Mission: A Venus Affair

by V. A. Jeffrey

  He took me to the control room or headquarters, where they managed and directed all of their shields. It was underground, at the central point of their underground tunnel and room system, like a hive center. Just outside the doorway, I spotted a holographic document. It was a property deed for the land surrounding their town and some miles beyond the actual town. Right there, stationed in blaring neon colors, the deed. It was a copy, I knew. Even in our modern day and age, when it came to property deeds, the originals were still issued as written documents and kept on record at the court while the court issued a digital file to be shown or displayed in holographic form if the owner so desired.

  Inside computers were set up in the center in a ring with a wide semi-circle of tables surrounding them and old touch screens and holo-vid image consoles sat on these tables. Around the room were mounted holo-vid consoles. The equipment was aging but they seemed to have made them work far beyond their usefulness. Tactile screens and holo-vid screens displayed the camera images of the surrounding land of the village complex above as well as the sky right above the village. One of the larger screens retrieved hologram images from a roving camera that scanned the land, giving them a panoramic view just beyond their property and the horizon. Some screens were dedicated software that continually scanned, gave diagnostic reports, repaired function errors and gave feedback on the state of the defense shields.

  “How we’ve managed to avoid destruction so far is all right here,” Gerard looked around worriedly at the consoles. There was one room off to the side with a ladder to get to it.

  “I think I can help you. I just need to get online. Do you have your own web satellite or do you use another company’s services?”

  “We have our own. It isn’t always reliable and it works only a few hours out of the day. On the worst days, communication reaches only so far as Venus. After one of their last attacks, they found our satellite and disrupted the service on purpose to cut us off from the outside universe. We used to have two so if one gave issues we could use the other one, but now we’re down to one.”

  “One is better than nothing at all. Is it online right now?”

  “I believe it is. Wendy, get him up and running again. It’s a fussy connection.” The others working in this room looked hopeful at me.

  “We haven’t been able to contact or receive messages or have online visits with family and friends abroad for about a week now,” said one of the women.

  “Hopefully we can change that,” I said. They led me to the little room with the ladder. I climbed up into it. This was the satellite room.

  Wendy reset the connection several times. On the fourth time, we made a connection. This was going to be tricky. If we lost the connection who knew when we could get it back and who knew what kind of assault the gangs might put up?

  Finally, the connection was made. I instantly messaged Will while a few of the other control room workers looked up mail messages and holo-vid messages from friends and relatives off world.

  There was a salutation. Will’s handle appeared. His online mail handle was set up to receive his messages immediately and have them forwarded to wherever he was unless he was in repose.

  “Hallo! Bob is that you?”

  “It’s me, Will! I’m glad to find you not in sleep mode yet.”

  “Ay, captain! I was about to do just. What do you need?”

  “I need something very important done, Will. Two things. I’m on Cupid’s Bow, a Venusian satellite and I’m with a small community of good people who desperately need the help of U-net.”

  “What is the matter?”

  “There’s a community here who have lived here for generations. They own much of the land on this satellite and their roots on this place go back to the days of the Great Space Run. They own a diamond mine. They do their best to mine the ore but they lack the proper equipment to mine the materials from it safely. They need help being able to benefit from the wealth they are sitting on. I was wondering if there was anyone on the Dappa network that might know of an organization that could be of some help? I’d heard of one in passing while listening to the news a few years ago. I believe they are based in the Congo.” There as about a minute of silence. Then,

  “Yes. An organization called the Trans-African Alliance of Artisanal Miners.”

  “That’s them. How do we contact them and convince them to come out and help?”

  “I don’t know yet.” There was some silence on the other end. Then Will came back. “They are a small but growing organization, according to the information I’ve brought up here. They are an old organization and they are known to help and support small mining businesses and have won these companies hard fought victories to freely mine all over the African continent centuries ago and also now in various places in the solar system, where there are conflicts between small and large mining company disputes. I’m not sure what they can do for them as they aren’t a large organization but as far as I can see it’s the only group that might know how to teach them about what to do. What is happening out there?”

  “Well, that brings us to the second issue. There are pirate gangs and a large corporation that has found out about the diamond mine here on the satellite and although legally the community owns this mine, these gangs are trying to kill them off to take over the mine. They need protection out here. Some legal entity that can help them fight for their rights. They’re a peaceful folk and they are in great danger. The old shield defenses they have are not going to hold up forever under increasing aggression.”

  “You’ll need to contact U-net for the second part. I’m sure they can do something to help.”

  “I hope.” Diamond might be able to suggest something. If not, I would go straight to Vartan.

  “I need one more thing. Time is running out on the connection I have here. I need you to contact Diamond or my wife as soon as you can to get me out of here. I’ll send the location coordinates of where I am to you now. My ship has crashed here and I’m stuck and in the middle of a territorial brawl that’s going to get really ugly. I need Diamond to get Magnum’s help or Vartan’s help in the matter to get me out of here. He’ll know what to do. Okay?”

  “Right away, captain!” Will said with a bit of a brogue. I smiled. “Wait a minute. Why are you on Cupid’s Bow? I thought you were on vacation in Vepaja?”

  “It’s a long story. You know how it is. I’ve found something that Vartan might need for an important project. But I need help getting it off this place and these folks need help protecting what is theirs.”

  “Right away, captain!” His innocent enthusiasm buoyed me. As I broke off contact I sat back and looked around.

  “Gerard take me back to the control room. I think I might be able to help you with some repairs.”

  9

  I examined the equipment they had and made notes on what sort of repairs or improvements I might be able to make in the mean time, while waiting for help from U-net. Their software system that controlled the shields badly needed a reinstall. And there was a more efficient way that they could utilize their cameras so that more resources could be routed to the shields. After examining this with a few of the people that were in charge of manning the control room that night I needed some sleep before the next day.

  I’d also noticed that they were trying to laser proof a huge piece of netting that they used to cover some of their outer buildings when the shields were offline, which they admitted was becoming more frequent. At least twice a week now. A worrisome development. Gerard had warned that an attack would soon come again. They were coming almost daily now. I examined the material as I walked along a path toward one of the orchards. I’d seen something like this made at Vartan and it was nearly laser proof for at least a year before it had to be replaced. It could stand up to tremendous amounts of firepower. It was an endothermic material. Such materials were used for the building of ships and also housing materials for space stations, planets, and moons. Gypsum, concrete, and other materials wer
e used because they could absorb a lot of heat. These folks had the right idea but they needed a better way to fireproof their buildings from the laser attacks if their shields ever failed.

  Later, I wandered aimlessly by myself under the fragrant pear trees. The weather had calmed down and behind the voluminous clouds peeked faint stars and then there was the eye-popping wonder of the pale gold orb of Venus revealed in the night sky like a giant, soft, golden eye on the horizon. Like a super giant harvest moon on Earth. It was such an arresting sight and so different from how I felt about it when I’d first landed here. But it looked the same. It was my circumstances and outlook that had changed, not Venus. She remained as mysterious, unchangeable, beautiful and full of danger and promise as she always was.

  I sat down in the soft soil beneath a tree and gazed at it. There my family were, wondering about me as I wondered about them. The weather system couldn’t be as bad as all that since I could sit here and enjoy such a sight and not be crushed to death by Venus’s gravity. I suppose even the cheapest weather and normalizing system had its good points that we modern people simply took for granted. But tomorrow was another day. It was time for bed.

  After breakfast the next morning I came down to examine the building materials again while many were out on the farms tending crops or gathering moisture from the moisture farm We had all come from a community mess hall, haven eaten simple but hearty fare. I was glad to have it.

  What they needed here was reinforced concrete. A steel mixer with the concrete to give it far more strength and better fireproofing. It wouldn’t be a perfect solution but the buildings above ground will would hold up better in the future with it. They had accumulated a very large amount of steel scrap metal in a storage room, among other kinds of metal. The steel needed to be put to good use.

  I set to work looking for construction tools and equipment to do this very thing while Gerard sent some of the young men to help me out. Having worked as a teenager in construction and carpentry as a stint for a few summers I still remembered some of what I’d picked up on the job. We wouldn’t be able to do any actual building while I was here but I could give them the recipe and show them how to make heat resistant refractory concrete – something that I’d also seen done at the company on the floors in the construction section of the Vartan campus.

  As we discussed the materials that would be needed for this monumental project to get underway I sent some of the younger ones off to look for what they already had that could be used and made notes on what would need to be provided when help arrived. I heard a loud, thundering boom. Everyone came running in from the farms, the living quarters and the underground factory and went to their stations. The settlement was under attack once again. Dust and debris rained down on us in small billows of smoke. I heard a volley of shots fired and lasers searing off parts of the roofs. Reaching the control room I watched what was happening outside. Lasers from several ships were searing off parts of the abandoned buildings in the complex, which to Gerard and his people wasn’t particularly alarming. However, these miscreants had now gotten hold of lasers that could do damage beneath the surface. From the worried talk of some of the people here, this was a new development. Thankfully these people had built lower underground. But this protection wouldn’t last long them much longer. Sooner or later an army of hooligans would be coming in with more ships, possibly tanks and all the firepower they could muster and it would be a slaughter. And the satellite would not stay hidden for much longer.

  “I need to get to the satellite, Gerard!”

  “Right away!”

  The tunnels shook slightly and small rocks and dust rained down as we made our way through the tunnel system and the chain of lifts back to the control room. In the last lift before we could reach the room, it stopped on us.

  “Oh no! Not again!” exclaimed Gerard.

  “What do you mean “not again”?”

  “As you know, things are breaking down around our ears here. Everything is falling into slow decay and these villains make it nearly impossible for us to get out and trade and make repairs and do our work properly anymore!”

  “Do they have to get outside in order to repair this in particular lift?”

  “No.” Having been in malfunctioning lifts before I didn’t panic. At least not yet.

  “How long do you think it will take for your people to get this lift fixed?”

  “About an hour. Maybe two.”

  “I’m guessing no one around here can lower down a jet pack?” he shook his head resignedly.

  “Okay, I’m going to climb to the top and open the hatch and see if I can squeeze through the top and jump down to the other side and walk the rest of the way there.

  “There should be about two and a half feet of space between the rock wall and the top of the lift. You look fit. I think you’ll make it through. Just be careful if we get this thing going again!”

  “I just hope those goons up there haven’t managed to find and disrupt the web connection on the last satellite or we’re in trouble.” All I needed was to contact Magnum and ask him to bring security forces. Wherever we went security backup was not far behind. Magnum was always prepared.

  Climbing up and getting a lift from Gerard who held his hands to make footholds for me, I made it to the lift ceiling and pushed open the hatch door and crawled past the cables. On the other side, I saw a work crew approaching with equipment. Below me, Gerard was opening a panel in the lift side wall. I slid to the other side of the car and jumped down. This was one of the horizontal lifts and I was thankful that I wasn’t dangling like some hapless fly in the air at the end of a web thread. Seeing the doors up ahead, as a faint light nearly a thousand feet, I hiked toward it swiftly. I heard another distant boom outside as if a bomb had gone off. It made me stop suddenly and try to listen. After that, I could hear nothing else of the battle above. I started on my way again and I was almost there after some time when I heard the lift car start up again behind me. I looked back only to see it chugging in starts and fits and then it lurched forward suddenly, making me jump. I raced toward the door of the control room, reaching it only to realize that it was closed!

  And there was no other way out of this tunnel. Behind me I heard the lift rattling on its cables as it picked up speed, hurtling towards me. I frantically looked for the door opening. It was on the left side. I pried and pushed against the door with all my might. It didn’t budge. I could hear Gerard yelling inside the car in a panic. It looked like I was going to end up like a pancake when the door in front of me suddenly lurched and then slid open. I flew in, sliding across the floor and crashing into one of the desks in the control room and knocking over a computer just as the car slammed against the doorway. Some of the control room people exclaimed in shock and then ran to set up the overturned computer and equipment. The lift car door slid open and Gerard came running out.

  “Bob! Bob, where are you?”

  “Over here, under the table,” I said, out of breath and crawling out.

  “Thank God!”

  “Yeah, well, let’s get that satellite connection again. I need to contact Magnum, pronto!”

  Gerard and one of the control room workers got the connection up again. Gerard checked the network settings.

  “Most of the memory and resources of these computers are generating and powering the shields now that we’re under attack. So the satellite network connection maybe spotty and weak. You’ll have to communicate as quickly as you can because the connection won’t stay open for long until the attack is over,” said one of the guys.

  “Alright.” I sent an urgent voice mail message to Magnum. Just a minute later he responded.

  “I received a message from Will. I’m intrigued by your findings on this ill-conceived rendezvous.”

  “I don’t have time for an argument, Magnum!”

  “What do you need?”

  “I need security reinforcements. I am with a community of innocent people on this satellite around Ve
nus and they are under attack from The Collector and his smugglers and gangsters. Diamond will know who that is. I also need your help getting out of here. Is there any way you can provide some help to these people? Even just a little?”

  “That depends on how much help they need.”

  “They are non-violent folks and they have fort style shields that have been holding up under the attacks but those shields are degrading. Did Will tell you about their plight?”

  “He did. And I am well aware of The Collector.”

  “Can you offer any assistance?”

  “What type of ships are attacking this village? I will need some-” Magnum’s voice suddenly cut out.

  “Magnum?” I was feeling fear creep up on me. I didn’t need the connection to cut out on us now!

  “-what?” came his voice again.

  “You dropped out on us. The ships I’ve seen are small shuttles and small cruisers outfitted with military weapons and old single-man fighters.” I turned to Gerard. “Is that about right?”

  “Yes. Those and we’ve also seen two rather new looking cruisers. Those cruisers have done the most damage and have driven us underground over the months.”

  “Did you hear that? Newer model cruisers also. Two of them.”

  “Cruisers are formidable but easy to spot as well. I do not have the mech power to stand up to a sustained direct attack on Venus with me but I may have a strategy to deploy if they don’t know what’s coming. Are you sure you want me to transfer security from your family to this community?” Gerard looked at me with surprise and dismay.

  “You can’t possibly mean that this is your decision? I won’t let you-”

  “My family will be okay. Their situation is only temporary. Yours isn’t. You’re facing extinction. My family isn’t.” I felt a twinge of pain in my heart at saying that. Gerard glanced at the others in the room. They all looked disturbed.