by Rob Buckman
“What the hell do you think you’re playing at, dickhead?”
“I’m not playing at anything, I think you are.” Mike shot back.
“We’ve been sitting in the yard for over two hours and you haven’t told us diddly squat about what’s going on.”
“I told you to wait for clearance! We have traffic in the pattern.”
“Oh, really. Then how come I don’t see any, and why did you tell us that someone was working on a dud optical bollard?”
“Err.” The Yard Boss looked embarrassed for a moment. “That don’t matter what I said, I’m telling you to get back here and wait for clearance.”
“Fuck you and the horse you rode in on. Weez out of here!”
The Yard Boss didn’t have that much clout, not when dealing with Orbital Center or traffic control. That was the first place he called the moment he disconnected with the Yard Boss.
“Traffic Control, this is Sierra, Whisky, Gulf 893. Do you have any traffic inbound to the inter-modular yards for Avalon Alpha on my heading?”
“Sierra, Whisky, Gulf 893, be advised that we have no other traffic on your heading from the yards.”
“Thank you, traffic control. Requesting clearance to Avalon Prime.”
“Come to a heading of 101.337 by 281.440 by 2.3 declination and you are cleared to proceed to Avalon Prime.”
“Thank you Traffic Control - proceeding on that heading - in bound to Avalon.”
“What is your time to the zero/zero intercept with Avalon Alpha’s orbit Sierra, Whisky Gulf 893?”
“No zero/zero intercept Traffic - we are going to do a swing by and rendezvous with an outbound freighter.”
“I copy that, Sierra Whisky Gulf 893 - switch to Orbital Center when you reach the outer market.”
“Copy, traffic control.” Mike looked over his shoulder and grinned at, Gramps. He smiled back and shrugged.
“They will catch on sooner or later.”
“It’ll be too late by the time they do, and what can they say?”
“Tell us to cut the engines and slow down.”
“Not likely, as long as we don’t dip into the atmosphere we should be good.”
“Dip into atmo…!” Gramps spluttered. “Are you crazy?”
“Just kidding, Gramps. We shouldn’t go below the two hundred mile mark.”
“Sweet Jesus!” He muttered, shaking his head. “I’m going to get old and gray working around you.”
“You all ready are, Gramps.”
“See what I mean.”
“But you were all ready old and gray when I was a baby.” He chuckled.
“True.” The old man laughed. “I’m off back to the salt mine. Try not to bump into anything on your way round, huh?”
“I’ll try, Gramps.”
Mike set up his new vector in the Nav-comp and kicked her up to fifty gravity’s. His hands and eye doing the hundred and one things that went along with it. Something tickled at the back of his mind, as if he’d forgotten something and for a moment, he stopped, pondering what it was. The optical bollards. Was there really a problem with one of them, or was that just another item to delay them. Out of curiosity, he queried each of the containers on board systems. This included information from the bollards and the station-keeping thrusters. Nothing seemed amiss yet something still nagged at him. For the moment he shrugged it aside and finished setting his course and kicking in the autopilot. He flicked through the 360 ‘visual’ check on each screen, keeping the magnification high, looking for anything out of the ordinary. All of the containers appeared to be maintaining their relative positions from each other and ‘above’ the “Prometheus’. This kept the containers out of the drive plume from the gravanic thrusters. Their distance from the container string should keep them from oscillating even if they were ‘below’ the tug and in the drive plume. Gramps always insisted otherwise. Why take the chance, especially if you suddenly had too close-haul the load for some reason. It was just one more thing you didn’t have to worry about. If the containers oscillated enough, they could strain the tractor beam between the optical bollards beyond their limit. That meant you’d have a wild one bucking and straining the tow. More out of habit than anything, Mike flicked through the on board container cameras. Then something caught his eye. He flicked back and panned the cam to take a closer look.
“That’s odd.” The door to the container control station was open and it shouldn’t be. He checked a couple of other and found them clamped shut. Not satisfied, he continued checking all 75 containers. Then he found another one. “Hmm.” He muttered, pulling up a digital schematic of the whole string. “Now why are the hatches of the control room on three containers open, all of them on the outside string?” It bothered the hell out of him, but he couldn’t say why. Sloppy maintenance just didn’t cut it.
“Gramps?”
“Yes?”
“I need to go out and check on something. Need you to take the helm.” Whatever the old man heard in Mike’s voice, he immediately came up to the bridge.
“What’s up, Mike?”
“I found three control room hatches in the open position on those containers, and it gives me an itch.”
“So? Go scratch it.” Being a tidy person by nature, and ex-Royal Navy, it irritated Gramps as well.
It didn’t take Mike long to get to the aft airlock and the suit locker. He stripped and slid into his skin suit after checking his suit out, quickly running a status check on the main panel. Everything was in the green, including the liquid air tanks and re-breather system. After climbing into his space suit, he backed up to the combination EVA thruster pack and extra air bottles.
“Cycling aft airlock, Gramps.”
“Clear. Proceed with EVA on Captain’s authorization.”
That meant the Gramps was notifying the cockpit recorder that he was the designated Captain and he was authorizing Mike to execute an ‘extra vehicle activity’ on his command. Their normal banter fell away, and both became totally professional. Something the naval board would turn a blind eye to, but other things, like people working outside a ship wasn’t one of them. Over the years too many men and woman had lost their lives or simply drifted away into the depth of space because of poor observance to EVA procedures. Even Mike’s checkout on the systems board would be logged in the flight recorder. Mike stood in the airlock, listening to the sound get less and less as the evacuation pump sucked the air out of the chamber. When the pressure reached zero he wouldn’t hear it all. The light over the outer hatch flashed to green, indicating he was clear to proceed. Stepping out, he jumped off the deck to release him from the ship's artificial gravity, and pressed the thruster control on top of the joystick. The thruster kicked him softly in the back and he moved away from “Prometheus’. As he came out into the sunlight, he touched a button on the control panel, unfurling the umbrella on the back of the thruster pack. It immediately oriented itself to the sun, covering Mike with its ‘shadow’. This was a little invention of his own, one that Gramps had laughed at the first time he’d seen it. He stopped laughing when he saw the suits outside temp drop and the demand on the cooling/heating system also remained low. This in turn reduced the time on the maintenance cycle clock and reducing the cost of servicing the suits.
“Moving to the outside string now, Captain.”
“I copy that.”
He maneuvered up and over the ‘top’ string, hopping from container to container. The first one with an open hatch was half way down the string, and it took him almost fifteen minutes to reach it. He killed his forward thrust and touched down, the soles of his magnetic boots holding him down. He un-strapped the thruster pack and locked it in place with a strap and a magnetic anchor, giving it a hefty tug to ensure it would hold.
“Checking the control room hatch, Captain.”
“Copy. See anything unusual?”
“Not so far. The hatch looks like it’s in working order. I’m going inside.”
“Careful son, we are
n’t authorized to enter the container.”
“I understand, Captain. These aren’t bonded container and there is no Customs seal on the hatch.”
“I copy that. Proceed.”
Everything they said was for the recorder, just in case someone should ask. Mike switched on his helmet light, rather than the control room interior light. He sweated later, and was glad he did. His light swept around the tight room, at first seeing nothing out of the ordinary. The main control showing everything in the green, as it should be. Then he spotted something on the forward bulkhead, something that shouldn’t be there.
“Captain!”
“Captain, aye!”
“Have something odd here.”
“Switch on the suit cam, Mike.” He did, focusing on the odd device on the bulkhead. “What the hell!” Mike took a closer look, puzzling over what it could be. It looked normal enough. Twin pressure bottle with the standard black and white marking for liquid oxygen. Taking his portable light, he shone it on the device.
“I don’t know what the hell that is but I don’t like the look of it. It’s not supposed to be there.”
“Agreed, Captain. What puzzles me it this little panel on the front, it looks as if it’s some sort of countdown timer.”
“Counting down for what?”
“You’ve got me.”
“What’s behind that unit?”
“Nothing, just the forward bulkhead to the ore bins… Oh shit!”
“What, Oh shit!”
“Someone has cut a small hole through the bulkhead into the ore bin.”
“And?”
“Hold one, Captain.” Mike looked closer, trying to work out what he was seeing. On face value it could be some sort of company devise to do something during the voyage, but he didn’t think so.
“What’s in this container, Captain?”
“Hold - checking.” Hearing Gramps, tapping keys. “High grade titanium ore. In fact, it's almost pure titanium, Mike."
“Now why does that bother the heck out of me?”
“You tell me Mike, you’re the one going to college.”
“Hmm.” He muttered. “Gramps. Check our original flight time to intercept with the freighter.” Mike waited, feeling the sweat start to trickle down his forehead. “62 hour and forty two minutes.” Gramps came back.
“Oh shit!” He muttered. “That’s what’s on this countdown timer.”
“Not good.” Gramps muttered into the pickup. “Switch on the interior light, Mike. I’m not getting a good visual in this light.”
“Will do.” Mike turned and reached for the light switch, then froze. “Oh my lord!” He whispered, feeling a shiver run up his back.
“What?” Gramps demanded.
“There’s something attached to the light switch.”
“Show me!” Mike carefully positioned the cam so Gramps could see what he was looking at.
“Saint Nicholas preserves us.”
“What is it, Gramps?”
“It’s a flaming booby-trap.” Gramps voice sounded as hard as steel.
“Huh!”
“Whoever put that there didn’t want any nosey parker like you taking a look at his handy work. If you turned that light on instead of your helmet light it probably would have activated a dead man switch and set off something, an explosive charge in the device I suspect.”
“Oh Jeez!”
“You can say that again.” Gramps breathed a sigh of relief. “But what is the device supposed to do is what puzzles me.” There was silence for a moment as both tried to think their way through the puzzle. Mike got it first. He shuffled over and took another look at the device.
“Yup!”
“What!”
“I bet that timer unit is connected to the liquid oxygen valves.”
“Okay, so?”
“Gramps, liquid oxygen and titanium!” All Mike heard was a groan in his earphone. “You’ve got it, Gramps.”
“They don’t mix. You get one hell of an explosion if you mix the two of them together.”
“Right.” Then it hit Mike like a sledgehammer. “Shit! It’s even worse than that.”
“How so?”
“Titanium, iron, aluminum and magnesium! What happens when you mix them?”
“Shiiit! You get the mother of all explosions. One would set the other off in a chain reaction. It would take out anything within a mile.”
“Including the tug, starship and all witnesses.”
“Aluminum and the iron would be bad enough, but add magnesium and you’d have a fireball that would reduce everything to nothing but ash.”
“Someone wanted to take out that starship, but why?”
“No, Mike, this wasn’t aimed at the ship, only incidentally. This was aimed at the mining company. On the heels of the last accident, if it was, and in the light of this. The company would go belly up in short order, and guess who'd get the blame?”
“I guess we would. An inter-company war you think?”
“That’s what it looks like, but the question is, what do we do?”
“I don’t know about you, Gramps, but I’m all for getting rid of this device first just in case they can be remotely detonated.”
“I don’t follow.”
“The moment we call this in to Systems Security everyone will know…”
“They could remotely detonate it and destroy any evidence…”
“If we remove the devises before we called?”
“True. We could take them out of harm’s way at least… You have a point, the question is, can we disable or remove the damn thing without setting it off.”
“Looks to me as if it clamped on magnetically. It's just a question of removing it and dumping it over the side.”
“That would only add to the space debris, and a dangerous one at that. No, removing it as soon as possible sound like the best move, but turn it over to System Security for analysis and disposal.”
“I’m with you, Gramps. I’m going to take a careful look and get this thing out of here.”
“Be, very, very carefully, Mike.”
“I will, Gramps.”
“I might add that someone is heading our way at a rapid rate of knots.”
“How soon will he be here?”
“At that rate, I’d say in about seven hours, give or take a few minutes, depending on his turn over point.”
“That gives me plenty of time to get this out of here.”
“Copy that, Gramps. Any idea who they are?”
“Not so far. No ID or answer to my comm call.”
“Hmm.” Mike carefully examined the device, but didn't find anything to indicate another booby-trap.
The magnetic clamp was a standard type used for securing cargo, or like the one he used to hold the thruster pack in place. He hit the release while holding the device in place, then gently and slowly moved it away from the bulkhead. Nothing happened. He backed out of the control room and clamped the device to a stanchion before he breathed normally again.
“It’s out, Gramps.”
“Good. At least if it goes off out there it won’t set off the damn titanium.”
“Gramps!”
“What?”
“Remember those other open control room hatches?”
“Oh shit!”
“Want to lay odd that there are more of these bloody things?”
“No way in hell am I taking that bet.”
“I’m going to check.”
“All of them?”
“Yes, I’m not taking any chances of missing even one.”
“You don’t have enough air!”
“Yes, I do. Have the backpack and additional bottles on the thruster pack.”
“Not enough.”
“It’ll have to do, Gramps. I haven’t got time to come back for more, not with 72 containers to check.”
“But…”
“Trust me, Gramps. I’ll have enough.” Mike knew it wasn’t, at least not at normal airflo
w.
He dialed the air flow control down to a minimum, watching his timer. It would be close, very close, the question was, could he keep it that low? He lowered his metabolic rate and temperature as much as he dared, setting off the alarm. He killed it, and ignored the flashing red light. Strapping his thruster pack back on, Mike flew to the last container in the string, finding another device. He unclamped it and set it outside before moving to the next container across. He found two more, but dropping down to the next level found nothing. That made sense in a way. You only needed to set off the titanium to detonate the rest. He lifted back ‘up’ to the outside string, finding one in each of the control rooms. Whoever set this up definitely spent a lot of time and money on this. With this number of devices, he obviously wanted to ensure that all of them exploded at the same time. Hour by hour he worked steadily from one container to the next, finding and removing a device from each container.