by Peter Damon
Matt grinned as he released one of the small satellites they used to provide full communication on some of the larger asteroids. It moved slowly outward, the polished shell gleaming in the dim light from the distant sun.
“Can you catch it?” Leanne asked.
Diane was already reaching for the hand-piece on her belt. Extending it in her fist, she squeezed, and squealed with delight as the HYPORT in her suit began to propel her towards the moving satellite.
Leanne grinned. Diane had made the mistake of aiming for where it was, which wasn’t where it was by the time she got there. She laughed at Diane made ever smaller corrections to her path, ending in having executed a curve that brought her up behind the slow moving object.
“I did it!” Diane cried excitedly, attaching the end of a line to it and let it play out, grunting as it caught her, and began pulling her along behind it.
“It has more mass and energy than you anticipated,” Leanne observed, watching the young girl begin moving along with it.
Diane mouthed a word that would get her into trouble when she met up with her mother again, and turned her legs towards outer-space and her extended hand towards the ship, to grip her hand-piece and hold it gripped until the satellite’s momentum had reversed, and they were heading towards the open port door.
“Not too quickly now. It’s heavy,” Leanne warned, following the girl and the sphere back towards the spaceship.
+++++++++++++
Back on earth, news of the ship’s movements in space made headline news. Media groups from all around the world were throwing resources at getting the most recent information, the best graphics, the most detailed experts on hand to answer questions. The normal television schedule was thrown into turmoil as special news programs were prolonged to cover the situation.
Robert didn’t try to compete against them, and like most of the journalists in the office that day, he watched CNN deliver the news to them.
They confirmed that the lead asteroid’s speed and path had been altered and, as a result, would now miss earth, if only barely. That piece of news was repeated often, ensuring everyone understood; they were not about to suffer the impact of an asteroid. They anticipated the first asteroid arriving before the end of the year.
+++++++++++++
Professor Lovell sat in his suite on board Freedom One and studied the feeds from earth, displayed on two of the three monitors that faced him across his table.
Earth markets were jittery, moving up and down with uncertainty following the news that the nearest asteroid was not designed to hurt them, but quite clearly another metal-bearing piece of rock, substantial enough to radically alter any stock that had significant dependence on metals.
The professor watched as markets opened across the east, slowly moving west with the time-line, and as markets opened and fell, he moved in, picking up valuable stock at a fraction of its true value, buying through a range of subsidiaries that Gary and Cheryl had prepared weeks, sometimes months before to hide the fact that Freedom One was rapidly becoming the Kingmaker of Kingmakers.
October 5th.
There was an air of anticipation on board Freedom One, and the crew, not on duty, gathered in the lounge to focus on the many monitors, all of which had been turned to focus on five 30 centimetre-square boxes poised 10 metres apart on plinths on the dark side of the asteroid. This was one experiment that the twins and their team of professors did not want the earth to see.
The team were in the control-room, checking their instruments again and again, verifying that all their data feeds were continuing to work, confirming that the environments within the boxes were stable. Don strode between the desks, glancing over shoulders before moving on, never able to stay in one place for long.
“30 seconds to Release One,” Pavel murmured, keeping his eye on his board where every variable was represented within a coloured box, and every one remained green.
“20 seconds. Cameras on,” Matt told them.
“10 seconds. Data capture on,” Leanne confirmed.
Michael moved onto the edge of his chair, his eyes fastened on the nearest monitor where the image showed him the bright yellow box sitting on the plinth, completely still, lit by an encircling ring of bright arc lights that helped the high speed cameras function.
“Five, four, three, two, one.” Don breathed.
There was a chorus of gasps from the crew in the lounge as the box disappeared.
There was a moment of silence in the control-room as the team looked towards Matt and Leanne.
“I have 712 megabytes of data,” Leanne cried, her eyes widening as she counted the size of the data obtained subsequent to the ignition of the HYPORT within the box. That was the amount of information returned to them subsequent to its leaving their space-time.
“And visual?” Don asked.
“It just disappeared,” Matt shrugged, disappointedly. In one frame the box was there, in the next, it wasn’t. There was no hint of movement between one frame and the next, no sight of what lay beyond, on the other side.
“Alright; we continue. One minutes to Release Two,” Pavel told everyone, and their attention returned to the screens as they concentrated in getting the forthcoming experiment to reveal as much about itself as possible.
October 10th.
The general climbed down from the small Lear jet to run towards the Ford Galaxy waiting on the tarmac, ready to take him to his meeting.
“Anything new?” he asked the uniformed man sitting beside him.
“No Sir. This is a list of the people who’ll be at the meeting,” he said, passing the general a piece of paper. The general glanced at it before folding it into his pocket.
“I wish I knew what those bastards were up to,” he growled, staring out of the car window as the vehicle entered one of the large hangers and stopped beside an office door.
Men came to attention and saluted as he passed, a corporal opening the door to the meeting room as he approached it. The general stepped in and nodded to the men already gathered there, a mix of US Army and NASA technicians. Cokes were ranged round the table, disturbed as the forces personnel came to their feet to salute him.
“Easy,” the general called, and helped himself to a can from the side table before taking his place.
“Do we know what it was?” General Mears asked of the NASA guys at the table.
“No, Sir. GAIS recorded five massive surges in gravity at the location of the asteroid, but each one lasted only a fraction of a second.”
“A test of some sort?” he questioned.
“Could be, Sir,” they agreed, several of the men nodding. “We saw a similar occurrence back on the 24th August, Sir; a massive surge in gravity, but only there for a fraction of a second. As there were no changes in any orbits, we thought our equipment might have been faulty.”
“Could it have been some sort of weapon?” the general asked.
“Well?” he prompted into the growing silence in the room.
“The size was phenomenal, General. LIGO felt it,” one of the NASA men explained.
“LIGO?” he asked the room.
“There are two LIGO telescopes, one in Washington and one in Louisiana,” another of the men explained. “They’re designed to measure the gravity waves caused by massive anomalies in gravity, like dark holes,” he explained.
“So two telescopes designed to measure the gravity of a dark hole, recorded the gravity waves given off by this test they did on their asteroid?” Pat Mears asked for clarification.
There were nods from around the table.
“And did LIGO feel the occurrence on the 24th?” he asked.
“It was off-line for scheduled maintenance,” a man admitted.
“Of course, it’s just as likely to be a fault.” General Mears turned his head to look towards the new voice.
“Well, so high a level of gravity, and not once, but five times; perhaps they have a problem?” suggested the NASA man.
“So we
don’t know what it is,” Pat Mears finished for them. “Well gentlemen, I suggest you find out, because if it’s a weapon, and they use it on us, it’ll be me you’ll see in hell first,” he warned them.
October 20th.
Despite the similarity to the previous test, there was no lessening of tension within Freedom One as the twins and the professors prepared to fire the HYPORT sample out of space-time.
This time, the brightly painted yellow box was twice as large as the previous test, and now a ribbon-cable trailed the box to run into a communications dish, the narrow beam antenna directed towards Freedom One.
Wendy-Claire had fallen asleep on Michael’s chest, and he tried hard to keep her that way while he looked towards the nearest monitors, one showing the control-room where the team were preparing the experiment, another showing the box, motionless on its plinth.
“Why the repeat?” Heather asked in a soft whisper, watching the screens from beside him.
“More data,” he answered quietly, his eyes remaining on the monitors.
“They think they’ll get more?” she asked.
“Apparently. They may be also recording other things, I’m not too sure,” he admitted.
The 30 second countdown began and those crew who were moving about the lounge quickly moved to settle in front of a monitor while, within the control-room, those on the tables quietly confirmed that all was green.
One again, the box was there one moment, gone the next, the departure so clean as to leave the ribbon-cable in exactly the same position, as if still connected to what had suddenly become empty space.
All eyes turned toward Leanne on the communications table. She beamed as she turned towards Don and the twins. “5.2 gigabytes,” she told them, and laughed as the twins whooped with success.
“Good. Very good,” Don agreed, grinning brightly before moving to shake hands with everyone. They had 5.2 gigabytes of data that had come through to them from the other end of the dip in space-time. Part of that might just be enough information for them to determine how to return to the point of departure.
November 12th.
Maddy strode into the garage to look at the most recent damage, and stood beside the SUV, frowning as she looked at the bent skid and buckled strut.
Brendan came over with an apologetic look, arms rising from his sides in a vain attempt to say it wasn’t his fault.
“You came in too fast,” Maddy told him.
“I came in the same speed we all do,” Brendan answered.
“Then how do you explain this?” she asked, pointing to the buckled strut.
“The metal must have weakened. God knows, it should have done, the amount we put on these vehicles.”
“Rubbish. You see mine buckled?” Maddy asked pointedly.
“It’s not used as often,” Brendan argued.
Others were coming over, standing around to listen to the argument. Samuel was one of them, bending for a closer look at the buckled skid.
“What do you think?” Maddy asked of him.
“I think constantly repeating the same sort of move is going to weaken the strut,” Samuel nodded. “It’s going to be hard to judge velocity when you’re meeting a body with its own velocity and spin,” he reflected.
“That’s what the app is there for,” Maddy argued.
“Perhaps it needs review,” Samuel shrugged. “Perhaps it’s not used often enough, I don’t know,” he finished.
“Not used often enough?” she asked, glancing at the spacemen around her.
“It’s awkward to use, especially when there are a lot of rocks and vehicles nearby,” Brendan explained.
“We haven’t got any spare struts, have we?” Maddy said, already knowing the answer. She nodded. “That puts you on ground duties, helping out Bert,” she told the luckless driver.
“That’s three SUVs that are unserviceable and being used for spares,” Samuel reminded her.
Maddy nodded, her face set in a sour expression. “We’ll be home in a few days; raid some metal plants for the material we need.”
Old habits died hard.
+++++++++++++
Allan brought some more diagrams and visuals up on the far wall for Michael, Maddy and the twins to fully appreciate their position relative to earth and the asteroids, all at various stages in their paths towards earth.
“The two asteroids furthest from earth will need one more alteration of speed and trajectory before fitting into an earth orbit, otherwise they can all be left to themselves for the moment,” he summarised while Matt and Leanne sat at their desk, calmly waiting for the others to make a decision.
“We’re still ignoring all incoming signals, some of them very loud, demanding, even aggressive in tone,” Oliver reminded them. “Russia still claims the asteroids are a threat, even though the US has worked out their new trajectory and know they’ll fit into a high earth orbit. And they continue to warn us that they’ll be forced to target them with atomics, even though the United Nations has stepped down from wanting to do so.”
Michael nodded. The problem was, there were as many views to what Freedom One was doing as there were nations on earth, many saying one thing in public, and quite another on their attempts at communication with them.
Like it or not, Freedom One was the owner of billions of tons of metals. More importantly, they were the only ones capable of providing that material in an easily mined package. Were it not for that, blasting them out of space might have been the logical course of action.
“Just how quietly can we slip into a low orbit?” Michael asked.
Allan dragged an icon upwards across his screen and a new image appeared on the main monitor. “We move round in outer-space to position ourselves with the lead asteroid between us and earth, then remain in its shadow as it moves into its own orbit. We would then suddenly appear to earth as we move out to descend to our own orbit. With our speed, they’d have scarcely a second to notice us before we arrive.
Michael nodded.
“Is there anything in particular that you’re worried about?” Allan asked, looking between Michael and Oliver.
“Not really,” Michael admitted. “It’s more a feel than anything else.”
“But we know that both the US and Russia have been aggressively progressing their space capabilities, each in their own way. The US has a new space station, a new launch platform, and a spacecraft with unlimited fuel capabilities, as long as it stays in the sun and you don’t mind taking forever to get to where you want to go. Russia, meanwhile, has been feverishly launching satellites, and not all of them are communications. In fact, some are downright dark and silent,” Oliver explained.
“We could release some Sally satellites before we step out from behind the rock,” Allan suggested. “It would announce us, but we’d get to see into their front rooms before they hear our knock on their door,” Allan offered.
Michael shook his head. “I can just see their reaction to a small ovoid object descending at high speed towards them,” he said, grinning without any humour. “We’re just going to have to chance it.”
“So we’ll use the asteroid to hide our approach,” Allan sought agreement.
“And then descend to a low orbit, but at a reasonable pace. It’s more important that we can move away very quickly, than that we move inwards very quickly.” Michael stressed.
Allan nodded, and nodded towards Matt. “Get us behind the lead rock,” he requested.
November 18th.
Freedom One slipped from the shadow of the lead asteroid to slide down to a more modest orbit of 400 kilometres above earth.
Although Freedom One was as dark as night and gave off no heat signature, earth observatories found the spaceship almost immediately and quickly advised their masters as they pulled all their resources from other projects into monitoring the craft. At worst they would continue to track its orbit. At best, they would learn something more about the propulsion system, and perhaps ultimately be able to replicate i
t.
On board the ship, all the control desks were manned as their presence in orbit generated hundreds of radio messages, many of them HAM greetings, while a few were warnings and a small number were threats.
Oliver, seated at the media table, ignored all of the traffic while feeding short slices of video from their travels onto YouTube.
“We have neighbours,” Matt commented.
Allan nodded, aware of the radar signature from a moving vehicle on a lower orbit. “That will be this new American space-going vehicle,” he surmised, watching it begin a slow climb towards their orbit.
“Want to go into night?” Matt teased. Freedom One had already seen the specifications of the new American spacecraft, and knew its Ion Drive relied heavily on the energy accumulated by its solar-panels. It was unlikely to follow them into earth’s shadow.
Allan shook his head. He privately wanted a closer look at the craft. Ion Drives had been used for deep-space satellites for some time, but this was the first time, to his knowledge, that the propulsion method had been used for a manned vehicle. “Launch our communication and sensory satellites,” he requested instead.
Matt nodded and launched one of the small communication units, nodding sagely to himself as he followed its path towards the North Pole. It searched for and found an acknowledgement of its signal, and began to transmit, even before it had arrived on station, 36,000 kilometres above the earth. Meanwhile, Matt had already launched five of Sally’s sensory satellites. With their varied sensors, they would help the spaceship to identify risks from earth. Sally was already at her desk, humming softly to herself as she began to work, looking for signs of imminent launches, open silo doors or the movement of large, long, military vehicles.
“At that rate, it will take the Americans about an hour to reach us,” Allan calculated, watching his screen and the slow moving American spaceship.
“I wonder if they’ve updated their spacesuits yet, or whether they still wear nappies,” Matt wondered aloud.