Virago One: A Hard Science Fiction Technothriller (Ace of Space Book 2)

by John Triptych

  “It sounded like it came from one of the access roads leading towards the loading docks,” one of the security techs said as he typed in numerous commands on his console. “But I’m getting just a standard video feed. Nothing remarkable about it.”

  Darian leaned over for a closer look at the monitor screen. The surveillance cameras for both the loading docks and the access roadway showed nothing out of the ordinary. In fact, it seemed that the entire base was deserted. Not a single person was seen on the surveillance recordings. “Something fishy is going on.”

  Tyler tapped on his smartglasses and activated his personal com-link. “I’m getting calls for help on multiple frequencies. Some of the soldiers say they took casualties in the loading area.”

  The second airman manning the base com-links threw his arms up in frustration. “I’ve tried the official military channels and I’m not getting anything at all! Everything’s dead.”

  “That had to be an ordinance detonation of some sort,” the third airman said, looking nervously at the others. “I’ve only heard of that kind of blast during weapons range testing.”

  The second airman shook his head. “I think I’ve lost all com-links with every department. Even the backups aren’t working.”

  Darian frowned. What in the hell is going on? She tapped the first airman’s shoulder. “Can you go through the video history on the loading docks and the AI computer areas?”

  The first airman typed in the relevant commands and began cycling through the video feeds on two monitors. “Here are the video logs for the past few hours, and they only showed a few techies and maintenance crews on their last shift. There’s nothing out of the ordinary.”

  “Wait a minute,” Tyler said as he leaned over and used the keyboard to sort through the security logs. “It says here that there was an ACE Corp vehicle admitted into the front gate about four hours ago. The manual report by gate security listed one driver and three computer support specialists, but the names on the logs and the pictures are missing. Where are they now?”

  Darian’s eyes narrowed. She pointed at the screen in front of her. “If they were computer specialists, then they must have tampered with the video and the report logs. The cameras in the main entrance hall doesn’t even show them going inside this place.”

  The third technician turned his head and looked at her incredulously. “How were they able to do that?”

  Darian stood upright and placed her hands on her hips. “One of these people happens to be a world-class Russian hacker. They must have gotten access to the computer that runs this base and deleted their logs and placed every video in a loop to make it look like everything’s normal. Do you have an AI that runs the base functions?”

  The first tech nodded. “Yes, the base AI is called CAIN. It can be accessed through the computer division.”

  Darian turned around and headed for the door. “Let’s go, Tyler.”

  Tyler grimaced as he walked out of the room with her. “My com-link is all buggy. The cell and internet signals are intermittent. I can’t call anybody.”

  “That’s what they want,” Darian said as she started sprinting towards the elevators. When the two of them got in front of the doors, Darian pressed the down button. There was no response as the control panel didn’t acknowledge her numerous inputs. “Dammit!”

  Tyler stood beside her. “Who is causing all this?”

  “Who do you think? Vlad Utkin and Herbert Eng Wu are already here. I bet that redhead is somewhere around too. Let’s take the stairs.”

  They opened an adjoining door and dashed down the stairwell and into another corridor. The two NASA agents continued running until they saw that the long passageway in front of them branched out into two separate corridors.

  “Now what? My com-link isn’t working so I don’t know where we are,” Tyler said.

  “Let’s split up,” Darian said. “You take one and I take the other. The Main Control Room is on this level, so let’s meet up there if neither of us finds anything.”

  “Okay by me.”

  When Herbert and Vlad ran into the Ready Room, there was already another man there and he pointed a pistol at them. “King,” he said.

  Herbert was nervous as he held his arms up. Ganz had told them the code word, but he was too scared to remember it now. He glanced over at Vlad.

  “Solomon,” Vlad said confidently. “So you are captain of spaceship, da?”

  Vince Lawson holstered his pistol. “No, I’m the executive officer. We don’t use the term captain- this is the Air Force, not the Navy.” He pointed at the counterpressure suits lying on the table beside the lockers. “Those are yours?”

  “Da,” Vlad said.

  “Hurry up and put them on,” Lawson said. “We need to get to the access platform as soon as possible.”

  As the two of them started taking their clothes off in order to change into the suits, Ganz came running into the room. Lawson drew his pistol out once more, but upon recognizing him, gave the mercenary a curt nod and holstered his gun. Ganz had bumped into him awhile back, and they had confirmed each other’s passwords.

  “Where’s Kate?” Ganz asked the other two.

  “She’s heading to Control Room,” Vlad said. “She needs to run script on command console there in order to release docking clamps on ship and open canopy doors.”

  Ganz gritted his teeth. He had developed a fondness for Kate and hated to lose her now. In the end though, she was expendable, just like they all were. “What about the colonel?”

  Lawson had a surprised look on his face. “He’s on his way to the Ground Control Room too.”

  Ganz tapped his smartglass. “Kate, can you hear me? The colonel is already on his way to the Control Room. Get back here to the Ready Room and suit up. We’ll wait for you in the ship.”

  Colonel Ruthven pressed his thumb on the control panel, and the door leading into the next corridor unlocked in front of him. He only had eight shots in his snub pistol, and he wondered just how many people there would be in the Ground Control Room now that the alarm had been sounded. His heart was still hoping that he could somehow overcome everybody in that place and make it back to the spacecraft in time for liftoff, but his analytical mind was concluding that the trip to the Control Room would be one way. It looked like he would be joining his family much sooner than he had anticipated.

  Making his way briskly down the corridor, he used his left had to subconsciously rub the inner part of his collar. Sure enough he could feel the small capsule that contained a dose of cyanide. Ruthven knew he would never be taken alive; the humiliation of a military trial and the realization of his former acquaintances he had turned traitor would be too much to bear, and he would rather end his life than have to go through that kind of experience.

  As he strolled past an intersection, a voice could be heard behind him. “Hold it right there.”

  Ruthven stopped. The gun was still in his hand, and he thought about whirling around for a firing position, but the confidence in the other man’s voice indicated he was also armed and ready for that eventuality. Perhaps there was still a chance he could bluff his way. “I’m Colonel Ruthven, and I’m the commanding officer for the mission. I need your name and rank, soldier.”

  “I’m not with the military,” the voice behind him said. “I’m NASA Special Agent Dvorak. Put the gun down on the ground, slowly.”

  Ruthven’s right eyebrow went up. He placed his pistol on the floor. “This is an Air Force installation, Special Agent Dvorak. What are you doing here?”

  “Place your hands behind your back, one over the other, please.”

  Ruthven did as he was told. “Look, I’m a senior officer here and I’m on the way to command the Security Forces. I’m on your side.”

  Tyler walked up to him and pulled out a pair of handcuffs from his belt. Placing the restraints over the colonel’s hands, he then turned him around. “You’re wearing something underneath your battledress, Colonel. I’ve had astronaut t
raining and I recognize it as a counterpressure space suit. If you’re supposed to be on your way to lead the security forces, then why would you be wearing it?”

  “I was in the middle of an exercise when the alarms sounded,” Ruthven said, trying desperately to keep up the facade “I didn’t have time to take them off.”

  Tyler looked over his shoulder. He had gotten lost awhile back, but now the corridor they were in looked familiar. Yes, he recognized that the Ground Control Room was close by. “I think we’re near the Control Room and General Tobias is over there. I’ll take you to him.” He bent over and reached down to grab Ruthven’s pistol that was lying on the ground. “If I made a mistake, I’ll let you go and apologize, but right now, we believe that a team of terrorists are looking to either sabotage or steal whatever kind of spacecraft you’ve got in this place. And that spacesuit you’re wearing looks too good to be true.”

  Ruthven bit his lip. He couldn’t think of anything more to say. Tyler led him by the elbow as they made their way down the corridor.

  The designers called it the battlesphere. It was a ball-shaped chamber located at the heart of the spacecraft. Suspended via high-speed shock absorbers, the room’s main purpose was to act as the bridge command and AI control for the crew during combat. With extra thick internal armor and maximum radiation shielding, it was the most secure compartment in the entire ship. The interior was composed of multiple monitor screens lining the walls and extending on down from the ceiling. Eight cockpit chairs, equipped with safety restraints and crash padding, were situated strategically between every console, each one designed for a specific crew position, yet any station could access all onboard systems in case of emergencies.

  Lawson sat down on the pilot’s command chair near the center of the room. He was already wearing his helmet, and he pulled out a retractable air hose from the side of the seat and plugged it at the back of his headgear, filling it with a mix of nitrogen and oxygen before shutting it down again and opening his faceplate. Before putting on his pressurized gloves, he strapped on the crash restraints and made sure they were snug.

  Just as Herbert sat down in the center chair, Lawson leaned over and backslapped him in the elbow. “That’s the commander’s chair,” he said, pointing to another seat at the other end of the battlesphere. “You sit over there, at the engineer’s station.”

  Herbert meekly got up, shuffled over to the designated chair, and sat down on it.

  Vlad sat by the system operations console typing on the keyboard in front of him. “It looks like we are almost full on fuel tanks.”

  Lawson looked at the emergency battery indicator on his monitor screen. It stood at one hundred percent. “Have CAIN run full checks now.”

  Vlad typed in another command on his workstation. “Da, it is done. CAIN has begun automated system check and he reports everything fully operational. Is too bad that I do not have another day or two to reprogram him. I can easily add voice interface system so we no longer need to input anything by hand.”

  “We don’t have the time,” Lawson said tersely. “Close all refueling ports and retract the external fuel lines.”

  Vlad pushed a key on his touch screen keyboard. “Da. Completed.”

  Lawson twisted his head and stared at Herbert. “You, reactor guy, what’s the situation with the APU?”

  Herbert glanced nervously at the monitor screen above him. All the chairs were facing the ceiling, for once they got underway the concept of direction would take a whole different meaning. He remembered that APU stood for Auxiliary Power Unit, a device that powered all ship systems except for propulsion. The Virago’s APU was a military molten salt nuclear reactor, a much more efficient and safer power source compared to the old pressurized water reactors that the Navy used in the prior century. This nuclear fission reactor used the thorium fuel cycle with a fluoride-based liquid salt for fuel, and it was much smaller in size than previous reactor types.

  “APU startup has begun,” Herbert said. “CAIN reports all automated safety checks completed. Heat radiators and internal cooling are fully operational.”

  A number of indicators on Lawson’s console showed that all shipboard systems were at optimal status. They were ready. All they had to do now was to start up the fusion drive and they could take off. He switched the nearby view screens to the outside cameras, showing the exterior parts of the ship. The entire launch area was a giant metallic fishbowl. Most of the lighting systems in the bay were still turned off, shrouding the massive spacecraft in a strange twilight. The Virago stood upright, propped up on two massive rail towers that would serve as support struts when it would finally begin its ascent. The outer doors above the Launch Bay were still closed.

  Lawson activated the AI command to detach the remaining umbilical cables. “I’m releasing base power and life support cables.”

  Now that the APU was running independently, Herbert channeled most of its output to the main capacitor bank for the internal lasers that would trigger the ship’s drive. “Charging main batteries. CAIN is auto calibrating the laser targeting for the fusion reactor. Calibration complete. Fuel pellets ready to be discharged into the drive core.”

  Ganz walked in through the battlesphere’s two airtight doors. It was the only chamber in the ship that had its own internal airlock, allowing it to maintain a separate atmosphere if needed. He could see that everybody else was already wearing their helmets. Ganz followed their examples as he sat down at the security station and put his own helmet on. “I’ve checked all external entry points and secured them. Only the auxiliary airlock can be accessible by anyone at the outside, and they must have the access code to open it.”

  Vlad kept fidgeting in his chair. “So now what?”

  Lawson continued to stare at the video feed of the ship’s nose. The canopy was still closed. “We wait for the others, then we go.”

  Despite already being in the ship, Vlad still felt vulnerable. Getting up into space would make them untouchable. “What if others do not make it? We should launch now!”

  “Shut up,” Lawson said tersely. “I know the colonel. He never fails.”

  Tyler led Colonel Ruthven into the Ground Control Room. The moment the two of them walked inside, John Zimmerman and General Luther Tobias both stood up in surprise. The two airmen manning the forward consoles glanced at them briefly with raised eyebrows, before returning their attentions to their respective workstations.

  General Tobias remained standing beside his desk. “What’s the meaning of this? Why did you restrain Colonel Ruthven like that?”

  Tyler holstered his pistol while continuing to stay behind Ruthven. “This man is wearing a spacesuit underneath his uniform, General. He was also out and about when everyone is supposed to be in lockdown.”

  General Tobias stared at his subordinate. “Well? Care to explain yourself, Colonel?”

  Ruthven knew the game was up. There was no point in any fast talk. He sensed that the general would see right through his false reasoning if he tried. All he could hope for now was a chance to reach the cyanide pill underneath his collar and end it all. “I’m sorry, General.”

  Zimmerman scowled as he took a few steps towards the two of them. “Were you planning to steal that ship, Colonel?”

  Ruthven said nothing.

  Zimmerman turned to look at the airman manning the com-link station. “Can you call in for reinforcements? There may be others in this building somewhere.”

  The communications technician shook his head. “Negative, sir. There seems to be some sort of interference on all com-link channels. The landlines are shut down. I can’t even get through to the Security Room.”

  General Tobias was stone faced. “Why, Marlon?”

  “For my son,” Ruthven said softly. “He never got any justice.”

  “I understand,” General Tobias said. He leaned over his desk, opened a drawer, and pulled out a pistol. He had already placed a round in the chamber sometime ago, so there was no need to rack the slid
e.

  Zimmerman saw what he general was doing at the corner of his eye. He turned and began to draw his own weapon. “General, what are you doing?”

  General Tobias shot him twice in the chest before the OSI agent could bring his gun to bear. Zimmerman fell sideways, his body slumping down onto the carpeted floor, right in between two chairs. The general turned and aimed his gun towards Tyler, who was also pulling out his own weapon. Ruthven dove sideways, rolling on the floor in order to get away from the kill zone.

  Both men fired at the same time. Tyler took a bullet in the throat while General Tobias staggered backwards with a grunt. The young NASA special agent dropped his weapon before clutching at his neck with both hands. Blood gushed from Tyler’s mouth and he made a gurgling noise as he fell backwards, legs kicking up in the air. Recovering his composure, General Tobias turned, aimed his pistol at the two shocked airmen, and shot them both down.

  Ruthven crawled up to where Tyler lay. The younger man was trying to breathe in as his own blood began to pool around him, his body still writhing on the floor. Seeing the handcuff key in Tyler’s belt, Ruthven knelt down and took it. He fumbled trying to get the key to fit with his hands tied behind his back, but succeeded on the third try. There was a slight click as the restraints were unlocked and he quickly stood upright.

  General Tobias had sat down on a nearby chair. He placed the gun on the table and pressed his hand just below his ribcage. Tyler’s bullet had gone into his stomach, and he was in very acute pain. He could barely concentrate while the sheer agony was dulling his senses.

  Ruthven walked slowly over to him. He had just realized the truth. “You were with me all the time.”

  General Tobias tried to chuckle, but all he could muster was a hoarse wheeze. “Who do you think gave Levy’s itinerary away so he would be killed, Marlon? I had to find a way to get you into the program.”

  “I-I never knew,” Ruthven said. “Why are you doing this, Luther?”

  “Cancer. Stage four. Pancreatic. The ones who are financing this … told me they’ll take good care of my family.”