Kato noticed Martin looking at him hard, perhaps trying to figure out the conversation from only hearing his side of it. “Yes,” he said to Akio.
“Are you still in Tokyo?”
“No. I’m headed to Mars. On Gansevoort, no less.”
“Oh! Okay... Well, please let me know if I can help in any way.”
“I will. Thanks for letting me know,” Kato said.
“No problem. I’m praying for Zara, as is the whole world, I believe.”
“Right.”
“Goodbye, Kato-san.”
“Goodbye.”
Kato focused on Martin again. “That was Akio. He’s been cleared of any wrongdoing.”
“Great!”
“Yeah.”
Kato couldn’t fight it any longer, and drifted off into deep slumber.
Chapter 30
Lana floated, still in her business suit, in the metallic, utilitarian main hub of Spaceport A. It, too, was attached to the surface of Phobos, a few hundred meters from the Space Engineering Facility. Six spokes radiated out across the surface for 100 meters or so, to the docking ports. Four of the six ports were occupied by spacecraft. Lana looked out of the large window, north east across Phobos’ rocky, pitted, gray surface to port three. It was night time on the populated side of Mars, whose day-night cycle drove Mars Standard Time. However, Phobos, 6,000 kilometers from the surface, was in daylight. Docked nose first at port three, was the freighter Onondaga. Since she was a surface-to-space transport, she was shaped aerodynamically, with a beetle-shaped fuselage, a rounded nose, and short wings that curved up like a bird’s wings as they began a downward flap. She was roughly as long as a car ferry, and colored dark gray, with a large, white MSF logo on the side.
The six men who floated to Lana’s right looked at her with grave expressions. Among them was Arvid, a short man with black hair, parted on the right, and combed over. All the men but Arvid wore dark green flight suits. “This is insane,” one of the others to Arvid’s right said. Arvid looked at him and spoke up in his Russian accent: “Yes, it is. No other way to describe it. However, we’ve got a job to do. There’ll be time enough for reflecting later.”
“Agreed,” Lana said, in a take-charge tone. “Now, this is the image we have of MX9’s depot from orbit.” A map, showing a large area of flat, rusty, Martian surface was projected in the air. Dotted across it were piles of stark, angular objects, which stood out in sharp relief like the inner parts of a CPU chip under high magnification. Around the edges were what looked like high mounds of dirt. At the top was a rectangular building. Lana pointed at the map. “These look like piles of ablators. All twenty of the standard sizes seem to be here, but it’s hard to make out which is which at this resolution.” The others scanned the image closely. “It’s one hundred ten kilometers north west of Marineris, give or take. You guys’ job is to find the stack for size 2A, get twelve of them, and get back here.” The crewmembers nodded.
“I don’t have to tell you how critical this is, or what the obstacles are,” Arvid said to the crew. “It’s night time down there, and there’s a huge sandstorm kicking up.”
The pilot, a short but well-proportioned man with dark hair parted on the left, said: “Yeah, we know. There’s already a warning from Marineris Spaceport that traffic in and out of there might be suspended. The storm will likely be a thousand kilometers wide, so it won’t be any better in the badlands north of there. However, we will do it. For Zara.”
“For Zara,” Lana echoed. “Godspeed, guys.” Lana and Arvid watched as the five crewmembers pushed off from the hub and floated toward the waiting ship at port three. Once they were out of earshot, she turned to Arvid and said: “I have fifty-five engineers ready to help so far. A dozen or so voicemails have come in since I’ve been here with you guys, so I’ll see how many more we have. Hopefully we’ll reach a quorum soon.”
Arvid nodded. “Thank God it’s a Saturday,” he said, “so we can work undisturbed. And unnoticed.”
Martin awoke. Time check. Twelve hours had passed since they fell asleep. He must have been very, very tired. He unbuckled, and sat up groggily. Total silence. Traveling on Gansevoort was a surreal experience: the opulence, speed, and apparent Earth gravity. He looked down through a viewport in the floor. Earth and the Moon were now visible only as small dots; a gray one on the left, and a larger blue one on the right. Looking around through the walls, the stars and Sun blazed vibrantly.
“Message from Lana Kasun.”
“Play.”
“Martin, we’ve got a rescue mission on the works! Kirsti doesn’t know. I wanted to be sure we at least had a chance of pulling it off before I called you back. We have one hundred forty-six engineers and nineteen astronauts. That’s enough people to get IIX flying again. Bye for now. I’ve got a lot to do.”
“Whoa…” Martin said slowly, his eyes wide with shock. “Message to Lana: where are you getting ablators from?”
Then, Martin turned to his right. “Kato!” No response. “Kato!” Silence. “Goddammit!” he muttered under his breath. He walked out of his stateroom, into Kato’s room, and shook Kato awake.
“Um… uh… hi, Martin. What’s going on?”
“Kato, there’s a rescue plan under way. The MSF are going to try and use IIX to intercept Zara.”
Kato almost shrieked, opening his eyes wide. “Oh, my God! How did you find out?”
“I… uh… I asked them to do it.”
Kato blinked several times, staring off somewhere over Martin’s right shoulder, as Martin stood next to his flight seat. “Oh…” He unstrapped, and sat up, with his feet dangling to the floor over the left side of the bed, his back to Martin. He looked down through the floor, at the rapidly receding Earth. “We’re going to make it to Mars in time, right?”
“Yeah. Forty-three hours to go.”
“And how long does Zara have left?”
“Ninety-two hours and fifty-eight minutes.”
Kato was quiet and contemplative. Martin put his hand on Kato’s left shoulder. What could he say? He couldn’t imagine being in Kato’s shoes, as the clock ran out on his daughter’s life. “Think we can get to Mars any faster?” Kato asked.
“I um... don’t know. Let’s ask. Pilot?”
“Yes sir?” came the disembodied voice from the cockpit.
“Can the ship go any faster?” Martin asked.
“Yes. Gansevoort can actually run at four G.”
“Four G?!” Kato exclaimed.
“Is it safe to push her that hard all the way there?” Martin interjected.
“Yes, it’s well within her stress tolerances,” the pilot said. “It’s us humans that are the limiting factor.”
“Is it something you’re willing to do?” Martin asked.
“It’ll be a rough ride. You’ll be stuck to your seats, hardly able to move. Forget getting up to eat or go to the bathroom. It will cut the remaining transit time of forty-two hours in half, though. We’ll be there in twenty-one hours.”
“Hot damn!” Martin said. “I’ll bet that’s a record. Even with the thirteen hours we’ve already been underway.”
“It is,” the pilot said. “I know your situation, though, so I’m willing to do it. Once I check the steward’s up for it, we can go ahead and throttle up. I’d advise you to get some breakfast first.” Once the first meal of the day was over, Kato and Martin retired to their rooms again and made themselves as comfortable as they could. Then, Gansevoort’s power was unleashed. The acceleration built. And built. Martin braced himself. His personal record was two gravities. That was soon surpassed. Was there an invisible elephant sitting on his chest? Breathing required extra effort. His arms were pinned to his flight couch. Even scratching an itch was like lifting a weight. His cheeks were pulled back by the immense acceleration. Okay, discomfort be damned, Martin thought. They were going to get there and help the rescue effort as soon as humanly possible. If other people were putting themselves on the line, then so would they.
Chapter 31
Seung Yi stood on a narrow walkway a hundred meters above the bottom of a vast chamber. The space was circular, about twice the size of a football stadium. He looked up at the wide bank of elevator tubes coming down from the center of the ceiling to a central control room. Seung Yi had just descended through forty kilometers of rock. His eyes tracked across the curved ceiling, the color of sandstone, illuminated by upward-facing floodlights. It was hewn smooth by robots, from the interior of Ceres. Towering above him were cylindrical machines, which reached almost to the roof. They were shafts of brushed silver, thirty meters across. The exteriors bore more floodlights, and at the level of the network of walkways that ran between them, were status panels. He then looked down over the handrail, to the cavern’s floor far below. It was deserted, save for a few robots moving along roadways. The whole scene was eerily silent.
The control room was thirty meters to his left. It was round, and its silver exterior bore windows that looked out in all directions. Inside, a knot of white lab coated scientists bore anxious, expectant expressions, as they watched Seung Yi. After he had taken in the vast space for a few minutes, he walked back into the room. Its circular interior was covered with control panels and glowing displays.
One scientist, a gray haired fellow a little taller than the others, said: “Welcome Master Yi, to the Advanced Antimatter Facility. This is the beating heart of Entara.” He paused for effect. There was none. He continued: “I am a fourth generation scientist on this project. As you know, this facility has existed for eighty years, to manufacture and store large quantities of antimatter. The machines you see outside”—he gestured towards the open door—“are enclosed stacks of zero point sources. They feed terawatts of energy to two hundred particle accelerators, occupying another vertical kilometer below us. However, the real innovation in being able to safely store large quantities of antimatter.” His eyes lit up. “In chambers several kilometers below the cyclotrons, we utilize strong atomic forces, in the quantum realm, to create repulsion fields. This allows antimatter to be contained, so that it doesn’t come into contact with matter. It takes a huge amount of energy to maintain the fields.”
Seung Yi’s brow furrowed. He nodded slowly. “What, may I ask, is the purpose of storing this much antimatter?”
The chief scientist paused. “It’s for weaponizing, should the Dynasty need to defend itself,” he said slowly.
Seung Yi’s pupils contracted. “So, as for stored explosive power, one kilogram of antimatter is known to be able to create an explosion of just under forty-three megatons. How much antimatter do we have?”
“Twenty four thousand four hundred eighty tons.”
Seung Yi was speechless, and looked as though he had been punched in the gut. “How much explosive power is that?” he eventually spat.
“One point oh five quadrillion tons of TNT.”
Seung Yi blinked several times. “Quadrillions of tons? What threat, exactly, requires such force, even assuming we could weaponize that much of it?”
The gray-haired man stepped back, away from Seung Yi. “It’s a hedge against the unknown, Master,” he said, with a trace of fear in his voice. “The then High Councilor decided we should prepare for any eventuality.”
“I see. Makes a semblance of sense, I suppose. Let me see the control panel for the containment fields.” Seung Yi was directed to a three-by-two meter flat midair display near where the glass elevator tube opened into the center of the room. On it was displayed a large grid of bottle shapes, against a black background. Below each, glowing numerals read 100%. He studied it for a minute, and then turned to the chief scientist.
“What if some rogue were to disable the fields?”
“The resulting explosion would of course be catastrophic. It would swallow Entara whole, and likely vaporize any asteroids within several million kilometers.”
“I assume it is password protected?”
“Yes, Master. The password is known only to me.”
“I want the password. Then I’m going to change it, so it’s known only to me. There is no reason for anyone else to have access to this.”
“Y… Yes master. There are three. They are: 8WSEDRFJGT8, GFDJGSD8FD, and HLA98E8KGOEJ.”
Chapter 32
The overhead strip lights glinted from IIX’s silver hull, their diverging reflected lines highlighting its convex bulge. Kato and Martin looked up at IIX, through the glass wall of the hangar-sized clean room. All around the ship was a hive of activity. White suited technicians swarmed underneath. Bins of parts dotted the floor, which curved up slightly as their eyes followed it into the distance. Hoses snaked from ports on the ground to tools in the men and women’s hands. Four large scissor lifts, each holding several people, were extended up to the open port in the ship’s belly. Dark gray tentacles sprouted up from various points near the giant room’s walls, up over the ship. Each one bore a lift gondola, containing one or more engineers, who pored over the top and sides of IIX’s hull.
Kato took deep breaths. The elephant on his chest was gone. Lana, standing on Kato’s right, held a small device that projected a complex diagram of the project’s status into the air in front of her. Its contents mirrored those on a large midair display that was flat against the inside of the right wall of the clean room. Light from the data half a meter in front of her illuminated Lana’s face as she scanned it. She focused hard, her face betraying her anxiety. At the top of both Lana’s and the master display was a glowing display that counted down hours and minutes. It read 60:58.
Goose bumps covered Kato’s skin. This is unreal, he thought. As one of the smartest engineers of the 21st century, he could never have imagined it. He turned to Lana. “Was IIX built here?” Lana nodded, without looking up.
Martin, who stood on Kato’s left, elbowed him. “Don’t disturb the lady,” he snapped under his breath. Kato nodded. He looked up at the countdown clock, high above the floor of the clean room. Damn, he wished he could make his brain respond better. “Is that the time Zara’s got left?” he asked Martin.
“She’s actually gotten hours more than that until she gets to Ceres. I’m guessing the timer is the deadline for them to get IIX ready. My buddy on the ETI’s keeping me appraised of Huo X-37-B’s progress. So far, she’s kept the same speed and course. She turned around yesterday to begin deceleration, right on schedule, four days into her eight-day flight. I’m sure these guys,” he looked up at the other facilities in the giant wheel, “are tracking the ship even more precisely.” Kato nodded. All of this activity was for Zara, and for him. His heart could have burst from his chest.
As Kato and Martin looked up above the clean room, following the floor in its upward curve, a short man with brown hair, parted on the left and combed over, seemed to appear in front of them from nowhere. He wore a tweed jacket over a white t-shirt. “Arvid.” He extended a hand.
“Kato.” Kato shook.
“The man himself,” Arvid said, turning to Martin, and sounding almost reverent. “Inventor of the warp drive.”
Martin smiled, and looked at Arvid. “Perfecter only.”
“Follow me,” Arvid said.
The trio walked away from the clean room, towards a two-story office structure. Its utilitarian appearance of bare metal, with several external floodlights shining over the area they had been standing on, reminded Kato of the temporary cabins erected at construction sites. Arvid led them down a corridor that led straight back from the work floor, into the bowels of the building, and then left into a small conference room. It had a long, polished, faux wood table along the center. He closed the door behind them. “What time is it here?” Kato asked.
“11:30 AM on Sunday morning,” Arvid replied. The three men remained standing in a small huddle, despite the scattered black mesh office chairs. “Listen, guys,” Arvid said seriously, “the crew dispatched to get the ablator blocks hasn’t come back. We know they made it to the surface. It was night when they got there. Comm
unications have been out because of the electrical activity in the atmosphere caused by a massive dust storm.” Arvid paused and looked down. “They were due back three hours ago.”
“Oh God,” Kato said, as his stomach lurched. Suffocating despair once again.
Martin shook his head. “We can only pray.”
“If we don’t get the ablators in the next hour, all bets are off,” Arvid said. “They’ve got to be cleaned down to the last molecule before they can be fitted, and that’s the main job holding up the overhaul.”
Martin nodded. Arvid looked harassed. He shuffled. “I’ve got a ton to do, as you can imagine. There’s coffee through there”—he indicated a door at the end of the room—“so make yourselves at home.”
“Is there anything we can do to help?” Kato asked.
“I’m afraid not, except from staying out of the way. We’ll arrange digs for you over at the hab when somebody gets a minute.”
Martin nodded. “Right on.”
“Helen?” Arvid said, obviously answering a call. He strode out of the room, as fast as his short legs would carry him, and turned right, back towards IIX. The urgent tones of Arvid’s voice diminished as he got further away.
Kato sighed and made for the coffee. “Want some?”
“Gimme.”
Several minutes passed in silence, as steam rose from Styrofoam cups. Both men were lost in their thoughts. Then, reality crashed into them headlong. “WHAT IN GOD’S NAME IS GOING ON?” a female English accent boomed, echoing through the entire facility. Kato and Martin looked at each other with wide eyes and, without a word, hurried back up the corridor and into the open. Everybody had frozen in mid activity and were looking up. Three hundred meters above, in a glass observation pod on the outside of the giant cylindrical airlock, was a figure.
“Oh, God.” Lana’s voice was heard, somewhere off to the right. “Kirsti,” she said, a quiet determination in her voice, “come down. Let’s talk about this.”
Kato's War: Book Two of the Kato's War series Page 15