Mars Wars - Abyss of Elysium

by Abyss Of Elysium (Lit)

  Hernandez pulled his sleeve away from Lipton's pinched fingers with a snap then withdrew from him. But Lipton followed, backing Hernandez into the wall. For barely a second, Hernandez considered Lipton's disheveled appearance. He had never seen him in such a frenzy before. But it didn't really matter. In a few minutes, it was likely to get worse.

  "I have the most serious crisis of my career to deal with and you..." Lipton continued, leveling his finger inches from Hernandez's face.

  "Back off Lassiter," Hernandez stated flatly. Such an uncharacteristic comment so startled Lipton that he fell quiet. Before Lipton could recover, Hernandez quickly stepped aside, opened the door and waved the other five board members inside. Suzanne Nikifortune followed with her tablet computer. "Wait outside," Hernandez ordered her.

  Lipton came to life. "No, Suzanne, come in. I want this meeting on the record. Some heads are going to roll."

  "Suzanne, wait outside," Hernandez said to her again, sternly. Lipton acquiesced, and then motioned her to leave with his head and eyes. As she left, she shot Hernandez a killing stare.

  "What is this about?" Lipton asked Hernandez as the members took their seats.

  "We’ve been meeting about our situation over the past few minutes..."

  "What?" Lipton responded incredulously, slamming his hand down on the table top, seizing Hernandez in his glare.

  "It would be better, Lassiter, if you would just allow us to explain our position," Hernandez replied, his voice straining to eliminate a barely audible tremble.

  "This had damn well better be good," Lipton replied, his own voice firm and brutal.

  "Then I'll get directly to the point, Dr. Lipton," Hernandez revealed. “We have decided to relieve you of your responsibilities for the next few sols, at least until the crisis can be resolved."

  Lipton’s response startled them all. He smiled and his face relaxed. "You what?" he asked, laughing incredulously. "You have no authority to do that! This is the most ludicrous thing I’ve heard in my professional career. What...how do you accumulate the aggregate authority to relieve me for any reason for any period of time?"

  "Medically... you have been relieved medically," spoke Dr. Julia Friedman, staff Psychiatrist.

  "Julia, Julia!" Lipton laughed, this time his voice more strained. "You don’t have the authority to..."

  "Dr. Lipton, I have the authority under both NASA flight rules as well as the Civil Service Office of Personnel Management guidelines," she replied flatly. Julia Friedman was a no-nonsense, career civil servant. She had been a government psychiatrist for over a quarter century and knew her craft better than anyone. She stared at Lipton over her half-glasses with unhesitant resolve.

  "I'll have your career for this, Friedman," Lipton whispered at her across the table. "As for the rest of you, count your sols. You'll be out of here with the other terrorists on the next ship," he said, pointing his finger around the table. "You’re all in complicity with mutiny, and that is a capital offense!

  “You can never hope to succeed with this plan. No one in this facility is obligated to obey a single one of your directives. If you continue down this path, this community will be in total chaos in two sols, and I will not take the responsibility!" He stared at them for a full minute as his breath hissed lightly through his clenched teeth. Then he started to leave the room.

  "Wait...," Hernandez said after him.

  Lipton stopped but did not turn around. "What now?"

  "I think you should know how difficult this was for all of us," Hernandez began slowly.

  "Do you have a point to make, Bob, or is this wasted sentimentality?" Lipton asked his Deputy.

  "I have a point, sir," Hernandez replied, slightly above a whisper. "We all decided together that we were concerned for the whole community..."

  "Stop being obtuse. I'm tired," Lipton replied sharply.

  "Of course. We decided that no one need know of this whole affair. Let the crisis pass, you visit with Dr. Friedman; eventually, it all goes back the way it was. No one need ever know it came to this," Hernandez offered sincerely, “No one.” Then he added almost as an afterthought, "This way, we're all protected." But as soon as he spoke the word, he knew it was a poor choice.

  "Protected?" Lipton asked, incredulous, spinning around to face them. "You want to be protected from a charge of mutiny? I'll see all of you rot in hell first! But please take this under consideration. I do not accept your findings and I refuse to step aside for sedition of any form, yours or theirs. And, oh by the way, the lander shall lift off from Crippen Spaceport tomorrow morning as scheduled, and you will be on it with the rest. I'll be in my quarters when all of you regain control of your senses." Then he left the room, slamming the door loudly behind him.

  "Well, that could have gone better," Friedman said bluntly.

  "He didn't accept our findings," Hernandez said in a near trance, a preposterous summary of Lipton's outrage. He stared straight ahead out the windows into the dark Martian sky.

  "No he did not, Mr. Hernandez. Nonetheless, by formal direction, you are legitimately in charge," Dr. Friedman said. “This is not an argument. It is not a disagreement. It is a legal finding according to documented procedures.”

  She looked around the room at the other five faces, all somber, all afraid. They had a right to be, she thought. They would all likely forfeit their positions when they returned to earth. But the gamble was made before entering Lipton's office that the greater risk was allowing Lipton to carry on out of control. One life had already paid the price for his madness, and they were all now at greater continued risk.

  Reuniting the community could have no higher priority. Reconnecting communications with the earth, launching the lander with its intended passengers and returning the cargo canister still in orbit were vital and had to be accomplished with as little contention and difficulty as possible. If any part of that scenario failed, they would all likely die. It was much too important to leave in the hands of a man whose emotions had run out of control, ruled by an unrestrained ego.

  Friedman looked to Hernandez who appeared completely disoriented. No wonder, she reflected. He was more than likely chosen by Lipton as the consummate follower, not a leader, which would have interfered with Lipton's dominance. So she chose to end the meeting for him. With a leveled, polished voice, she said,

  "May I be so bold as to suggest to this cabinet that with proper retrospect, Dr. Lipton will likely agree that our course of action was the most prudent under the circumstances? He is a politician of the first order and, like the rest of us, survival tends to be a priority. May I also remind all of you of the importance of maintaining total confidentiality of these proceedings? If Lassiter decides to go along with our plan, then our own security also depends on restricted access to our administrative agreements. Mr. Hernandez, I suggest we all retire to our quarters for rest. I shall take the liberty of inviting the scientific community to reopen their doors. We must initiate some meaningful dialogue and make decisions pertaining to our safety as soon as possible."

  Hernandez nodded, still staring into space.

  "Then it’s settled. Goodnight all," she stated as the other four members rose to leave.

  Lisa McConnel hesitated, and then asked, "Has the count for tomorrow's launch been canceled?" Her eyes had been following the countdown clock on Lipton's office wall: minus six hours seven minutes and counting.

  "Yes, it’s been scrubbed," Hernandez answered quietly. "I asked them to continue the clock for another hour or two." He clearly implied he was planning to wait until Lipton had retired.

  The other members departed, leaving Hernandez and Friedman alone in the room. She looked at him. He appeared utterly defeated. She reached over and placed her hand atop his. "Bob, I know it must be... difficult for you."

  "I’ve been a loyal believer in and assistant to Lassiter Lipton for fourteen years... and now this," he said with a deep sigh.

  "You did what was best for all of us; you must believe that,"
Friedman said quietly.

  He nodded his head slowly, and then rose from his seat to leave.

  "Goodnight, Julia."

  "Get some sleep, Bob. Let me take care of the details," she replied.

  Friedman waited a respectful few minutes for Hernandez to leave the outer office before directing, "Suzanne, get Peter Traynor on his PC2 right away."

  11

  ernandez got little, if any, sleep anticipating Lipton's rage at discovering the launch had actually been canceled. But it did not happen. Lipton downed a healthy half-liter of contraband scotch and went promptly to bed. He correctly reasoned a rested mind made better decisions. Besides, he also rationalized that a lander without a flight crew was not going into orbit anyway. Lipton had played out almost all his cards and nearly lost it all. Just before he passed out, he accurately assessed he had defeated himself due to his own lack of judicious foresight. But he still held one more good card.

  At first light on the Elysium desert, the colonists stood on one side of Airlock door 6A, the Administrative staff on the other.

  "Lock pressurized," Toon reported.

  "Let's do it," Peter said, twisting the wheel that un-dogged the hatch. A slight hiss indicated it was safe to proceed. With only a moment's hesitation, he swung the door wide.

  Julia Freedman was already walking down the tunnel with Hernandez in tow. They met near the middle and Freidman held out a small package to Peter. He was accompanied by nearly every colonist, lined all the way back into the main compound.

  "If it's not shaped like a horse, it’s probably okay," Francis said, winking slyly at Friedman. Peter opened it, a little embarrassed. It was a tiny plant in a small terrarium. To the people from Earth, plants represented life on Mars.

  "Thank you, from all of us, Julia," Peter replied, truly touched. Friedman looked rested, although she had managed only a few hours of sleep. Her silver-streaked, blond hair was tied back. She wore a BC1 decal on her green jacket and her black boots were shined so brilliantly that Sergeant Brinker could have signed her up for Marine boot camp duty.

  Julia looked at Francis, and then placed her hand on his shoulder and kissed his cheek. "And this guy looks like he needs some warm fuzzy feelings or something," she said laughing, the deep lines around her slate eyes giving way to a natural smile.

  "Watch out, people, this woman is a trained shrink. She'll be inside your head before you know it," Francis said, grasping her hand in both of his and returning her smile. "I think she wants to pick our brains or something."

  "As a matter of fact...," she replied.

  "We have a lot of work to do, people," Hernandez said smiling, obviously feeling better himself in the few minutes they had been in the tunnel than he had for the two sols prior. "Dr. Traynor, will you allow us to accompany you and your staff to the dining hall?"

  Peter laughed. "Listen, Bob, since when do you ask permission to the dining hall? I had the impression it belonged to everyone."

  Hernandez was appreciative. "Then... we’re together on this thing..."

  "Of course," Peter replied, "We’re a community... all of us, together. It’s always been that way and always will be."

  The crowd on both sides broke out in spontaneous applause.

  Hernandez saw the face of Sergeant Brinker far back in the crowd. "Sergeant Brinker, please ensure that all residents of BC1 are allowed unlimited passage to all areas."

  "Aye, sir," Brinker replied, tossing a weak salute and smiling flatly.

  There was a good bit of handshaking on both sides as the crowd made its way to the dining hall. The spirit of oneness had never been greater. As they assembled, Peter stood at the front of the room and the buzz of the crowd slowly settled down to a dull mummer. Finally, Peter raised his hand. "Okay folks, let's get started. I’ve asked Dr. Gorteau to assist me this morning." Gorteau quickly hammered out a few displays on his computer which came to life on a large screen before them.

  "Problem number one," Peter began, Gorteau dutifully making entries on his keyboard. "We still have no clues as to why we’ve lost communications with earth. Number two: we need to discuss the de-orbit of the orbiting cargo canister as soon as it’s safe to do so. Number three: as a community, we have to solve our own organizational differences."

  "Where's Lipton?" Someone innocently asked from the back of the room.

  Without hesitation, Hernandez stood and faced the room. "Dr. Lipton is resting. He’s being briefed on these proceedings. Until then, I represent the Director's office."

  There was an instant cacophony of voices from the crowd. There were already rumors circulating, many of them coincidentally correct, but no one was sure.

  "Let's get back to the problems in order," Peter insisted. "I’ve asked Jamie Powers to give us a summary."

  There was a ripple of mannerly applause as the communications chief made his way to the front of the room. Jamie Powers, a colonist, was in his early thirties, but looked at least ten years younger than his age. His blond, nearly white hair fell across his forehead at an angle and contrasted with the spray of freckles across his nose. He wore a set of well fitted blue coveralls. From his boyish good looks, it was quite difficult to accept that Powers held advanced degrees from Cal Tech and MIT. It was not so difficult when he began to articulate his thoughts as his speech belied his intelligence.

  He began immediately and held no notes. "As you know, we lost communications with the earth many hours ago and have not recovered the link. We were linked with the two deep space CERTS satellites in the San Paulo Convergence Protocol..."

  Peter cleared his throat loudly. He had already warned Jamie to keep his summary in a reasonably comprehensible format.

  "...yes, of course," Jamie said, understanding Peter's unspoken counsel. "Okay, the satellites are positioned, as you know, in orbits around the sun so that the earth can communicate with us at all times through either of them or just one. That method is called the San Paulo Convergence Protocol. In any case, it’s a two-way street. Of course, we can also communicate with the earth through one of them or both of them. That kind of redundancy prevents loss of communications if one fails.

  “As you also know, the earth slipped behind the sun in reference to us, and that is a condition called occultation, so that direct communications with earth became impossible and we had to rely on the satellites." Jamie paused and shifted uncomfortably on his feet. During this pause, someone asked a question.

  "Jamie, is there a way to verify if the CERTS are working properly?"

  "Yes, the CERTS have a direct communications capacity and a functional check routine. We’ve linked with them and both of the satellites appear to be functioning flawlessly. This would, obviously, indicate that the problem is with the earth stations, not the CERTS. There’s less than one percent probability that there’s a CERTS anomaly."

  "How many earth stations are capable of communicating with CERTS?" Jack asked.

  "Sixteen. Four primary CERTS stations and a dozen more capable of making the link. All sixteen would have to be malfunctioning to prevent communications with us."

  "How about the Soviets?" someone asked. "Have they lost their satellites, too?"

  "Yes. We’ve oriented our antennas to listen for their data stream and it’s also stopped. We know that they’re no longer receiving data either."

  "What theory do they have to explain the loss?" Geoff Hammond asked.

  "We don't know. They aren’t answering our requests for information."

  The silence lasted two full seconds, and the crowd burst into loud discussions with one another.

  Gorteau walked over beside Jamie. "May I?" he asked. Jamie nodded as he began. "To keep this manageable, let me add one other bit of pertinent information. Just prior to loss of communications, we received this data burst from earth through the satellites." Gorteau projected a display on which a frequency versus time plot was indicated.

  "These frequency spikes represent the last seventeen minutes of communications received
from the CERTS. The frequency spikes during the last four minutes relate to pulses of electromagnetic energy within the frequency bands we were monitoring at the time."

  "If those are EMP's, I think you'd better go ahead and skip to the end of the story!" Sergeant Brinker said, pushing his way to the front of the room. Brinker was no scientist or technician, but he had been trained in combat, and he knew the buzz words. Most of the rest of the people in the room were not combat trained, but they knew enough about what Gorteau was talking about to worry.

  "The Sergeant is right, of course. These are very high energy electromagnetic pulses, otherwise known as EMP's, right across the spectrum. They are typically observed when a very large amount of energy is released all at once."

  "Like an atomic weapon," Brinker added. The rest of the crowd knew it was coming. No one but Brinker dared say it. Now they erupted into an even louder exchange. Peter stood and allowed it to continue for several minutes before raising his hand to quiet them again.

  "Okay, let's not lose control. Let him continue. Dr. Gorteau, please."

  "What Jamie and his team gave us for analysis was these EMP recordings. They were not broadcast by any ground station at all, but received directly by the CERTS from earth. Now, there was a single CERTS station broadcasting all our uplinks through the ground stations to us at the time. The EMP pulses began some four minutes before we lost the signal from the ground, but the CERTS continued to receive the broad spectrum EMPs after the direct link was lost.

  “If there were a nuclear war in progress, one would assume there would be a warning of some sort. But there was no warning sounded. Indeed, the news accounts we received indicated there were not even any situations of unusual military build up or tensions anywhere across the globe. The assumption of a nuclear war is just that; an assumption, of which we have no proof at all.