Space Corps Revelation

by K. D. Mattis

  Asher smiled and brushed at her hair. Though pointless with her hair tied back in a bun, it was a nervous habit. “It would be my honor.” Asher glanced over to the pilot. “Helm, have engineering begin gearing up the engines.”

  The engines filled the ship with a steady, pulsating noise that filled Asher’s ears, giving her goosebumps, as they prepared to work their magic.

  “All crew, this is the admiral, please prepare for final departure and make your way to your harnesses.”

  “Admiral,” the pilot said, “the course to Mars is plotted. The engines are prepared to engage on your mark.”

  Asher felt the electricity of excitement run throughout the bridge. She’d always longed to give this order.

  “Pilot, engage in three, two, one, mark!”

  The Explorer’s engines fired off, quickly bringing the ship up to speed. And though the Explorer would take much longer than the two hundred fifty seconds it would take light to travel from Earth to Mars, they still traveled faster than any human in history.

  3

  Asher rounded the corner into the mess hall. Dozens of people of various ranks filled the space. Metal tables, chairs, and stools were fastened the floor. The men and women that use them held themselves in place by hooking their feet under a bar at the base of the stools. Half of the occupants didn’t bother with the chairs. They opted instead to float around freely in the space above them.

  The crew talked and teased each other, creating a loud buzz in the air. Those not engaged in conversation ate from plates and trays. Most had no problem simply eating with forks and knives like normal. Others decided to have a bit of fun with the lack of gravity, and tossed chunks of food into the air to be chased down by themselves or a friend.

  Yeoman Chase jolted in the air and into a salute. She wasn’t close enough to the ground to utilize her magnetic boots. “Admiral on deck!” She shouted.

  The room became silent as the rest of the crew did their best to orient their bodies in such a way that they could join the yeoman in offering a salute.

  “At ease,” Asher said.

  For a moment, she watched as the crew reinitiated the revelry. While everyone seemed content to talk amongst themselves again, she couldn’t help but notice the cautious glances over the shoulders. To help put them at ease, she moved over to the food line.

  “Good evening, Admiral. Tonight, we have macaroni and cheese or chicken wrap, and your choice of sides. If you prefer something a bit more portable, we have the usual selection of tubes.”

  “I’ll take the macaroni and cheese, please,” Asher said.

  The cook turned around and he warmed the entrée in a large contraption behind him before placing it on a tray. Asher then continued down the line and selected her side dishes. The containers for each bit of food snapped into grooves on her tray to avoid floating off. At the end of the line, she grabbed a bladder of water from the refrigerator and moved to join the rest of the crowd.

  “Admiral,” Lieutenant Harris said. “Join us?”

  Asher lifted her head and smiled before walking over and hooking her feet under the stool. She reached down and disengaged her magnetic boots.

  “We were just discussing how each of us came in the Corps. I’m sure your story has to be interesting. Mind sharing?”

  Using her fork and her knife, Asher cut into her macaroni and cheese. While it was more of a loaf than proper pasta, she found the taste to be accurate enough, if a bit dry. She held up a finger while she chewed and took a quick sip of water.

  “Not much to tell really,” she said. “I captained an aircraft carrier. They gave me the option to change my commission from the navy to the space corps, and I jumped at the chance.”

  The lieutenant cast a sideways glance at the rest the people at the table. “Come on now, Asher. Everyone here knows that you designed the engine. What’s the story behind that?”

  “You help me test it,” Asher said. “You already know the story.”

  “Yeah, but they don’t.”

  Asher looked at the rest of the people at the table. Almost all were corpsmen or NCOs, and all looked on with interest.

  “Fair enough. Technically, I didn’t apply to join the space corps. Back when I was in college, I wrote a thesis paper on the viability of an ion pulse drive. At some point, the developers must have come across it. They told me that it had some validity and they wondered if I had any interest in exploring it further. I did, so we worked with a team of engineers to put it together, test it out, and redesign it for a much bigger ship. That’s what’s in the Explorer today.”

  “And that’s how we met,” Harris said, speaking to the corpsmen. “Prototype X-759. It was outfitted with the IPD, and we took it out past the moon. I actually wasn’t sure about accepting a commission with the space corps until then. I thought I’d retire with the Air Force. But here we are.”

  Yeoman Chase shifted in her seat and asked with an uncomfortable smile, “One thing I don’t understand is that you’re an admiral, but you’re commanding the ship. I wasn’t navy, but I thought admirals never commanded ships.”

  Asher shoved another bite of food into her mouth. “Normally, you’d be right. But, given my background and understanding of the technology in the fleet, President Krasinski personally asked me to accept a commission as Admiral. I told him that if I was going to enter into the space corps, I wanted to command the ship. He agreed. I don’t know if he actually liked the idea, but like he said, this isn’t the navy, and we have no obligation to follow the same standards.”

  Grabbing the back of his chair, Harris swung his body over its back and plopped right in place. He entered his password into the console and all of the buttons lit up in a variety of colors. The screen in front of him flashed red and showed a deviation from the plotted course.

  “Looks like we’re only off by about point zero one percent. It’s a problem, but is not the end of the world.”

  Ensign Gonzales pulled her hands away from her console. “I’m sorry to bother you, sir. But every time I make a correction, it goes a little too far. I didn’t want to burn too much fuel.”

  Harris turned his monitor to face the ensign and pointed. “Good call. Based on this, you are correcting, but then taking too long to initiate the counter correction. Every time you fire the main thrusters, you’re going to have to compensate with an equal and opposite thrust using the secondary thrusters. Timing is key. You’re not off by much, but you’re engaging the secondary thrusters just a little too late and cutting them off just a little too soon.”

  “I know, sir. I’m sorry, but in the simulations, we relied pretty heavily on the autopilot features. As long as your calculations were correct, the thrusters engaged automatically. With your permission, I’d like to re-engage the autopilot.”

  Harris grunted. “Absolutely not. Don’t get me wrong, I know the autopilot is great, but my goal is to train you how to fly the ship. If the autopilot fails, you need to know what you’re doing and there’s only one way that you learn.”

  With the rapid input of a series of calculations, Harris determine the corrections needed to get back on course.

  “Watch the alignment of the ship. Personally, I don’t care if you do it based on the graphics or the percentage, but you need to watch exactly where you are in relation to the course. Ready?”

  Gonzales nodded.

  “Good. Engage the main thrusters.”

  The entire ship shook as the main thrusters fired for several seconds.

  “Ease off.”

  The rattling stopped.

  “Good. Now you see how quickly the main thrusters are moving us toward target? It’s going to take roughly three times as long for the secondary thrusters to engage and keep us where we want to be.”

  Gonzales flipped two switches and prepared to hit the button. Harris held his hand in the air and she paused. A moment later, he dropped his hand and she hit the button.

  A similar trembling ran through the ship, through thei
r consoles, and to their hands. Because of the smaller size of the secondary thrusters, the shaking was at a much higher frequency and tingled the fingertips.

  “Watch here,” Harris said, pointing to the screen again. “Your deviation is approaching zero. Disengage secondary thrusters.” Another press of the button caused the shaking to stop. “We’re still equalizing, but I want you to notice the percentage of deviation.”

  “Point zero zero four,” Gonzales said.

  “Exactly. It’s not perfect, but for manual input it should be acceptable. If we were worried about perfection, we would let the autopilot take over. But the point right now is for you to learn how to do this on your own.”

  Gonzales gulped and shook her head. “Yes, Sir. Thank you, sir.”

  “No problem. Don’t hesitate to call if you need me again.”

  4

  For a month, Admiral Asher and her crew made their way toward Mars. In just another two weeks, they were hoping to land on the surface. Things went smoothly, and everyone on the Explorer was glowing with excitement.

  “Admiral,” Card said, “there’s something you need to hear.”

  Asher could hear the stress in the officer’s voice. “Play it on monitor one.”

  At the front of the command bridge, there were two large monitors to the left and right of the viewport. On her command, Card played the message on the monitor to her left.

  On the monitor flashed the symbol of the US Space Corps. After several seconds, the symbol faded away and showed a video of the President of the United States sitting next to the Chinese Ambassador.

  The President cleared his throat and nodded to the ambassador before he began. “Admiral, I trust this message will find you well. We have read all your daily status reports with great pleasure. Sadly, this is not a message of glad tidings. At roughly seven this morning, the Chinese Space Agency received a distress signal from their ship, the Tianjin. We don’t know what has happened to them, but we do know that something caused a lot of damage to their vessel.

  “More importantly, we know there are survivors from whatever happened. We don’t know their status, but we do know that if they don’t get help soon, they will not survive. The Chinese government has no rescue capabilities and cannot provide another ship for relief. The survivors don’t have long.

  “You know as well as I do that the Chinese wouldn’t ask for help unless they needed it. When their ambassador approached me, I knew I couldn’t turn them down, not with you and your crew so close to the area of the incident.

  “Your mission has changed. You are to locate the Tianjin and provide help to the survivors as best you can. As soon as you are able, report to us with your findings. The flight path for the Martian lander will be transmitted at the end of this message. Good luck, Admiral.”

  Commander Ryan Gibbs rose to his feet, held in place by magnetic boots to the metal floor.

  “Admiral, if I may, I’d like to take the Protector out to investigate the ship.”

  “And why is that, Commander?”

  “The Protector can get there faster and maneuver easier than Explorer. And, until we know what we’re dealing with, I feel it would be in our best interests to keep the Explorer from harm.”

  Asher looked back and forth between the Commander and the screen that still bore the image of the president.

  “While I understand that, you realize that they were more than likely struck by a stray asteroid? There will be very little danger involved if that’s the case.”

  “Admiral, Commander, there may indeed be a risk of damage to the Explorer even if it was just an asteroid that caused the damage to the Tianjin,” Commander Reynolds said, jumping in the conversation.

  With all eyes on him, the Commander wrung his hands together and took a deep breath. When he spoke again, his eyes stayed closed for several seconds.

  “I don’t want to cause a panic or overstate the threat, but even a small asteroid could cause a considerable amount of damage to a vessel. It isn’t unusual at all to see them traveling at high speeds. While the asteroid itself may not pose much of a threat anymore, there’s a good chance that it may have knocked chunks of metal off the Martian lander. If that’s the case, there will be a lot of debris in the area. The Protector, being so much smaller than the Explorer, would stand a much better chance of avoiding any of the debris.”

  Asher nodded and motioned to one of the two exits at the back of the command bridge.

  “Be my guest. However, I want you to stay in constant contact with the Explorer, is that clear?”

  Commander Gibbs nodded his head in appreciation before rushing out the door. He couldn’t help but feel a little crushed that the nature of their mission had changed. He had looked forward to stepping foot on Martian soil, and hated putting that on hold. But being a military man, he intended to follow orders.

  When he reached the docking bay of the Explorer, he turned immediately to a man inside a small booth.

  “Corpsman, call together the crew of the Protector. I want them suited up and ready to go in no more than fifteen minutes.”

  The Corpsman gave his salute and went to work.

  The docking bay was large for the size of the Explorer, but it wasted very little space. It held two smaller ships, Guardian and Protector. While the Explorer had an imposing array of weaponry, Guardian and Protector displayed an impressive setup as well, able to take out small asteroids or other threats.

  Guardian was the slower of the two, but it had a stronger hull. Protector gained speed at the cost of security. Both ships could hold a ten-man crew, and not one of the two could be away from Explorer for more than a week or two.

  “Gentlemen, I’m glad to see you,” Gibbs said when the crew arrived. They kept him waiting no more than five minutes.

  The nine men that assembled on the deck of the docking bay looked striking. They bore large, white suits with military markings. Bulky magnetic shoes held them to the floor, but the men showed great skill in walking with them. If he didn't know better, Gibbs would have thought they were walking on Earth.

  Without wasting any more time, the men climbed into the Protector and took their posts. They had gone through many drills in the simulators and test flights back at home, but none ever took the Protector out for a mission of such importance. The excitement was high in the air, and Gibbs was eager to prove that he and his crew deserved to be given the assignment.

  After the ship closed up, the commander took to his seat. “This is Commander Gibbs to the Explorer, requesting permission to depart with the Protector.”

  “Copy that,” came a voice over the radio. “We’ll clear the way.”

  Though the crewmen busied themselves performing various tasks in the area, the docking bay underwent evacuation.

  “Protector, prepare for release.”

  Commander Gibbs replied, “Copy that. We’re ready when you are.”

  “Disconnect in three, two, and one.”

  The docking clamps released its hold on the smaller ship. Two mechanical arms pushed the Protector into space. A loud hiss ran through the ship as the arms released their hold on the vessel. Around it, a cloud of water vapor instantly turned into a cloud of tiny ice particles. The arms retracted back to the docking bay.

  “Protector, you are clear to depart. Good luck and good flying.”

  “Thank you,” Gibbs replied. “Pilot, you have the course of the Tianjin. Please lead us out at maximum speed. Diagnostics, keep an eye on the scanners. We don’t know what took out the lander, but we don’t want to be caught off guard by it either.”

  From the bridge of the Explorer, Asher watched as the Protector shot off into the unknown. As much as she trusted the commander to handle the job, she couldn’t shake the feeling that something big was going to happen.

  “Card,” the admiral said to the communications officer, “report our response to the distress signal back to headquarters. I’m sure they’ll be interested to see how this pans out.”

&nb
sp; “Yes, sir.”

  “Tactical, keep weapons systems at the ready. If any debris gets too close to the ship, you have my permission to take care of it.”

  Tactical officers Lieutenant Commander Eric Holt and Ensign Ngoc Tran nodded and set about arming the systems. After working with them so many times during training, she knew she could trust them without question.

  Asher turned to her chief engineer. “Reynolds, I need your team to keep a constant eye on anything that may pose a threat to us. If they see anything that justifies it, they are to inform the pilot of the threat immediately so he can respond.”

  “Harris,” Asher turned to the pilot, “I trust that you’re bringing Gonzales up to speed on controlling the ship?”

  “Absolutely, sir. She’ll match my skills in no time at this rate.”

  “Fantastic. Reynolds, I want you to join me in the conference room. We need to develop a plan for bringing survivors onboard. I don’t know how many there will be, but I intend to be ready for them.”

  5

  “Admiral, cargo bay two has been cleared and is outfitted to house the survivors,” said the sergeant.

  Asher looked up from her console.

  “Glad to hear it. Do you have any word on security?”

  “Yes, sir. We’re prepared to have armed guards on watch twenty-four hours a day if necessary.”

  “Good. I can’t imagine the survivors being a problem, but there’s always a risk of them trying to steal system information from us. I don’t want to run the risk.”

  The sergeant hit a couple of buttons on his tablet before looking at the admiral once more.

  “One more concern I have is with regards to the medical needs of our guests.”