The onboard computer continued to read out on Samuels’ heads up display, “Okay...I’m crossing the first 2k threshold now,” Samuels began to say to himself, “Man...I’m even talking to myself now...sheesh...five more minutes before entering their comm threshold...and I just keep on doing it, don’t I...no, it’s alright...don’t lose it now, Sarge...oh gawd, I’m even answering myself now...don’t worry about that...it’s perfectly normal...isn’t it? Just don’t think about it...yeah, check your computer...you know, just make sure the kid’s right...wow, who am I kidding? He did the math in his head faster than I could do it on this computer...that’s sure putting a huge amount of trust in this wiz-kid...but, on the other hand, Tucker does think pretty highly of him, so I have to believe he’s the real deal...isn’t he? I mean if he’s not...well, it won’t matter anyway...STOP IT...stop over analyzing...this will work...it’s got too...”
The MECH’s onboard computer indicated that he was at the second 2k mark to the Falcon.
“Okay man...just 5 more minutes and its show time...you better be right on your calculations, kid...I think I see it...yeah, that’s the Falcon I’m coming up on now... what else would it be?...Okay...approaching the one minute mark now...”
The thrusters fired, turning the MECH 180 degrees. The Falcon began to slide by, slowing to a crawl until he was in the programmed location, parallel to the hull. As the Russian Frigate’s stern came into view the magnetic grappler fired from the MECH’s arm. The combination of the thrusters and grappling hook grabbing the hull left Samuels dangling a few meters off their stern at the end of his cable.
“Well I’ll be damned! The kid came through...I wonder if that strike was heard from inside? I better hope the wiz-kid was right, now, just have to reel myself in.”
Samuels engaged the MECH’s winch but when he looked closer to the magnetic end of the already attached cable, he noticed it was slipping, inching its way toward the end of the ship.
“Oh no you don’t! I can’t risk knocking again...geez! It’s getting closer to the end...I’m not going to make it...I have to...no choice,” he quickly fired another grappling hook, which struck the hull perfectly in line with the other, “Excellent! That did the trick...seems my load is balanced. Sure hope they didn’t notice it,” Samuels paused briefly, as if listening for movement, “What am I doing...computer, give me the time.”
The MECH’s heads up displayed the clock on the upper right corner, showing the time was 09:55. Beneath the main clock his mission clock read 23 minutes.
“Crap! I’m running a little behind schedule...I better hurry on up or I’ll miss my ride home.”
The MECH’s winch continued to narrow the gap between Samuels and the Falcon. He checked his inside tether and tied another, just in case, “Yeah, that’s right...keep sharp, I’m trying to...just because you never know...”
Samuels raised the bubble of the MECH, exposing his suit to the vastness of space, “Never been much on space walking, but I gotta do this...okay...come to papa, lil Miss Falcon,” he continued to voice to no one else but himself. “There! Confirm magnetic locks...good to go...all right, Sarge...keep it together, just a few meters and you’re there.”
Samuels activated his magnetic properties on the suit’s gloves and crawled across the underside of the ship, “Man...I wonder what did happen to Hargrove...will I ever see his face again? Poor guy, so young...I’ll bet he’s okay...just took a different course of action is all...but then again, he wouldn’t tell me one thing and do another...that just not something he’d do...or would he? No, it has to be Kurtis...that son of a bitch is gonna pay if he hurt my buddy...”
He reached the coordinates that Buster provided, and changed the magnetics to his knees, freeing his hands, and then removed the plastics from his side pouch. He kneaded the two pieces together and then formed it into a cone, attaching the wide end to the hull. He pulled out the detonator and carefully plugged the tip into the putty at the pointed end of the cone. Then he plugged the other end into the remote switch.
“There...one down, two ta go go...” he looked up once more at the clock and it read, 10:02...okay, Samuels, it took you five minutes to crawl to the first spot and two minutes to set...that’s going to get me back to the MECH at around 10:21, and about 20 minutes from then is an hour from mission departure...Tucker will be along soon, you better double time it, mister,” he ordered himself, “Will you just listen to yourself? I think I might need some kind of counseling when I return...nah, it’s just Tucker...he does this to me...now listen to yourself, you’re starting to psychoanalyze your own behavior...yep, shrink time...that’s going to be for sure...that is if I make it back...oh, I’ll make it back...Tucker promised me an entire box of those cigars...now, I can’t let him get out of that deal, now can I?”
When Samuels finished placing the last cone of explosives, he turned to look at his MECH behind him. “Looks like that’ll take me about ten minutes to get back...naaa, that can’t be as far as it looks...maybe I should just try to skip there...but they might hear my boots clanking to the hull...what was that!” Samuels exclaimed as an object flew past him.
“Debris field! I gotta get out of here.”
Bits of floating shrapnel began hitting the hull all around Samuels, he ran two steps before deactivating his magnetics and kicking off, flying along the hull toward his MECH.
Rocks of all sizes pounded the hull around Samuels, deflecting out into all directions. Samuels was jerked to a stop as he came to the end of his tether, “Uhhh! Ow...that was fun!” he scoffed. Pulling on his tether, he pulled himself up into the MECH. Something in the corner of his eye caught his attention. He looked down the hull of the ship and discovered a large boulder coming his way, “Oh SHI...!” but before he could finish, he was pushed down closer to the hull by the wave of energy from the approaching rock, and low enough to allow the massive boulder to scream past. The energy wave bounced him into the hull with a thud, breaking at least two ribs.
“Tucker!” he screamed through clenched jaws, “I’m going to kill you for this!”
He climbed on the bottom section of the MECH and pulled himself up to the cockpit.
Afraid to look up again, he noticed that the debris field was veering off to the Frigate’s starboard side. The debris field had minimized, but bits of rock and dust began to fill the inside of the MECH before he could seal the bubble hatch.
“Whew! That was close! Keep that turn going Lil’ Falcon, we don’t want any of those to...” brushing the floating dust away from his view, Samuels was interrupted by another stray rock that slammed into the Russian hull.
It broke into three smaller rocks, all three heading towards the MECH. Before Samuels could push off the from hull, one of the three rocks slammed into the diamond reinforced bubble. The force of the impact cracked the reinforced bubble and shoved the MECH off its perch. The concussion took the wind out of Samuels.
He shook his head, recovering from the impact only to discover that his MECH was hanging from the grappling hooks behind the Falcon. The stressed grapple line vibrated until it could no longer support the trailing MECH.
Samuels and his MECH fell away from the ship when the line snapped. He quickly fired the MECH’s thrusters to stabilize the tumbling machine.
“Looks like the Falcon’s coming to a stop! Great news!” Samuels again exclaimed. “That means Tucker’s nearby...now, I just wait and see which docking port they direct him to...let me see if I can get any readings on him...yes! Thank you very much! The Jump ring is just off the port bow, Tucker is coming in low and slow, right on schedule. They should be reading the live frequency codes for our little surprise by now. Sam’s backing up to the docking port now, I see them...aligning with the MECH bay...steady, steady... ... ...there! I’m docked. Closing the MECH housing...pressurizing...and connecting comm to internal wireless...Colonel...do you copy...mission accomplished...repeat, mission accomplished.”
“Fine, great...” Samuels heard in his wireless, “J
ust get that suit off and stowed...you’re running a little behind there Sarge...we don’t want to keep the Russian Captain waiting now, do we?”
“I’m gonna kill that Son of...” Samuels whispered.
“What was that, Sarge?”
“Nothing, Commander, nothing at all,” he sighed, taking off his helmet. He floated out of the MECH, doing the best he could in keeping the dust off him as he quickly unzipped his suit, and, stuffed it down the inside of the MECH and closed the cracked bubble. Floating down the upper cargo bay causeway to the forward hatch, he saw Tucker had already equalized the inside pressure and had the door open; a welcoming sight to Samuels’ eyes.
“Welcome to the party.” Obviously in a hurry, Tucker grabbed Samuels by the pant leg to slow him. As he flew through the port door, Tucker closed it and turned the locking ring. Then they made their way to the rear cargo bay door, where the Russian Captain, likely backed up by a large number of his crew, would be waiting for them to open the air lock.
“Gee, thank you, Sir. It was nothing. Nothing at all...”
“What?”
“Oh, I don’ know...how about, a hey, great job Sarge...thanks for putting your life on the line...oh, it was nothing, Commander, I was happy to be targeted by flying debris fields...”
Tucker brushed Samuels shoulder, Samuels gave him a strange look, “What? You’ve got space dust on ya...”
“Yeah? Tell me about it...”
“Well, don’t let them see it...”
Samuel’s eyes got wider.
“You can tell me all about it later...right now, I need you to put on your best game face.”
“What is the game, anyway? Tucker, your game constantly changes...I want to make sure we’re on the same page of the same playbook...”
“Precisely why you need to just follow my lead.”
“Oh, boy. I can hardly wait,” Samuels mumbled. He changed his expression when Tucker opened the airlock door.
Inside the passage was the Russian Captain and two of his marines, armed to the hilt.
“Vladimir! So nice to see you!” Tucker exclaimed with open arms.
* * *
Chapter 9
CSMO 10 Hygiea
Location:
Kuiper Belt - Asteroid 52 Europa
Earth Date: 04/13/2065 10:45
Smithers finger quivered over the transmit button for several seconds. He swallowed hard before pressing it, “Uhm, excuse me, Boss? I’m ready to reverse burn at 25,000 kilometers from target.”
“Well it’s about damn time, Smithers,” Kurtis spat through the ship’s wireless, “I’ll be there in a minute. Just start your burn and enter a standard 10,000 meter orbit over 52 Europa...I’ll discuss with you later as to why we’re almost nine hours later than you forecast!”
“S...sorry, Boss...I forgot to compensate for the asteroid’s drift. W-won’t happen again.”
“You got that right,” Kurtis murmured under his breath.
“What’s that, Boss?”
“Nothing. Have you begun your reverse burn yet?
“No, sir. I was just about to in 4 minutes.”
“Don’t take us in too fast... please? Just start the damn burn already!”
“Yes, boss. I’m firing the reverse burn now.”
“I’m on my way.”
A few minutes later, a very annoyed Kurtis Daniels floated from the luxury of his foreman’s quarters to the upper command deck of the CSMO.
“Position report!” he ordered, strapping down in the station’s command chair.
“Um, we are about 1,000 kilometers from the asteroid surface.”
“Okay, how about telling me our current speed you inept fool!”
“We’re slowing down to 5,000 KPH.”
“So, are you trying to tell me we’ll be in orbit in 12 minutes?”
“Yeah, somethin’ like that, anyway.”
“We need to talk,” Kurtis said, sternly turning to Smithers, “You can’t just guess these things, you gotta get ‘em right...like calculating our arrival time? Thank god the asteroid was traveling away from us or we’d have become a pretty new landmark on the thing. We would have run right into it 9 hours before we even thought about looking for it!”
“S-Sorry, Boss...”
“No matter at this point. Just make sure you don’t do it again!”
“No sir. You can count on ol’ Smithers here.”
“Fine, I’ll just dock you another ten points.”
“Ten!?”
“You wanna try for twenty?”
“N-no Sir,” Smithers frowned while changing the subject, “slowing to 100 KPH now at 10,000 meters. ETA to 1000 meters is 6 minutes and 15 seconds.”
“There now, you see? It’s not that hard now is it?”
“Nope, it’s really easy flying these CSMO’s.”
“At 1000 meters, hold the ship and prepare to fire the anchors. I want to be mining fuel, air and water within 5 hours.”
“You got it, Boss,” Smithers said, glancing away from his controls.
“Don’t look over here...what’s the matter with you? Keep your damn eyes on the board.”
Smithers nervously focused on his settings and only glanced out the diamond reinforced forward view screens.
“Firing main thrusters...now coming to a full stop...we’re pretty close to 1000 meters.”
“Pretty close? Come on man, you dithered old man!”
“I’m adjusting our position, we came in at 990 meters...now adjusting and holding at 1k.”
“Come on man, get with the program! Can you fly this thing or not?”
“Yes Sir, B-boss.”
“Okay then. Prepare the harpoon anchors and then give me a one minute drop to the surface.”
“Okay...just give me a moment to calculate what that speed is...”
“Oh for crying out loud, man! Z minus 1000 meters at 16.66 MPH.
“Is that meters or miles?”
“Have I been taking miles at all?”
“No, sir...”
“Then it must be...oh yeah! Meters!”
“Firing harpoons,” Smithers said, smiling, “Heh, heh, I love this part.”
Kurtis rolled his eyes, “Confirm targeting first!”
“Oh, I already did...uh-oh...”
“What now?”
“The harpoon didn’t take to the surface. Just kind of bounced...”
“Off of what?”
“I don’ know! It just bounced...I’ll fire another one...hang on a sec.”
“Target the location first, Smithers...”
“Target locked this time, Boss.”
“What are you waiting for now?”
“I thought it would be cool if you gave the order, kind of makes my skin tingle all over...heh heh.”
“Seriously?”
“Yep, as a crutch.”
“Just fire the damn thing, before I make sure you really need a crutch!”
“Okay, that’s good enough for me,” Smithers smiled, then pressed his red launch button, “Anchors away, my friend...anchors away.”
“Oh gawd! Will you stop?”
“Harpoon has hit the target...confirmed...she’s planted hard to ground, Boss.”
Okay then, how’s about you start reeling us in? You know? That one minute and counting drop thing?”
“Right...”
“Thrusters at station-keeping only...just enough tension on the cable...now start to bring us down...easy now...that’s it...you got it...”
“I got this...not to worry...”
“Now, you’re coming in too fast. Watch your drift man!”
“Sorry, Boss...it’s a little more harder than it looks.”
“You have done this before, right?”
“It have, but not for a few years, anyway.”
“Slow it down!”
“I’m firing full thrusters!”
“No! Not full!”
Smithers slammed the throttle on the thrusters to full and th
en backed it off, but not before the CSMO came up and snapped the anchoring cable. The CSMO shook violently as they broke their moorings.
“Smithers!”
“Don’t worry, Boss! I can fix it...firing reverse thrusters!”
“No! We’ll hit the surface too hard!”
The CSMO dropped quickly toward the rock, “Open the teeth! Now!”
Smithers franticly fiddled with the command console and opened the lower bay doors to expose the mining teeth that ground the surface of the asteroid, “Teeth down! Landing struts retracted...we’re going to hit a little hard.”
“All hands! Brace for impact!” Kurtis yelled through the ship’s wireless.
The CSMO dropped the remaining twenty meters in five seconds, crashing onto the surface of the asteroid. The landing struts absorbed most of the CSMO’s shock. Clouds of dust and rocks rose from the surface of the asteroid, only to rain back down onto the CSMO’s hull under the asteroid’s limited gravity.
The onboard computers rebooted as a result of the hard landing. The beeping and blinking lights filled the CSMO’s command center.
“Powering down main thrusters...we’re down...Boss.”
“What the hell did you just do? You trying to kill us all?”
“Dillan usually drives these...”
“Well, Dillan’s down below with the other prisoner now, isn’t he.”
“You asked me...”
“I also asked if you could...”
“I landed her just fine...a little bumpy on the landing, but I did it.”
“A little?!”
“Yeah, that was...you should have been with me a few years ago when I first landed one.”
“How many times have you done this?”
“This was my second landing,” Smithers proudly smiled.
“Second one, huh?”
“Yep.”
“Well it should be your last one too!”
Smithers cowered in his seat, feeling the effects of the asteroid gravity.
“Give me a damage report!”
“Engines are good, rector is online. The CSMO’s cutters are all good...I am getting some red lights on the board though.”
Salvage-5: The Next Mission (First Contact) Page 9