Dunn waved the comment away. “Say it again.”
He took a deep breath, pointed at the display, and finally managed to find his voice. “That’s the Mira.”
The marines did a double-take before turning their eyes back to Dunn’s. He nodded to them. “Lance Corporal Dickerson is correct.” He waved a hand at the holo-display and the 3-D image slowly spun. “This is Mira.” Dunn paused to study the marines’ confused and startled expressions. He looked at the holo display and walked around it so he could see the company through the image. “She left Sol system space nearly fifty years ago. She was sent on a mission to scout Proxima Centauri b for possible human settlement. Seven years into the mission, Sol lost contact with her.”
Dunn waved a hand and the display changed to a schematic view. “Her inhabitable space is nearly a kilometer in length and 200 meters wide for crew, life support, cargo, and engineering decks.” He walked to the side so he no longer stood behind the image. He pointed a finger at her. “That’s our mission, marines. We’re going to rendezvous with her, check for survivors and records, and then tow her back to Neptune Shipyards and Trident Station.”
Dickerson felt a cold chill. He’d studied the ship when he was a kid. Hell, all kids did. But seeing her on a large holo-display when you were out in deep space was downright creepy. She was the subject of countless conspiracy holos, books, and late-night topics of conversation. But she looked different than he remembered.
Instead of a simple blocky design, she had more elegance when seen from a 30° angle. Also, she had what looked like a shuttle hangar on the port side near the bow, and the ship seemed larger than he remembered.
“Now,” Dunn said, “we don’t know how badly damaged she is. The only information we’ve been able to gather is that she’s dark. Her engines aren’t running, none of her lights are up, and the energy readings are minuscule. In short, she’s a derelict tumbling through space. But, if there are survivors, we will bring them back. If there is data that can explain what happened, we’ll bring that back, too. And if we can tow her?” He smiled at the company. “Then we’re going to bring her back in as few pieces as possible.”
Kalimura raised a hand and Dunn nodded to her. “Yes, Corporal?”
“Pardon me, sir. I’m almost sure you’re going to answer this question later, but why us?”
Dunn blinked. “I don’t understand, Corporal. What do you mean?”
She seemed unsure of herself, but quickly regained her confidence. “There are three S&R ships at Titan Station. One is on patrol in the near Kuiper Belt. The other is still docked. Why are we the only S&R ship on this mission, sir?”
Dunn and Taulbee exchanged a glance. Dickerson wasn’t sure, but it looked to him as though the two men had never even considered that question. Dunn’s eyes returned to stare into Kalimura’s. “Sometimes you don’t ask those kinds of questions, Corporal. Although maybe I should have.
“The truth is, I don’t know. Colonel Heyes probably entrusted us with this assignment because we have the best record in the Corps for rescuing survivors and saving property. The command crew has fought in real battles as well as faced hazardous situations on multiple occasions with everything from reactor meltdowns to asteroid collisions. Perhaps the Colonel decided we were the best choice.”
Kalimura nodded. “Thank you, sir. Sorry if the question—”
“There are no stupid questions, Corporal,” Dunn said. “Anyone else?” No one raised a hand. “As I said, we have no idea what shape she’s in. Not even PEO can see in great enough detail to tell us that. Now, Lieutenant Taulbee will go over our mission objectives. James?”
Taulbee walked to the holo display, waggled his fingers at it, and the image of Mira shrank to the bottom left corner, leaving the rest of the display blank. “First, marines, we’ll have to stabilize her tumble. Before we can attempt to harness whatever is left, we’ll attach portable thrusters and perform controlled burns to get her under control. We’ll have to make decisions on where to place them based on the ship’s integrity.” A bullet point appeared on the display with several additional sub-lists. They then collapsed back into the single bullet point.
“Once Mira is stable, we will perform inspection duty on the hull and superstructure for weaknesses. Black will help analyze the data, as will Lieutenant Nobel. Based on the reports, we’ll know where to place the harness and which portions of the ship are stable enough to use as anchor points.” Taulbee scanned the room, making eye contact with each of the marines. “This part of the mission is critical. If we make mistakes, Mira could break up, and S&R Black could be damaged in the process. Mistakes could be lethal for all of us.”
The room had grown even more quiet. Dickerson heard no one shifting in their seats, or fidgeting. Taulbee had the room’s complete attention.
The Lieutenant changed the display again back to the schematic view of Mira. “Our final step in the mission, besides towing her back to Pluto and refueling our ion drives, will be to send a team inside Mira to investigate, collect data, find any survivors, and return to Black.” He paused for effect. “Any questions?”
No one said a word. Taulbee smiled. “If you do have any questions, please speak up. This mission is a delicate matter for both SF Gov and for ourselves. But the most important part of it is that we all come home. Understood?”
“Aye, sir!”
Taulbee nodded. “Captain?” He stepped back and gave Dunn the floor again.
The captain stared at the marines. “I’m not going to tell you this is going to be an easy mission. When Colonel Heyes briefed me about the situation, I was more than a little concerned about the lack of intel. That’s the very reason why we are going to use an abundance of caution. We have been isolated at base for far too long, and from what I saw earlier today, it shows. If you are complacent or don’t pay attention to every minuscule detail, you could put the entire Company in jeopardy.
“Black will upload Mira’s external and internal schematics, as well as the briefing, to your blocks. I suggest you study them before we reach Mira. Lieutenant Oakes says we should be there in less than 30 hours. Gunny has your duty assignments for the upcoming mission. Study, plan, and get some rest. The next few days are going to be long. Dismissed.”
The marines stood and filed out of the cargo bay. Dickerson found himself behind Kalimura as the group walked out. Her shoulders were balled up as though a vice had clamped them together. He wondered how she would do once they rendezvoused with Mira.
He retired to his coffin, connected to a holo-sheet, and displayed the documents from his block. Carbonaro and Elliott were in their coffins as well. He’d noticed that the majority of the non-rates had. Once Kalimura had reached hers, she’d paused, performed an about-face, and left. That had been nearly an hour ago.
Gunny had probably called an NCO meeting. Or maybe the Command Crew was having one of their own and had invited her. Or, hell, maybe she just didn’t want to be in here. Couldn’t blame her for that.
He wore his visor, but only to block out the chatter and introduce music. He studied best when he listened to star noise, but looking through Mira’s diagrams, the reports, etc., required a little trip to his youth. An ancient Yen Pox recording droned in his ears, the tones sliding across one another, pulsating like the beat of some alien heart. Yes, perfect for Mira.
He flipped through the schematic diagrams once more. From the outside, Mira looked almost identical to those in the holo-book he’d read as a teen. But the differences were significant.
He was right about the shuttle bay. That hadn’t existed in any records he’d ever seen. The Mira in the updated schematics also showed several nests of what appeared to be antenna arrays sitting atop of the personnel module. He assumed they were for communication, although the schematics simply said, “sensor arrays 1-3.” In addition to those, the ship had more engines than he remembered. It also had a large squat cylinder on the port side that hadn’t existed on the original schematics. Conveniently
enough, it wasn’t labeled either. He’d seen those kinds of fixtures on some of the refinery ships.
Mira wouldn’t have an external refinery, he thought. That has to be something else.
It didn’t matter how many times he told himself it couldn’t be what he thought it was; it simply had to be. Mira was sent to Proxima Centauri b to find resources and hopefully a new home for humanity. If they came across exo-solar rocks or planetoids that appeared promising, they might very well take the time to explore. And if they found materials, they might even want to refine them.
No, he thought. That still didn’t make sense. Mira was a starship, built with the latest ion drive of its time. It was the very drive that even S&R Black’s engines were based on. But, a ship as large as Mira could hardly decelerate fast enough to investigate Exo-solar objects even if they wanted to. Once a ship her size decelerated, it took an enormous amount of power to accelerate back to cruising speed.
He looked again at the shuttle bay. Considering Mira’s size, the bay itself was certainly as large as Trident Station’s cargo transit bay, where supply ships loaded and unloaded. There might even be smaller exploration ships inside the shuttle hanger. That long ago, however, no such craft existed smaller than Mira that were built for human-led expeditions in exo-solar territory. Could she have been outfitted with some experimental designs never published? If so, they would have to be able to leave the ship, decelerate to investigate ESOs, and quickly surpass Mira’s speed to return.
That’s not possible, he thought. None of it made sense. But even if those unlikely scenarios were true, why did the rest of the Solar Federation not know about it? Why weren’t these ships being used by the military or Trans Orbital? In an age where information was almost impossible to hide, how could they?
He tried to push the thoughts from his mind. Instead of fomenting conspiracies, he needed to actually focus on ingress/egress points, known fracture points (according to the schematics), load-bearing structures, and possible bottlenecks.
During the Martian uprising, he’d spent hours upon hours studying the domes, the outposts, the mine layouts, and the sprawling marine base. Doing so had saved his life, and the lives of his squad more than once. With any luck, it wouldn’t be an issue.
If Wendt hadn’t fucked things up so badly during the refuel, the Mira briefing probably wouldn’t have sunk in with everyone. But when an experienced LCpl nearly dies because he wasn’t paying attention, that gave everyone pause. Based on the number of marines in their coffins and studying, he thought Dunn’s words had struck home.
Dickerson cut the link to the holo-sheet. It went dead at once. He rolled it up and stashed it under his pillow. He knew he’d want to look at it again later. In less than two days, they’d be at Mira. Once there, they’d know what they faced.
But he couldn’t get the discrepancies out of his mind. Using his block, he composed a message to Kalimura. He listed his concerns and asked for her opinion on what to do. Once Black confirmed it had been received, he put the visor over his eyes and let the universe into his mind.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Oakes sat on his bunk studying the holo-sheet. After the briefing, Dunn had called a meeting of the Command Crew to discuss the final details for departure and construct contingency plans for any Kuiper Belt Objects they might encounter along the way.
Over the past few centuries, technology finally aided astronomers in discovering new facts about the solar system. One of the undeniable truths was the Kuiper Belt was a strange place. New KBOs entered as often as they seemed to disappear. Most of them were small to begin with and either shattered against larger objects, or collided slowly enough to stick together. The larger ones, however, were the ones the astronomers worried about.
Before they departed Neptune, Portunes had lectured him on the belt’s inherent instability. Even the Pluto Exo-Observatory AI was incapable of keeping track of all the junk floating in the belt, much less what new objects had appeared. If not for Mira’s distress signal, her passage into the system would likely have gone completely unnoticed. Until, that was, she crashed into Pluto itself. Or maybe the observatory.
In space, “cluttered” was a loaded word. The accretion of dead satellites, debris, and, well, garbage, from humanity’s embrace of technology and exploration of the solar system, had floated around Earth like a ring of devastation. It had been a trash heap containing useful human-made satellites as well as a graveyard of ancient ones.
Even while Earth’s own belt became more and more cluttered, the chances of hitting something were fairly small. It wasn’t until just after the Sol Era began that humanity spent the money to finally clean the area. But no one was crazy enough to try and clean the Kuiper Belt. The reason why was simple: no need to.
For as many objects contained in the belt, the gaps between them were still easily surmountable with launch windows and AI maps. Ships like S&R Black, as well as the mining fleets, were equipped with AIs capable enough to make infinitesimal course changes in real-time to avoid unexpected debris. Assuming it was large enough to show up on the scanners.
But in truth, all spacecraft were vulnerable to micro-meteorites, comet debris, and the occasional piece of space junk floating between planets. Every spacecraft took a hit or two, but Atmo-steel was more than strong enough to take the impacts. S&R Black’s surface was pitted from encounters with unexpected matter and it always would be. So long as the hull continued to pass inspection, there was little reason to apply patches to the blemished metal.
Portunes had said that the Kuiper Belt was an exception. What had become known as “shatter storms” occurred quite frequently. A shatter storm happened when two KBOs collided with one another, resulting in an incomplete annihilation. Shards of ice, rock, and ore flew through space, sometimes at incredible speed, until they either traveled further into Sol space or were destroyed by impacting another, larger, more stable KBO.
If S&R Black flew into one of those, the damage could be catastrophic. If one occurred while marines floated free in space, they would likely die. Both Oakes and Black had to monitor the scanners with that in mind.
The two largest questions about Mira were what condition she was in and if there were any survivors. The first was his concern. Between him and Black, and the observations of the marines, they had to make decisions whether or not she was stable enough to tow, much less set foot upon. If a shatter storm or more KBOs entered the system near Mira, they’d be forced to forego any and all extra-ship activity. He wasn’t looking forward to a fight with Dunn over that outcome, although he imagined Dunn would also be in favor of caution over mission objectives.
He rolled up the holo-sheet and placed it on his lap. He needed to get a few hours of sleep before Black woke him for his shift. She would, of course, wake him up earlier if need be. But he was hoping for a good six hours of uninterrupted rest. Maybe Nobel wouldn’t snore so damned loud this time.
*****
Kali received Dickerson’s message while she sat in the galley drinking coffee. The brew might be better than it usually was, at least according to the other marines, but that didn’t mean it was great. She drank it anyway, cup after cup. She wasn’t sure if her bio-nannies were leeching the caffeine from her system or not, but the coffee certainly wasn’t making her any more aware or awake. At least it was doing its job of giving her mouth and hands something to do while she went through the schematics on her block.
According to Gunny and Taulbee’s plans, she and her squad had fore-deck duty. Their job would be to travel around the bow of the ship and the front-most compartments checking for hull and superstructure damage. Mira was nearly a kilometer in length. Her squad would have to inspect an area of 240,000 square meters. Gunny and his squad had 300,000 square meters to inspect. Once the exterior inspections were finished by both squads, they would meet up to scour the mid-ships.
The surface-area inspection depended on how much of Mira was actually intact. Although it would make the mission mo
re difficult, she found herself hoping Mira was in bad enough shape to simply leave her hurtling through space.
Like Dickerson, she too, and probably most of the marines aboard, had heard of Mira and probably watched the conspiracy holos or read the books. She didn’t remember all the details, only that the ship’s disappearance had led, directly or indirectly, to great instability in the Solar Federation. It was part of the reason why Mars was constantly on the verge of rebellion and civil war. The ship’s very construction had practically created Trans Orbital’s near monopoly on mining Jupiter’s rings and Saturn’s moons, not to mention the asteroid belt.
The only reason to board the derelict would be to scarf up any data its sensors had gathered, the ship’s log, and any survivors. Beyond that, Mira should just be allowed to crash into Pluto or let the Kuiper Belt have her forever.
But S&R Black had orders. It didn’t matter what she thought or felt about the situation, she would take her squad to the ship and perform the tasks assigned. That was the job. And since that was the job, she was damned well going to be prepared for it.
It wasn’t the hull and superstructure inspection that worried her. The idea of going inside the ship, even after it was stable, gave her goosebumps. The 200+ crew that left all those years ago were undoubtedly dead. The only corpses in z-g she’d ever seen had been in the rings and only from a distance. Inside Mira, the corpses might be floating on every deck, in every compartment, and impossible to ignore.
Dammit, but she hoped the ship was trashed, perforated and wrecked, without even a bridge or computer banks. They could take one look, send over a skiff, recover what they could, and get the hell out. Maybe the fore and mid-decks hadn’t even survived. Wishful thinking, she thought.
She flew through the 3-D walk-through of the ship, turning and following corridor after corridor, taking time to study the intersections and the slip-points. The most important part of the mission would be the personnel decks. Those included the stasis chambers, life-support, the living areas, as well as the main bridge.
Derelict: Marines (Derelict Saga Book 1) Page 17