Corvus Prime: Escalation

by C. Cougar Sanborn

  ‘Great. Have the Adamant and Phoenix crews make ready to get underway. Was there anything else?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Darla. ‘What about my hand scanner?’

  ‘We made it known to the Italian ambassador that we knew where it was and the next day Security dropped it off at my office. It should be back in your lab now. No explanations. No apologies. I’ve stepped up security patrols, and I’m in the process of tripling the size of our security force,’ said Tómas.

  ‘Well... it was bound to happen sooner or later. You get enough people living in a community and one or two bad apples are bound to surface,’ said Straus.

  ‘We’re basically a military base, so we have a bit more control than your basic democratic society. I’ll try to keep it down to a minimum, without making it a police state,’ said Harrison.

  ‘I just had a thought,’ said Straus. ‘We have Corvus Bravo, why not move some of our more sensitive operations over there, like Weapons Research and our prototyping facility. It can be our high security Skunkworks, off away from prying eyes.

  ‘Hmmm... with very carefully screened and authorized personnel only. That’s a possibility. Let me think about that,’ said Tómas as he made some notes.

  The meeting was adjourned and two hours later the Straussers found themselves on the Adamant leaving the station to head back out to 2015EJ3. It had already passed Jupiter’s orbit and was closing on the asteroid belt.

  After less than an hour, they spotted it in the distance. Due to it's closer proximity to the Sun, the surface was already ablating, creating a comet tail several hundred thousand miles long pointed away from the sun. It was now officially re-designated as Comet Browning.

  ‘Bring us into a parallel course about fifty miles out,’ ordered Straus.

  ‘Aye Sir,’ said Captain Burke.

  ‘Lt. Bell, notify Phoenix squadron to launch and deploy the devices.’

  ‘Aye Sir.’

  The four ships of Phoenix Flight One headed for the comet and launched a series of probes that impacted into the surface. Some formed an encompassing sensor grid, while others contained seismic charges that would be detonated remotely.

  ‘Data coming in,’ said Darla from her onboard lab via the comm screen. ‘Now we’ll need to move into the tail and monitor it's trajectory and analyze the debris coming off the comet.’

  ‘Shields to maximum,’ ordered Straus.

  ‘Shields firming up, Sir,’ said Lt. Kyson.

  ‘Captain Burke, ease us into the tail about twenty miles back and close on the comet until the Sun is just eclipsed,’ said Straus.

  Burke eased the carrier into the tail and the shields lit up from the impact with the gas and debris coming off the comet. Moving into the center of the tail produced an annular eclipse of the Sun with the shadow of the comet directly ahead. As they moved toward it, the bright ring of the Sun became thinner and thinner.

  Once the entire disc of the Sun had been obscured, Straus said, ‘That’s good. Hold us here.’

  ‘Aye Sir,’ said Burke.

  The ship was being buffeted by the uneven tail material and the Inertial Compensators strained to maintain stability. The net effect was like flying in an airliner through turbulence. The ship shuddered and shook as Burke struggled to maintain position. After one particularly sharp jolt, Straus spoke up.

  ‘The ship wasn’t made to shoot the rapids, Doctor. How much longer?’

  ‘I’m starting to fire the charges now,’ said Darla.

  One by one she detonated the seismic charges and captured the data from the probes planted in the surface.

  ‘Half-way there. Stand by.’

  Larger chunks were breaking off of the asteroid and impacting on the shields. Every once in a while the shields would weaken in one quadrant letting a piece through that would strike the hull. Straus was holding himself against the handrail to steady himself as he was watching the debris stream in. Suddenly he spotted a fragment heading toward them that was at least fifty feet across.

  ‘Evasive barrel roll left!’ order Straus.

  Burke instantly responded, pulling hard on the flight stick with one hand and firing various thrusters with the other. The big ship responded, and everyone was thrown to one side, then pressed into the floor by the G-forces.

  The ship somersaulted over the fragment, narrowly avoiding a collision. Burke completed the roll and steadied up on course inside of the tail.

  ‘I always wanted to try that,’ said Burke with a half smile.

  ‘Well done,’ said Straus breathing a sigh of relief.

  ‘Doc, we’re going to get pulverized in here if we stay much longer,’ said Straus to the comm screen.

  ‘That’s it. We have what we need.’

  ‘Mr. Burke, come left to 270 and bring us onto a parallel course about twenty miles outside of the coma.’

  Burke maneuvered the ship out of harms way and steadied up on course at a safe distance.

  ‘How did the trajectory look, Doctor?’

  ‘Its spot on where we left it. I’ll start the fracture analysis, but it will take two or three hours before I know if we’re done here or not,’ said Darla.

  ‘Very well. You have the conn Mr. Burke,’ said Straus as he entered the lift.

  He headed for the lab and took Darla to the mess to get something to eat. Then they proceeded to their quarters to grab a quick nap as they were still struggling with jet lag from their honeymoon.

  Darla’s device chimed ending their twenty minute power nap. She punched a few buttons and said, ‘Hmm... looks like we’ll have to gather another set of data.’

  ‘You mean we have to go back in there?!’ asked Straus.

  ‘No, not this time. That was to check the trajectory and get a feel for the amount of material the charges would break loose. The problem with the data is that I set the charges off too quickly. The first charge produced a shock wave that reverberated within the asteroid, much like ringing a bell. I should have let the vibrations settle before setting off the next charge. I ended up with overlapping echoes that didn’t produce any useful data.’

  ‘I see. So we just need to have Phoenix squadron plant some more seismic charges that we can set off from here?’

  ‘Exactly. Five or six should do it.’

  Straus pulled out his comm device and directed Phoenix Second flight to plant the seismic charges in the locations that Darla would be sending them.

  They headed for the lab to get set up to receive the data and thirty minutes later the squadron had reported back that the charges were successfully planted.

  ‘Here we go. Setting off the first charge,’ said Darla.

  There was a small flash and a puff of debris visible on the monitor and Darla watched the data come in. She pointed to one graph in particular.

  ‘This represents the shock waves bouncing around inside the asteroid. Once it tapers off I’ll fire the next charge.’

  After five minutes the wave disappeared into the background noise and she fired off the next charge. It produced another spike and another set of echos. She continued the process and after an hour they had collected the data from six shots.

  ‘It will take some time for the computer to analyze the data and produce a 3D model of the internal structure. We should have it by morning.’

  Straus looked at the time and saw that it was 2100. He contacted the bridge and had the day crew stand down. The night crew came on duty to keep an eye on things.

  Once Darla was assured that the data reduction was proceeding well, they returned to their quarters for a good night’s sleep.

  After breakfast the next morning they headed to the lab to check on the results. The analysis was complete and a 3D model of the entire asteroid had been constructed. It showed that the seismic charges and even the impact of the Amazon had only produced spall fractures that broke away surface material rather than create any internal fracturing.

  Straus contacted the bridge and had Capt. Burke head back to the station. Le
ss than an hour later, they were docking and planning the next phase of the operation.

  As they were walking down the corridor away from the docking collar, Straus pulled out his comm device and punched a few buttons.

  ‘Hey Tómas. We're back with the data. We’re going ahead with the ricochet plan … What?! … We’re on our way.’

  ‘What happened?’ asked Darla.

  ‘Frenchy... er... Simone Allegret was attacked. She’s in Medical.’

  ‘Attacked?! Is she OK? Who would do such a thing?’ said Darla, her face full of concern.

  ‘I don’t know. Let’s go find out.’

  As they headed for the medical wing, Straus noticed armed guards stationed at key points and outside of important facilities. As they passed the guards outside of Medical, they snapped to attention.

  They proceeded inside to find that her squadron leader, Colonel Isaacs, Dr. Wadell, and Tómas were already there speaking with her. She had a black eye and tape over her broken nose. Straus came up to the side of the bed and put his hand on her shoulder.

  ‘Frenchy, are you, Ok?’ asked Straus.

  ‘Oui... it's not as bad as it looks,’ she said with her French accent.

  ‘What happened?’

  Tómas said, ‘Wizard squadron had just come back in from an escort run from Eunomia and she headed for the locker room. It was nearly midnight and no other women were around. She decided on a quick shower. When she came out, a figure dressed in black jumped her, ripped off her towel, and pushed her face first into the lockers. He had a stun device but she manage to knock it away before he could use it.’

  ‘Oui. He hid and watched me shower. I was opening my locker when he attacked from behind. Fortunately I’m skilled in Savat and was able to defend myself. I may have broken a couple of his ribs and I managed to scratch him across the face through his ski mask. He pushed me and I fell backwards over the bench and hit my head on the locker,' said Simone.

  Tómas continued by saying, ‘At that point the attacker ran off, picking up his stun device on the way out. Simone contacted security. There was another report of a figure dressed in black running towards...’

  ‘Let me guess... the Diplomatic wing,’ said Straus.

  ‘Yes,’ said Tómas levelly.

  Isaacs spoke up and said, ‘I don’t want to hear any of that “diplomatic immunity” crap. We can’t let this stand. We need to do something!’

  ‘McKay is already looking into our options and sending us some help. I’m ordering everyone not to do anything, and this time I mean it,’ said Tómas looking each of them in the eye.

  ‘You said you scratched him,’ said Darla to Frenchy. Then turning toward Wadell, she asked, ‘Doctor were you able to collect any skin samples?’

  ‘Yes, but we don’t have the facilities to analyze them here. We’re sending them planet-side to a couple of different labs.’

  ‘Listen Mick... we’ve got this. You have a couple of asteroids to deal with,’ said Tómas.

  Mick nodded and gave Frenchy’s hand a squeeze saying, ‘You did well keeping your wits about you and fighting back. Hopefully those scratches will be the key to catching him. Rest easy Frenchy.’

  ‘Thank you, Sir.’

  ‘I’ll walk you two out,’ said Tómas.

  Once they left Medical, Tómas scanned the corridor to make sure it was clear and said, ‘The National Geographic crew is on it's way up. I would rather that they didn’t find out about this. I’d like you to take them with you, and let us handle this... quietly.’

  ‘I can see the wisdom in that. We don’t need any negative press. I’ll hold off on the mission briefing until they’re here,’ said Straus.

  The Straussers headed to the lab so Darla could touch bases with Dr. Ames. Once he was finished bringing her up to speed on recent research, he turned to Straus.

  ‘Oh by the way Commodore, we’ve developed our own EM Plasma device based on the one from the captured Beetle. We’ve loaded three of the prototypes onto your two-man Ninja for field testing. Make them count.’

  ‘Thanks. I’m looking forward to seeing them in action. Any sign of our cloaked spy Ninja?’

  ‘No. Not yet. I was careful to explain to the computer that stealth was more important than speed. It will begin in the area that we traced the asteroid back to, then it will expand it's search.'

  From there, the Straussers headed to the transport bay to welcome the film crew aboard. Fifteen minutes later the transport eased through the shield barrier and docked. First off were some of the station’s crew that were returning from leave or business planet-side. It was easy to pick out the film crew by their awestruck facial expressions as they stepped into the landing bay.

  ‘You must be the National Geographic team. I’m Commodore Mick Strausser the Space Wing Commander. This is my wife, Dr. Darla Strausser, head of Tech Research.’

  ‘I recognized you instantly from your wedding photos. Its a real pleasure to meet you both. I’m the Director-Producer, Duncan Cooper and this is my crew,’ he said gesturing to two men with cameras, a woman with a mic boom, another woman that appeared to be an assistant, and a man helping with the equipment.

  ‘So, Mr. Cooper...’ started Straus.

  ‘You can call me Coop and let me start by saying that it's such an honor to be aboard. People are anxious for news on this place. I know we can’t cover it all, but whatever we can get, I know it will be well received. This is just the beginning.’

  ‘Hmmm... Well, I don’t want to speak out of turn, but it would be easier dealing with people we know and trust rather than a bunch of random crews. Perhaps we can work out a deal.’

  ‘An exclusive?!’

  ‘I’m not making any promises. Just saying it would be mutually beneficial. I could suggest it to the Station Commander.’

  ‘Are you kidding? Where do I sign?’

  Straus laughed and said, ‘If you want to grab your gear, we need to start the briefing on the mission you’ll be coming along on. We’ll give you a brief tour of the station on the way. You can leave your luggage here and we’ll pick it up on the way back.’

  While the crew pulled out the gear they needed to use, Coop asked, ‘Can we get some establishing shots and perhaps have you explain what the heck we’re looking at?’

  Straus laughed and said, ‘We’re kind of short on time at the moment. Feel free to film whatever you want. After the briefing we’ll have time to answer whatever questions you have.’

  They headed to the auditorium as the last of the crews of the Adamant, Phoenix squadron, and the transports Colorado and Mackenzie were trickling in.

  Coop turned to talk with his crew. He showed them where he wanted them to set up, and the type of shots he was looking for, then approached Straus standing on the dais.

  Coop said, ‘Would it be alright to address the group briefly. I find that it helps people to be more natural if we’re introduced first.’

  ‘Certainly,’ said Straus motioning to join him on stage.

  Straus started by introducing Mr. Duncan. He stepped forward and explained why they were there and how it would be most helpful for everyone to act naturally by pretending that the crew was not there, not to look at the camera, and to only interact with him when necessary.

  After he was finished, Straus stepped forward and explained that two more asteroids were speeding toward earth, and that there wasn’t time to deal with each one individually. He then explained their bold ricochet plan and fielded a few questions.

  ‘If that's all, then we’ll be getting underway in one hour. Dismissed,’ said Straus.

  The group started to file out and Straus turned to Coop and said, ‘We have time for those questions now. You want to do it here?’

  ‘Actually, I think that hanger bay where we landed would be a better setting if you don’t mind.’

  ‘Sure. Let’s go.’

  Once they returned to the transport bay, Coop had Straus stand with the transport and shield barrier in the backgroun
d.

  ‘So all of this was left by the Corvans. Whatever became of them?’ asked Coop.

  ‘That all happened before my time here, however Darla was involved from the beginning.’

  Coop swapped out Mick and put Darla in position, and said, ‘Same question to you Doctor. Whenever you’re ready.’

  Straus interrupted and said, ‘I’m going to move my ship to the Adamant. Once you’re finished here, escort them onboard.’