by B. V. Larson
“I’m not following you, sir,” I said, feeling a certain heat around my neck. I fought that sensation down. An outburst of prideful anger wouldn’t help me now.
“An assassin in the guise of an Astra female stalked your father. Everyone knows that House Astra is a rival, but they’re a rich rival, very much a focus of your father’s political machine. The assassin fails, miraculously leaving him unharmed by her attack. Meanwhile you’re on hand as the hero to save the day. The whole thing smells like a setup to me.”
“Your theories have merit,” I said, “but I would point out a critical flaw: my father’s party doesn’t want any guardsman to look like a hero. That doesn’t play into their narrative about budgetary waste.”
Singh nodded thoughtfully. “Yes, that’s the part I haven’t figured out yet. But then, I still haven’t figured out why you joined Star Guard in the first place.”
“What must I do to prove my true loyalties?”
Singh gave me a predatory smile. “Resign your commission. Take your father’s place, urging him into early retirement. Then, with ruthless speed, increase our budget exponentially. At that point, I will happily concede you are a loyal supporter of the Guard.”
My lips twisted in disgust. It was one thing for my family to complain about my life choices, but I found it even more disappointing when my fellow guardsmen suggested I should throw away my commission.
“I think I can do more for the Guard on the inside than I can on the outside,” I said. “Not everything hinges on a budget, sir.”
“I guess we’ll have to part ways on that note without finding common ground. A pity—oh, and there’s one more thing.”
“Yes, Captain?”
“I’m putting you on deep patrol. I think it’s best no one sees your face around the station for a time after your recent stunts.”
“Stunts? Plural?”
“Yes. First you chased down a harmless merchant accusing him of being a smuggler. He’s initiating legal action over that, you know. Then you presided over a very fishy, possibly staged, assassination. You’re attracting attention from the admiralty—the kind I don’t need.”
I wasn’t sure what to say. “Did someone draw up charges in either of these cases, sir?”
“Yes, the merchant did. But they were dismissed almost the moment they were filed. Isn’t that strange?”
I knew he was insinuating that I’d used my father’s influence to defend myself. I had to admit, my father might well have done so reflexively. I wouldn’t have been surprised to learn that he’d found out about the charges before I had. When someone accused a Sparhawk of a misdeed, they checked with my father immediately.
“That is strange,” I agreed. “A deep patrol, you say? Mars again?”
Smiling still, Singh made a pushing gesture with his hands, suggesting I should think of a place farther out.
“The rocks?” I asked in dismay.
“Now you’re catching on. The rock rats out there near Ceres have been requesting a survey be done on various bodies beyond their prospecting zones. They’ve apparently discovered several high-metal masses near the orbit of Jupiter. They’re asking for permission to mine them. As you know, the Guard must inspect all new discoveries before permits are formally drawn up. That’s where you come in.”
Inwardly, I was appalled, but I kept a straight face.
“Cutlass can be refitted and underway within seventy-two hours, sir,” I said.
“Step that up. I want you off this station by tomorrow morning. Take supplies with you and perform your maintenance en route. There’s one more thing, as this is an exploratory mission, I have to assign you a technical officer. You’ll be taking Ensign Yamada with you.”
“She’ll do find, sir,” I said.
Yamada was a good officer and very competent. I had to wonder if she would play the part of a spy for Singh, however, reporting back any mistakes I might make when we returned.
Having no choice, I accepted his orders. Crestfallen, I headed toward Cutlass’ berth and delivered the news to my crew. Their response was sullen, rather than mutinous. They’d been promised shore leave, but they were accustomed to unplanned changes in their missions.
Such was the thankless life of a guardsman.
-8-
Altair’s pinnaces went in every direction. We weren’t the only ones cast far and wide to look at lifeless rocks—but it seemed to me that our destination was the farthest out.
We traveled past Mars, then pressed out to the rocks and beyond, pushing Cutlass to her limits. The journey to the outer system took over a month, and we were all worn out by the time we reached the coordinates we’d been given.
The trouble was our ship wasn’t built for long voyages. It was small, cramped and lacking in amenities. Just taking enough supplies along was a challenge. We started with a vast supply of food, packed into every nook aboard. The ship had a decent water recycler, and our carbon-scrubbers took care of providing breathable air. The trouble was always food. The pinnace was too small to handle hydroponics. We were forced to load up with traditional foodstuffs, and we had no way reuse solid waste. Even the dining table was buried for more than week on the way out, until we’d managed to eat our way through enough supplies to sit down.
Singh’s plan to do our maintenance on the fly was another farce. Cutlass was still in bad shape by the time we reached our goal. The yard-dogs had patched her, overhauled her and added new components continuously since her original construction over a century ago—but there was only so much an old ship could take.
Metal fatigue, causing nanoscopic fractures, was a serious problem. The core electronics worked only intermittently. The ship was simply too old and should’ve been scuttled decades ago.
But she’d been forced to keep flying instead, always in the name of budgetary concerns. Just opening up the hatches that revealed the space between the inner and outer hull was enough to make a man shudder. The region was layered with obsolete components. Old fiber optic cables ran everywhere, without purpose. Rather than removing them during upgrades, the yard-dogs had seen fit to sever the existing lines and leave the obsolete equipment in place. Then they’d add new components on top, shoving aside the old ones to squeeze in the new. Doing it that way was faster—and cheaper.
All these realities didn’t matter much as long as the ship stayed in Earth’s gravity well. She’d been designed for near-orbital work at low speeds, tasks which applied only mild stresses to her frame. Taking her out into the darkest voids of open space was, by comparison, a risky endeavor.
To their credit, my crewmen did their work stoically. They refitted everything they could with an easy familiarity that spoke of decades of experience. They cursed, hammered, and forced sharp edges into worn out sockets—but they got almost every subsystem to operate eventually.
After two months of repairs, slow travel and constant surveillance using the new sensor pods we’d installed on the way out, we finally located the anomaly in space. It turned out not to be as a big of a surprise as we’d thought it might be.
“It’s a comet, Skipper,” Rumbold said. “It has to be. It’s coated in a thick layer of ice, indicating it’s from way out in the Oort Cloud.”
Data kept coming in, but for me, some of it didn’t add up. “I don’t know…” I said. “If this comet has grazed the Sun in the past, it shouldn’t be so thick with ice, should it?”
“Grazed the Sun?”
“I’ve projected this rock’s orbit. Take a look. Given its trajectory, it must have come close to our star in the past.”
Rumbold studied my data. “That does seem odd…” he said. “Most comets that have gotten close to a star are darker. Burned up.”
“Right,” I said, “on top of that, the shape is unusual. Looks like the head of an axe more than it does a snowball.”
“Well, sir, I’ve seen plenty of oddly shaped rocks. Once, there was this duck-shaped one that—”
“Let’s review what we’ve g
ot,” I said, interrupting him. Rumbold’s space-stories about mysterious objects were legendary, but I wasn’t in the mood this time. “We have metallic readings, indicating a very high density core under a lower density coating of ice. Strange. To me, it looks like a flat chunk of asteroid that’s been dusted liberally with frost.”
“Yeah, that’s about right.”
“And that core—the purity ratings are high for any rock,” I said, intrigued. I leaned back and crossed my arms. “With this kind of heavy metal content, I think it’s clear why the rats are asking for permission to come out here and mine it.”
“Excellent work, Captain,” Rumbold said with sudden hopefulness in his voice. “Looks like we’ve done the survey. Should I plot a course back home?”
I laughed. “I’m sure you’ve got one already set up, Chief, but I don’t think we’re done yet.”
I heard a moan from another of my crewmen, probably Jimmy in engineering. Aboard Cutlass, engineering was an area on the main deck in the aft section, so he could hear me if he was listening closely enough. Apparently, he had been. They probably all had been.
Cutlass had a crew of nine, including myself. All of my people were experienced hands. Some of them, like Rumbold and Jimmy, were very experienced. They were stubborn souls who were as tough as the ship they inhabited. I knew they weren’t afraid or surly, but they were worn out. None of them wanted to do much investigating. They would have preferred to stamp “approved” on this rock and turn around promptly, heading home as fast as we could make our rust-bucket fly.
I could understand that, but I wasn’t going to shirk my duty for crew comfort. Nodding thoughtfully, I made a fateful decision.
“Let’s go in for a closer look,” I said.
Long sighs were released. Many of my crewmen had been holding their breath, it would seem. Without a word, Rumbold laid in the course. I approved it with a double-tap, and we powered in carefully toward the target.
We’d been braking during our approach and soon our flight path intersected the object. Instead of running into it, I had the crew ease us closer, stabilizing the craft and matching the target’s course and speed.
Once that was done, we edged even closer, nudging our way toward the object and matching its trajectory precisely.
“We’ll be right on top of it by tomorrow,” Rumbold informed me. “What’s the plan?”
“We’ll do a full orbital scan, looking for anything special.”
“Special?”
I looked at him. Rumbold had a good poker face, but I could tell he thought I was a little crazy this time. He wanted to know what I hoping to learn.
“Regulations state that a survey must include a full up-close scan,” I said. “If, that is, the object being surveyed is nonstandard in composition or structure.”
“So we’re going by the book,” Rumbold said. “Nothing unusual there. We always go by the book. Very well, Skipper—if you don’t mind, I’ll be taking a nap while Cutlass’ nav system gets us nose to nose.”
He leaned back and settled into his chair, sliding his cap down over his eyes. We didn’t have separate quarters. Our crash seats were our bunks, although we had two private zones below decks with hammocks and null-G showers to relax in. For the most part, the crew just slept on their seats—Rumbold pretty much lived on his.
I felt an urge to further explain myself. “This isn’t just about regulations, Rumbold.”
He lifted one corner of his cap to look at me questioningly. I could tell he didn’t believe me.
“I’m a stickler for rules, yes,” I admitted. “But this rock—it’s not normal. There may be plenty of odd things in space, but I want to know more about this one.”
“Well sir, we’ll satisfy your curiosity in the morning. Now, if you don’t mind...”
“Not at all.”
Rumbold was soon snoring, while I continued sifting through the constant trickle of sensor data. It was indeed an oddly shaped, frozen rock. It was about a kilometer across, and half that in depth. Except for its shape, the Solar System contained literally millions of comparable objects.
I could have let the rock go, but I didn’t want to give Captain Singh any excuse to tell me I’d failed to perform my assigned mission. Perhaps I was still stinging after being rebuked by him for chasing down the smuggler back on Earth. Whatever the case, I was determined to do a more thorough job this time.
After a few hours of reviewing data, Rumbold took over and manned the conn while I slept. Cutlass’ internal lights brightened gently several hours later, simulating a rising sun. All over the ship, my crewmen stretched and yawned. It was another glorious morning in the Guard.
“Any changes overnight?” I asked Rumbold.
It was part of his job to continue reviewing all the data the ship had stored up overnight. If anything serious had been detected, the ship would have awakened us for guidance. But there were always reports and details that the AI deemed less than critical, but which still deserved our attention.
“Fuel levels are one percent lower than expected,” Rumbold said. “Could be that the deceleration had a miscalculation, or that our engine chambers are leaking gas again.”
“What else?”
“The comet seems stable. During the night, it rotated twice as we approached. There are variations in the surface…hmm.”
“What?”
“Probably nothing,” he said. “A few chunks of debris have been detected in loose orbit around the rock.”
“What kind of debris?”
“Metallic objects—not large, but too big to be dust.”
I looked at him. “Something made it out of that ice coating? Could another object have struck it recently, breaking through to the core?”
He shrugged. “Possibly.”
“This is an opportunity,” I said. “Let’s pick up a sample.”
“The robot arm is malfunctioning, sir,” he pointed out.
“I thought that was on our to-be-fixed list.”
“It was, but we had to prioritize.”
“Let me guess: Jimmy didn’t want to suit up and go out there to do it?”
“Well, sir…”
“Jimmy!” I shouted aft. I didn’t bother using the intercom. I knew he could hear me.
“Coming, Skipper!”
Hand over hand, Jimmy propelled himself toward us using the loops and handles placed along the ceiling, and the back of each crewman’s seat. Cutlass was too small for artificial gravity of any kind, so we’d all become quite good at maneuvering in null-G.
Old Jimmy yawned and chewed a breakfast bar as I explained to him that he was going outside personally to gather one of those floating objects for me, since the arm was still out of commission.
My reasoning wasn’t lost on him. He knew the score. He hadn’t felt like going on a spacewalk for the last month, so now he was going to make up for that.
Without argument, he headed for the airlock. He sealed his suit with Rumbold’s help. A few minutes later he was outside, drifting around the ship on a tether.
Working in space is physically taxing. It’s rather like treading water. Your suit resists you, and you have to hold onto things to get leverage. The experience was uncomfortable, too. There were always hot and cold spots inside your suit. Often, your foot might be freezing while the back of your neck was burning. High-priced newly constructed spacesuits rarely had these difficulties, of course, but Cutlass wasn’t equipped with the best of the line. In fact, we had some of the most outdated suits you could find in the Guard.
Still, Jimmy worked stoically. He climbed out of the airlock dragging a specimen bag, a magnetic hook, and a long probe-stick. Working his way over the ship’s outer hull, he saw several of the objects drift by, but he couldn’t catch them.
Watching on our screens while we ate a dismal breakfast, Rumbold and I stayed alert. Any man spacewalking was in danger by definition. Quick action on our part could save his life if something went wrong.
W
hile watching, I noted something odd—a flashing object passed by.
“Was that one of the pieces of debris?” I asked over the com-link.
“Yes sir,” Jimmy confirmed, “that sure was. I can’t catch the fast ones. They’re orbiting the comet at a pretty good clip.”‘
Frowning, I tried to zoom in with the cameras, but failed to get a better image. I backed up the recent video cue instead, and was rewarded with several frames that depicted the object in question.
“Jimmy?” I called out.
“Yes, Skipper?” he grunted back. He was up high on the starboard sensor array, trying to get a good spot to catch one of the objects.
“What do those things look like to you?”
“I don’t know. Oblong, about the size of a flashlight, I’d say.”
“A flashlight? Are they metallic?”
“Yes, certainly. I thought that’s what we were looking for.”
I framed through the video, my mind racing. We had a dozen blurry frames, that was all, but that was enough. The object was regular in size and shape, with a bright metallic finish. Whatever it was, it had to be artificial.
I froze in my seat, staring at the spinning object captured on my monitor. Then I turned to Rumbold. I could see his bloodshot eyes bulging in my direction.
“It’s metal, sir,” he said, almost whispering. “An artifact—not high grade ore.”
“Refined, and presumably shaped into something purposefully. What have we found out here?”
“I don’t know, sir, but I’m fairly certain your hunch to investigate was a good one. To think that we almost gave some rock rat permission to salvage this find without—”
A siren went off then, startling us both. My screen flashed a red block of print on it. The block had two words stenciled in the center that displayed glaring, blinking words.
James Munoz, the red words repeated, James Munoz.
Jimmy was dead.
-9-
“All hands, emergency stations!” I shouted. “Rumbold, deploy the arm!”