconds. The view began to show the surrounding landscape, and as it cleared the rock, Jonas gasped as he saw it in the distance.
“Oh my God!”
“Quick, stop the pan! Send the command!” Will shouted.
Jonas typed frantically as the image left the camera’s view. They both knew it would take a few minutes for the signal to reach the rover and waited in silent shock. The camera stopped and began to reverse direction, having received its new commands. Once again the crumpled black ship came back into view, far in the distance.
“Send it a command to zoom in on the wreckage,” said Will. “It doesn’t look like it crashed; the landing legs seem to be intact. It’s almost as if—”
“As if something tried to rip it apart from the outside—our friends?” Jonas asked.
“It would have to be, they must be here as well. The good news is, we’ll have time now to study this area and see if there is anyone left alive.”
Just as Jonas finished his statement, a large burst of helium shot out from the canister. In their excitement, they’d forgotten to send the abort command to stop the bursts, and it shot out with more power than any of the previous. The dust swirled around the interior of the lens, and to their disappointment, it once again totally obscured the rover’s view of the surrounding area.
“Oh no!” Jonas exclaimed. “We never aborted the burst command. Boss, I’m sorry.”
The helium indicator began to blink red, and the indicator was now at zero.
“Let me guess, we have no chance at trying that again.” said Will.
“I’m sorry. I should have sent the abort command.”
“It’s OK. We were both preoccupied. Never in a million years did I think she had a shot at finding that ship, yet there it was. It’s almost like we were meant to find it, but to what end? It’s not like there’s a whole lot we can do about it.”
“We could let Ileana know where to have the other ship look.” said Jonas.
Will contemplated their next move very carefully. Ileana had mentioned that the people aboard this vessel were pretty much expendable. The second ship wasn’t directed to search for survivors, but Will wondered if that might change if they knew where to look.
“We aren’t going to say anything right off. If she gets what she wants, she’ll have less of a reason to try to work with us. No, we’re going to keep that to ourselves until I figure out what to do,” said Will.
“What do we say when she asks about the plan to clear the lens? She isn’t stupid, as you pointed out before; she knows the canister was full.”
“We’ll tell her we tried it and it didn’t work. The Telos console recorded the images, right?”
“Yes,” said Jonas.
“Make a copy of them and erase the memory of anything relating to the video of the ship. Let her see the telemetry showing that we did try it.”
“What if she asks what happened to the video? What should I say?”
“I want you to tell her to talk to me about it. Let’s give her a mystery to occupy her time. She’s still probably trying to fix her system to spy on us, so she’ll have no way of knowing what happened. It will eat at her thinking we’re holding out on her.”
“That’s a dangerous game, boss; I hope you know what you’re doing.”
“Me too. In any case, we can be pretty sure she’ll be sneaking around tonight in the lab, so make sure everything is deleted.”
“Will do. Where are you headed?”
“I have to let Daniels know what’s going on. I’m heading right up to the command deck, so don’t leave until I come back. I don’t want her in here alone until we both make sure there’s no way she could know about the ship.”
“It’s probably going to take me an hour minimum to be thorough. Looks like a late night.” said Jonas.
“I’ll make it up to you. No space walks for at least a week,” joked Will.
“Go ahead, make jokes. We may not be so lucky the next time.”
“Yeah, tell me about it. I’ll be back shortly. Call me if she comes back.”
Will walked through the doorway into the hallway and heard Jonas shouting back to him, “No stops at the pub, Will!” Will smiled and continued toward the command deck. His thoughts swirled as he wondered what he could possibly do to help those people on EC1, if they were even still alive. At some point, he knew he’d have to tell Ileana, if only to ease his own conscience, but he also knew he had to do it on his terms and not hers to protect himself and Jonas. He took his com out and pulled up the images he and Jonas had captured of Ileana under the influence of Stanzic’s serum. He fast-forwarded to the spot where Ileana pled her case and put herself out as a victim of those in the government. He knew he could use this to his advantage, when the time came. As he approached the command deck entrance, he quickly put his com back in his pocket. There were two men in government attire on either side of the entrance, and they stopped him from entering.
“I have an appointment with Captain Daniels. What’s the problem here?”
“Captain Daniels is no longer in command of the station. Please return to your lab, Dr. O’Neil.” The guard spoke with the same cold accent as Ileana and the other agents he’d dealt with.
“What are you talking about? Where is he?”
Will looked past the security guards and could see Ileana on the command deck with five or six other government security personnel. She looked back and caught his glance, coldly turning her head back to the security personnel.
“Dr. O’Neil, I must insist you return to your lab and leave this area immediately.”
Will started to protest once again and quickly caught himself, realizing that he would only make things worse by insisting to see Daniels. He also found it strange that this person knew his name, which in itself was reason enough to remove himself from the situation as quickly as possible.
He turned, walked out of view of the guards, and tried to call Jonas. After several unsuccessful attempts at raising him, he began a brisk walk back to the lab. His mind raced, wondering if somehow they’d found out about Daniels’s involvement last night. It wouldn’t take long for them to put the pieces together on who had violated the black corridor. As the possibilities flashed in Will’s mind, he moved faster toward the lab, wondering if Jonas would even be there. He felt the entire situation coming to conclusion and he knew the result wasn’t going to be good. He had lost the one person who had some power on the station; he was now on his own to face whatever this end game was.
His anxiety continued to build, and he began running full speed back to the lab. He knew now he had to play the only card he had and let Ileana know everything. It was the only way out.
16
A DISTANT SIGNAL
“Trace, anything yet?” said Devon, pacing nervously behind the communications console. Trace and Shou were huddled together, trying to get a signal from t
he Guardian.
“We have a weak signal, but I can’t tell if it’s the Guardian or some other Earth-orbiting satellite. I know there are a few still orbiting the planet from earlier exploration attempts. We’re still outside of our estimated communications window for at least two more hours. If we can make communication even earlier, all the better, but don’t get your hopes too high. Guardian wasn’t designed for deep space communications, so even if we make communication from this distance, it probably can’t accept a clear transmission.”
“Do your best. We’re running out of time.”
A small green light began blinking as Trace raised her hand for quiet. She watched the signal pattern flow across the monitor and form into a tight set of distinctive wave forms. She recognized them immediately as those of the Guardian.
“We’ve got it!” shouted Trace, and everyone on the command deck cheered in excitement. This was, after all, the mission that everyone had been focused on for the past days and weeks, and regardless of the futility of the situation, it gave them all purpose.
“Trace, do your stuff,” said Devon, still pacing behind her.
“Commander, as I said, we are still a few hours from optimal signal range, so it might not work until we’re closer.”
“Understood. Do what you can.”
Trace began giving orders to Shou, as they’d prepared a game plan for this moment.
“Grace, try pulling the auxiliary power from the engines to the high gain, let’s see if we can’t boost our signal to compensate for the Guardian’s weakness.”
Bugois looked cross at Shou’s suggestion that any power be pulled from his engines, but he realized that speed would no longer be a consideration. This is what they had raced here to do.
“Anna, I’m getting something.”
Trace hurried over to Shou’s monitor, and a grainy signal blinked on and off the screen. Strange computer code streamed down the monitor and looked like gibberish to everybody but Anna Trace. She immediately recognized it as the code she and Will had worked on for all of those long hours, years ago. This was exactly what she was waiting for.
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