by Stephen Moss
“As we discussed earlier, it will be tempting to go down that road as it will be the only issue on which the entire room will agree. But we cannot make any agreements here that will preclude future negotiations with the Chinese.” He was tapping on his tablet as he spoke, and Neal felt a data packet appear in his head titled: South Korean TASC Support Talks – Approved Agenda Points and Areas of Concern.
Minnie spoke up, both in the ether and in person, “Gentlemen, I am afraid the data packet in question is out of date. There is one data point that will need to be added.”
They turned to her as she spoke but she was looking straight ahead as they approached their appointed conference room.
Lim Min-soek saw them approaching the room. He saw the two men. He saw the burly woman alongside them that he assumed correctly was their bodyguard, and he tensed. She looked dangerous, and her eyes were pinned to his.
But his orders were clear, and he had an advantage. While guns were not allowed within the UN grounds, his post within the Korean security forces had earned him the use of one of twenty of the bionic suits they had been given by the very people whose leader he had been tasked with killing.
He was not fully versed with its use, and his lack of a spinal interface meant he could only operate the suit by muscle amplification, not direct control. But he felt confident he could still move quickly enough to kill the man known as Neal Danielson, and even his assistant, before their guard could stop him.
He felt scared but confident as he brought his arm up, propelling his fist toward Neal’s throat with all his machine might.
He felt even more confident when the woman at Neal’s side did not even react, even as Neal himself began to rear back at the sight of the balled black fist coming at him.
He felt confident right up until the point where his arm froze, and his body suddenly wrenched backward as though propelled by a great wind.
But there was no wind. No response still from the big woman, who just looked on even as Neal began to turn to her, confusion and alarm filling his features as he went to speak.
“Do not be alarmed, Neal,” said Minnie, “the threat is past.”
“Threat!” he said. Then, realizing he was shouting, he said more quietly, “What the hell just happened?”
“The man intended you harm. I stopped him.”
Neal and Jim looked around. Barring their group of three, there were only the two guards in earshot, though there were others farther down the corridor, many of whom were glancing their way.
But it was the two guards Neal was worried about. One had clearly meant to strike him, and with no small amount of malice. Then he had seemed to pull back, though the man seemed as surprised as Neal when he did.
“The suits, Neal,” said Minnie. “They are second-generation battleskins, gifted to the Korean government, among others, in exchange for security concessions. But while they are pre-spinal interface, Madeline did install subspace comms in them, just in case. It was a precaution Ayala had requested, as it would allow me to take control over them … should I need to.”
Neal stared at her, then at Jim, then back at the soldiers, who were now both standing once more, though their faces were an incongruous mesh of discomfort juxtaposed against the enforced stillness of their bodies.
“The man on the left, your assailant, is close to unconsciousness, as I am constricting his lungs and throat. The man on the right appears innocent to the plot, but I am afraid his presence for its aborted execution means we will have to take him into custody as well.”
Neal walked up to them, at first hesitantly, then with a little more confidence as he saw how they were wheezing, unable to breath properly, let alone speak. He felt no remorse for the man who had tried to attack him, but the other man … it was disquieting to see how he struggled.
“Can you hear me?” Neal said to the distraught man, clearly fighting the profoundly unpleasant sensation of suffocation. “Minnie, stop this. He has done nothing.”
She did, and in a flash the man was drawing deep, hoarse breaths as though breeching the surface of a river-rapid that had subsumed him. After a moment the man caught his breath and his eyes regained some measure of sense. He focused on Neal’s face, only inches away.
His expression was one of absolute fear. He was clearly very aware of his suit’s betrayal and keen not to suffer the same fate again. He spared a quick glance to his side, to his colleague who had seemed to strike out at the men their leaders were here to meet, and saw that the other soldier was out cold now, dead, perhaps. He could not tell, though the traitor still stood, and his head was still held upright by the musculature in his suit’s neck.
Ree Chung-man turned back to the face of the man he knew was about to decide his fate.
“Now, calm down,” said Neal quietly but firmly. They did not have long before someone came to investigate further, indeed he could see someone was approaching even now. Neal waved for Jim to go and stop whoever it was from coming too close, and Jim reacted immediately, moving off to intercept them.
Neal went on, “Do you speak English?”
Ree did, if haltingly. It was a prerequisite for assignment to the diplomatic guard unit.
The man nodded ever so slightly, realized he could not move his head any farther than that, and panic threatened to set in once more.
“Calm now,” said Neal, seeing the rising terror in the man’s eyes. He did not like to think how it must feel to be imprisoned within one of the suits, and his sympathy for the man’s plight almost outweighed his need to control the situation. Almost.
“You have been witness to an attempt on my life,” said Neal, trying to help the man calm down through the stolidity of his stare, locking eyes with his. “We have no reason to think you were involved, but we are going to need to question you. If you are innocent, you will not be harmed. You have my word on that.”
But as Neal said this, he realized he had no idea how they were going to manage this situation from here. He glanced at Minnie, as if to say, what do we do now? They were in the middle of one of the most well-monitored places on Earth. Indeed, there were cameras on them even now, cameras relaying what must be a very strange-looking sight indeed.
But the answer to his question was even now approaching, along with the man Neal had inadvertently dispatched to stop her.
Ayala: ‘neal, i am here. switch to subspace comms, i don’t want any more of this on record should anyone be able to hear us.’
Neal turned to her. She was standing to his side, staring at the two men. Neal went to explain the situation but Ayala stopped him.
Ayala: ‘don’t worry, neal. minnie has already given me a full update and i have reviewed her actions during the entire event. i have to say it all went very well, considering.’
Neal: ‘went very well! ¿how the hell do you figure that?’
Ayala smiled at his indignation, turning to face him even as she spoke with her mind, her mouth staying eerily still.
Ayala: ‘yes neal. very well. we provided the suits as an enticement, and in the process seeded the entire compound with eyes and ears for minnie and i to watch with. eyes and ears that will return with these delegations to their home countries and continue, we hope, to pay dividends. most of our allies still have no idea as to the inner-workings of our communications network, and i intend to keep it that way.’
Neal turned to the innocent Korean soldier and knew that meant the man was going to have to come with them for longer than he had originally thought. But how were they going to get them out of here?
Even as he thought it, the answer was also arriving, one of Ayala’s team bringing her two helmets which she handed the two soldiers.
Though one was unconscious and one was insensible, the two men’s arms nonetheless reached out and took the helmets, placing them on their heads.
Ree’s face flashed with a renewed wave of terror in the moment before his face and head were covered, and he was sealed into his mobile sarcophagus.
Ayala: ‘i am afraid that is a promise you are not going to be able to keep, neal.’
He returned her gaze, a flash of indignation coming over his features that was quickly matched by a far more implacable expression on the face of his security chief. He calmed himself, then nodded resignedly and turned to Jim.
“This will require explanation,” Neal said to his chief of staff.
“Yes, it will,” said Ayala aloud. “Jim, I think it would be wise to start thinking about how we are going to broach this subject with the Korean delegation, as we are, of course, going to have to tell them something before they leave and see their guard detail is missing.
“That said, hopefully I will hopefully have more information for you before the end of your session, so Minnie, if I could ask you to keep me apprised of their progress and I will make sure you know whatever I discover before the meeting wraps up.”
“Wait, wait. Are we really going to just go in there given what has just happened?” said Neal, but Jim was already busily taking notes.
Ayala: ‘yes, neal. you are. ¿what is the point of all this if we do not get what we came here for?’
Neal looked from one to the other, but received only determined looks. Jesus, he thought.
Then Jim took his arm and led him to the door which Minnie was already opening for them to step through. Ayala and the big avatar exchanged a glance as the two men entered the room, and no doubt a great deal more, and then the wizened security chief turned to follow her assistant and her two disenfranchised prisoners.
She needed answers from at least one of them. Her face set with cold purpose as she walked away.
Chapter 7: Saddle and Break
The original passage of New Moon One had been meteoric, quite literally. But now their work required less haste, even if it would call for infinitely more power.
They had approached Asteroid 1979va through its own wake, sneaking up on it from behind before quite rudely flipping themselves and showing it their rear, as they repurposed the engines that had brought them here into brakes.
Their approach had been delicate if, by design, rushed, for they had a tight schedule to keep and still could not know just how the process of attaching would actually go.
But touchdown had gone smoothly, or as smoothly as could be hoped, and even now they were completing the process of attaching the first of their eight huge engines to the asteroid itself.
Captain Harkness looked upon his ship from the outside even though he was in fact still inside it, cradled in machine slumber, piloting one of the ten lumbering Remote Construction Robots that his ship had been equipped with, or wreckers, as their acronym had inevitably led them to be called.
It was an alarming process, when he thought about it. His crew was busily dismantling New Moon One, not quite the burning of the ships, perhaps, but still they were pulling her limb from limb so they could achieve the lofty mission they had been set.
Samuel: ‘that’s it, remy, bring her in. two degrees port.’
Remy Diaz responded, and the big ship above Sam’s head belched vapor, tweaking her leviathan body’s movements in minuscule steps as they worked to bring Engine One into contact with the framework of nanotube cables and anchors they had spent the last two days drilling into the asteroid’s surface.
He stood at the junction of three of those cables as they came together at one point of the triangular base they had fastened to the two-million-ton rock.
Remedios: ‘here she comes, captain. ¿charles, my good fellow, how are those pulse-outs going?’
Charlie Kern contained his ire at her mockery of his English heritage.
Charles: ‘they are aligned, remedy-osss.’
Remedios: ‘remedios, remedios. ay dios mio. ¿why can’t you get it right?’
He laughed, even as his mind remained absorbed with the pulse-outs. He sent out an abridged version of their status to supplement the steady flow of data he pumped into the net for the many that were monitoring the geyser-like eruptions. He told her of the anticipated flow of energy as he balanced the fonts into an antagonistic neutrality.
He was managing the cyclical pulse of their engines which had to, every five seconds or so, expend the massive power they even now generated. Dormancy was not an option for these great beasts. They had three settings: first they were off, then they were alive, and then they were dead, pretty much permanently, certainly as far as they were concerned at more than four million miles from Earth.
It meant that no one, mechanical or otherwise, could be directly in front of or behind them, well, not unless they wished to be vaporized, anyway. And it made Remy’s job as pilot in these delicate maneuvers akin to manhandling a sleeping bull, a sleeping bull who was dreaming of something either very pleasant or very unpleasant as every few moments it kicked and bucked with enough power to gore them all if they were not careful. Then it was docile once more, its mighty breath exhausted, its bulk once more pliable.
Samuel: ‘ok, we’re going to bring her in on this next push. charlie, we’ll need a good stretch of peace and quiet here, at least seven seconds, so we’ll go on your mark. remy, sending final trajectories now. tether team, you know your jobs. don’t get cocky. we can rebuild the tether but not the wreckers, delicate little flowers that they are.’
His crew all laughed, the twenty-three souls he commanded spread out across the great ship: engineers, pilots, technicians, physicists, and then Sam himself. The commander, at once the least qualified in any of the many specialties the mission required, and the most qualified across all of them.
As the clock counted down, he reached up with two of the four massive claws that were his wrecker’s hands and feet, each equally powerful, each completely interchangeable as he grappled, pulled, and pushed the two massive objects together, the two-million-ton asteroid and the seven-hundred-ton ship that was about to latch onto it.
Charles: ‘this is it, 1.2, 0.8, 0.4 …’
They braced for a particularly long and powerful burst from either end of the mighty ship, the entire hulk vibrating wildly as Charlie wasted nearly half a billion horsepower in two great blue geysers. The strain was herculean on the ship’s hull, but it was designed for it, a jail strong enough to imprison eight stars and keep their riotous fury penned.
The word ‘go’ was not so much spoken as given unto their minds, initiating a ballet filled with equal parts effort and finesse.
The two masses came together, eased by gentle pushes from Remy’s thrusters, tugged by massive exertion from the four wreckers that grasped the mount on the outside of one of the eight engines and the saddle they were bringing it into.
Seconds passed like ages as they rushed against the impending clamor of the next pulse-out, 5.5, 5.0, 4.5, 4.0. Precious moments. Their captain spoke as the voice of command within all their minds.
Samuel: ‘forward point five to matthew, three tenths off, pete, three … that’s it … that’s it … almost there.’
The clamps seized in quick succession. They must all go or none, they either had the engine’s feet firmly in the stirrups or they must let it go free once more, that or risk the two momentous giants ripping each other apart.
Samuel: ‘close it … go, go. we have seal on … clamp 3, clamp 1, clamp 4 … clamp 2. release it, charlie!’
And the pulse came, a flood of power, now harnessed to the asteroid’s mass. Where the ship vibrated less now that it was held firm, the greater rock they were here to bring home shook as if awakening to its fate. If there had been atmosphere, and if the Wreckers had even been equipped with ears, the noise would have been deafening as the two great titans seemed to shout out for the first
time in unified protest.
The diminutive little humans were meddling with forces that should be beyond their control. But control them they must, and control them they would.
A great dust rose from the surface of the asteroid once known as 1979va. It would never settle, it would rise up and off forever, forming a new tail as they turned the big rock from asteroid to comet, and then from comet into moon.
But it was not Asteroid 1979va anymore. Captain Harkness spoke with deep-seated pride to his crew.
Samuel: ‘we have her, team! well done! well done, all of you!’
A virtual cheer rose up in the ether. Much later it would be taken up by the ever-growing teams of TASC when they received transmission of the monumental event, and even by the leaders of the nations adjusting to their new relationship with the once tame enterprise. For this was, by anyone’s measure, a great day.
They had harnessed a part of the firmament. They were now in the business of literally moving mountains. There was much still to be done, and indeed they would not rest for more than a moment. But for now Sam reveled in his next, simple announcement.
Samuel: ‘new moon one has a new designation. ladies and gentlemen, crew of new moon one … friends; welcome to hekaton. welcome to earth’s second moon.’
The Hekaton-kheires were mythical second sons of the Earth, massive warriors of incredible strength that had once helped the gods defeat the Titans. Neither Sam nor his crew had been even vaguely aware of the obscure Greek myth before the mission, but when they had heard that Neal had chosen this as the title of Earth’s would-be second moon, they could not have helped but fall in love with it.
It was, quite frankly, a cool name. And now it was their name. They were the Hekatons, first residents and masters of this massive nugget. A moment of pride surged through them, matched by Sam’s pride in them all. But it was a moment that must pass.
Samuel: ‘all right. let’s get ready for disconnect, people. move to disconnect positions. let’s go.’