by John Jonas
CHAPTER 5
Five months after the events at the Nuclear Materials Storage Facility on Earth, three billion miles from here, the asteroid is beginning to increase in speed due to Jupiter’s gravitational pull. Having just passed Neptune’s orbital path around the Sun, it is approaching the route that Saturn takes as it travels in its 29 year orbit. Both planets are billions of miles away and have almost no gravitational effect on the asteroid. Jupiter, however, is on a collision course with it provided no other unforeseen forces cause its trajectory to change and as it approaches the massive planet it will increase in speed even more. As it is shooting through space close to 250,000 miles per hour, its orientation seems somewhat stable; it does not appear to be tumbling. It only has a very slow “roll” to it, in the direction of travel as if it is rolling down a hill in slow motion. The pilot of the small transport ship that is a half a mile off to the side of it was grateful for the stability, but he knew of this before making the three month journey from Gavilon. Drago had been observing this one asteroid for three years, ever since it made its close fly-by of his home planet, passing less than three million miles away from Gavilon. It took two years of plotting and planning, making the right connections and gathering materials before his plan started coming together. The first thing he had to do was get inside the Gavilon Space Command to gain access to the ship he needed. Drago decided that he needed to get hired by an engineering firm that did business with the Space Command, so he falsified a few documents and “arranged” a few references to lie for him. The second part was a little more difficult; he had to hack into a few computer files to be able to blackmail the politicians he needed for his references. After working for the engineering company for a few months, to establish a history with them, he went back to his “references” in order to get onto the Command payroll. With his engineering background, he was able to maintain the façade of being a good employee of The Directorate while working toward his ultimate goal.
After establishing his reputation and gaining the trust of his supervisors, Drago was allowed to enroll in the Space Transport Crew training school. This is the school where everyone that is stationed aboard any of the two hundred ships in the Transport fleet are required to attend. It trains pilots, navigators and cargo specialists that are required to man the ships that shuttle back and forth between Gavilon and Eos, one of its two moons. The other moon, Ios, is smaller and further away than Eos and does not have an atmosphere. The colony on Eos was established thirty years ago as an experiment and has grown into a full size city that requires constant re-supply. The Directorate allowed the colony to continue and expand because of population growth on a planet where less than one fourth of it is dry land, and the increase in tax revenue wasn’t so bad either. Eos has an acceptable atmosphere but almost no natural resources that are of any use. Individuals wanting to travel to or from there simply need to use a standard space-jump belt but are limited to two or three small items to take with them. All one has to do is go to any of the three jump stations on Gavilon and buy a ticket, then they are handed a pre-programmed belt to use for the trip. One touch of a button and a second later they are in the corresponding jump station on Eos. The user removes the belt, hands it to the screener and walks out.
The large amount of cargo needed by the people on Eos has to travel another way. The soil on the larger moon is capable of supporting a small amount of food crops but the rest has to be shipped in, along with all the other items needed by a medium sized city. Bulk materials are loaded onto transport ships that make the round trip once a day. Each ship has a crew of six; one pilot and one co-pilot, a navigator and three cargo handlers. The co-pilot and the navigator aren’t exactly necessary but Directorate rules require them. The ships are 200 feet long and 100 feet wide with an oval shape, much like one of those rocks you skip across a pond, and the inside height is roughly 30 feet high in the cargo space. There is a spherical structure on the top close to the front that serves as the bridge, where the pilot and co-pilot command the ship. The crew’s quarters are one level below the bridge, another level down is where the dining and bathrooms are, the last level down is where the Gravitite propulsion system and computers are. The cargo bay is aft of the crew structure and fills out the rest of the ship and is separated by an airlock, which is needed when the ship is operating on a planet with adverse conditions. All the cargo is placed here and is strapped down to tie points that are placed in a grid that is in twenty foot squares. This is to make sure is doesn’t shift during takeoff and landings. Gravity is controlled on the ship by the propulsion system during times of near zero G’s between planets. In fact, the propulsion system uses gravitational forces that exist to propel the ship through space. This is possible due to the Kalderite coating that is present on all exterior surfaces and is controlled by the propulsion system. Kalderite has the unique ability to “reflect” gravity under certain electrical conditions and can “attract” gravity also, thus causing a ship with this coating to be mobile and move through space. When the pilot wants the ship to move in a certain direction, he pushes the controls and the computers respond by causing the Kalderite coating on one side of the ship to reflect gravity and the opposite side to attract it, putting it into motion. Kalderite is refined from Kalderum ore that is mined on nearby Rylos, the next planet out from Gavilon. It is uninhabited with the exception of the mining crews due to the poisonous atmosphere and the cold. They spend six months guiding the mining machines then spend the rest of the year back home with their families. They earn enough during their time at the mines that they don’t have to work the rest of the time but some of them like to sign on to be cargo handlers on the transports to make a little extra.
The pallets that the cargo is strapped to also have the Kalderite coating on the bottom and there is a control box attached by a harness to each one. The handler only has to push the buttons on the controls to cause the pallet to lift up a few inches and move in whatever direction he wants. There is a large retractable door at the rear of the ship where all the supplies are loaded and unloaded using a ramp that disappears into the hull of the ship when it is underway.
Drago slowed the ship as it approached the asteroid and rotated it counter-clockwise ninety degrees to become parallel to the surface in preparation to landing. He was landing it on the side of the asteroid that would be considered the “left” side of it; the “front” of the asteroid being the side that faces the direction of travel. As he was watching the graphical navigation display his distance from the surface, his right hand touched the control screen to extend the landing gear. Drago felt a bump at the same time the display showed touchdown, so he put the ship’s computer into a grav-hold condition so it wouldn’t drift away from the asteroid.
He touched the comm button on his collar and said “We’re here; get the cargo ready for offload, Hemet.”
There were only two people on the ship, Drago and his assistant Hemet, who was a friend from the transport crews he worked with at Space Command. Hemet was one of those part-time mine workers part-time cargo handlers because he didn’t have a family and he liked to stay busy.
“Understood, putting my suit on now. I’ll let you know when we’re ready to depressurize the cargo bay.”
Drago watched the video screen as it showed the cargo bay air lock in the upper left corner, the full view of the cargo bay in the center and another view of the cargo bay door underneath. In the center of the screen he could see the payload that he was delivering sitting on the floor with its straps tied to it, keeping it immobile. It was a massive box that had barely fit through the rear door of the ship. He and Hemet had loaded it on Gavilon under cover of darkness after Drago had built it in his warehouse under great secrecy. It was a little less than thirty feet high and measured fifty feet square at its base, squared off corners that gave the appearance of a metal cube. He had not told Hemet what was inside and he told Drago he didn’t care as long as he was paid what he was promised.
Drago heard on his comm �
��Okay, ready to depressurize.”
He touched a button on the control panel and turned to the screen to verify the DePress light was flashing yellow and watched as Hemet opened the air lock and walked out into the cargo bay. When the DePress light turned red, Drago pressed another button on the panel and the rear door began to open and the ramp started extending. After watching him remove the tie-down straps, he could see Hemet pick up the gravity control panel and manipulate the controls for the pallet his payload was sitting on and it rose a foot off of the floor. Another second and it was slowly moving out onto the ramp with Hemet following, barely clearing the rear opening. After a minute he saw his assistant walk back onto the ramp and into the bay empty handed. He touched his comm button and said “Ready to close rear door, boss.”
Drago touched the panel and the door began to close and he watched Hemet walk to the airlock. The indicator on the panel showed the rear cargo door closed and locked. He waited a minute for Hemet to remove his suit and then touched his comm button, “Hey, Hemet, I’m getting a door lock fault on the rear door. Can you go back and check the lock? I show a door closed light but not locked.”
“Are we repressurized captain?”
Drago said “I have a good seal and RePress light. Go ahead.” He watched the monitor as it showed his assistant walk back to the rear door. Right when Hemet reached to check the lock, Drago touched the control panel and watched as the rear door opened and Hemet was sucked out into space after giving one last panicked look at the camera in the front of the cargo bay. He then switched the camera view to the outside, where he could see his lifeless body float past the huge box that was sitting on the surface of the asteroid. Drago then gently lifted the ship away from the asteroid and slowly put distance between them. When he had reached an altitude of about 300 feet, he reached for a suitcase sized package and opened the cover. The screen on the wall still had a view of his box as he touched a switch on the device in his lap. After hitting a few more buttons, he watched as the top of the box he had just delivered lift up and float away. The sides then folded down and out of the way revealing a pile of machinery with a very large tube sticking out the top of it. He then moved the ship to a distance of about thirty miles away and behind the asteroid and watched the screen as he touched one last button on the device in his lap. The view of the asteroid became so bright that he could see nothing but white light as his Ion Particle Beam Thruster engine came to life and deliver the one hundred million pounds of thrust that he had designed it to do. He knew that his massive thruster engine would run non-stop for ten hours and then run out of power, at which point the gravity controls would shut off and his masterpiece would drift off into space like his assistant.
Drago closed the lid to the briefcase then put the ship’s auto-pilot controls to maximum speed and prepared for the long journey back to Gavilon.