The Stars That Beckon

by Kevin J Simington

  “Ms Tyler. I am not a monster. I assure you; I feel a deep sadness at our inability to assist. But I cannot risk this ship and the lives of everyone on board. This mission is the result of centuries of blood, sweat and toil. It is mankind’s crowning achievement. It will carry humanity to the stars and open a new epoch for the expansion of the human race. I will not, I must not, throw all that away on the kind of risky venture that you propose.”

  “Coward,” muttered Martinez.

  “I beg your pardon?” said Wisecroft, indignantly.

  “You heard me. You were willing to leave three of us behind on the moon, to save your own skin, and now you’re doing the same to millions of people!”

  “You’re way out of line, Martinez!” shouted Wisecroft, standing to his feet and pushing his chair violently backwards. “I won’t stand for that kind of insubordination!”

  “Then sit back down,” said Martinez.

  Kit interjected before things escalated any further. “So is that it? Is the decision final? We’re not going back to help? We’re not even going to try?” She looked around the table. “Does no one else have a problem with this?”

  There was silence, although a few people seemed uneasy and could not look Kit in the eye. She shook her head in disgust and turned to go. “Let’s get out of here! I don’t want to even breathe the same oxygen as these people!”

  “Wait,” said Zac. Everyone turned to look at him. They had forgotten he was even there. “How many shuttles have we got?” No one spoke for a moment.

  “Ten,” answered Captain Christensen, finally. “But we only have two shuttle pilots.”

  “Three including me,” said Kit, turning back around.

  “Plus the pilot and co-pilot of Genesis would be capable of flying a shuttle,” added Martinez.

  “I’ve been scanning the biochip data of our passengers,” said Lance Catrell, indicating the data tablet in his hand. “Two of the engineers who were attached to Armstrong Research Facility have shuttle pilot qualifications.”

  “That’s seven,” said Martinez.

  “Wait!” said Wisecroft. “What’s this about? What are you suggesting?”

  Zac looked at the command team seated at the table. “If we can’t save everyone, we can at least save some. The shuttles could get in and out before the asteroid strikes. Seven shuttles equates to 350 people we could rescue. That’s 350 more people that we could take with us.”

  There was silence as people considered this.

  “No,” said Wisecroft. “I won’t allow it. The same issue is at play. You risk having our shuttles destroyed by missile strikes.”

  “Not all our shuttles,” said Christensen, with a meaningful look at Wisecroft. “And if we don’t send our pilot and co-pilot, we would only be risking five shuttles. Even if the worst happened, and we lost all five, we would still have five shuttles and two pilots.”

  Lance, who had been furiously working some calculations on his tablet, spoke up. “The asteroid’s orbit is decaying faster than expected. It must be because of the tether cable. It’s going to impact in a little over three hours.”

  “What acceleration are your shuttles capable of?” asked Kit.

  “Five Gs,” said Christensen, “and they are equipped with inertial dampening.”

  Kit took out her pocket tablet and crunched some numbers. “At five Gs, with a midpoint flip, plus time for re-entry, we could be landing ...” she paused while she did a further calculation, “in two hours, 10 minutes.”

  Christensen said, “Genni, please confirm Ms Tyler’s calculations.”

  A pleasant female voice responded immediately, seeming to emanate from the ceiling and walls. “Ms Tyler’s calculations are incorrect. It would take a minimum of two hours eleven minutes, provided the desired landing site was at the optimal point in the Earth’s rotation.”

  “Yeh, but you haven’t seen me flip!” said Kit defensively, looking up at the ceiling.

  “What about a landing site?” asked Lance, scratching his head through his Space Odyssey baseball cap. We would need to find an area free of radiation, with a landing strip still intact.”

  Christensen answered, “From the satellite images that we’ve seen, New Zealand, Tasmania and some of the Pacific Islands look unscathed.”

  “This discussion is completely moot,” said Wisecroft. “I won’t authorise the use of our shuttles for such a risky operation.”

  “But I will,” said Christensen, staring down Wisecroft. “I’m the Captain of this vessel, and I will not stand by and do nothing when it is within our power to help.”

  “I am the Commander of this mission!” said Wisecroft, the beginnings of a belligerent whine creeping into his voice.

  “Are you?” said Christensen. “You were never intended to be the Commander. You were slated as the science advisor for this mission. Commander Lazenby would have been in charge, had he not perished on Kepler Station. I think that leaves the issue of ultimate command wide open, don’t you?”

  “This could be construed as mutiny, Captain Christensen!”

  “No, Dr Wisecroft. It can only be mutiny if there is a clear chain of command, which there currently isn’t, and we certainly don’t have time to resolve the issue now. If this rescue mission is going to happen, we need a quick decision.” Turning to Kit, he said. “You have a go.”

  “What about reverting to Plan A?” she asked hopefully. “Using Genesis to move the asteroid?”

  Christensen responded, “Sadly, I have to agree with Dr Wisecroft on that issue, but for different reasons. Our push field generator is only designed to withstand high-velocity particle bombardment while travelling at a significant percentage of the speed of light. It would offer no real protection from something as massive as an asteroid. Your shuttle mission is our only real option.”

  Christensen stood up. “We’ll need to hurry. I will send down the two shuttle pilots from our crew. Mr Catrell, please mobilise the two engineers with shuttle training from your team. I’ll have my comm chief advise the shuttle bays to have the vehicles ready to launch ASAP. We’ll sort out landing destinations while the shuttles are én route. Let’s go, people! We haven’t got a minute to lose!”

  Everyone ran out of the room, except Simon Wisecroft and George Leonidis, both of whom remained sitting. Wisecroft was a vision of smouldering rage. He looked at his chief of security and said, “We’re going to have to do something about them, George.”

  “Yes sir,” replied Leonidis.

  23

  The shuttles had flipped 30 minutes earlier and were now approaching Earth under extreme deceleration. If it wasn’t for the inbuilt inertial dampening systems, the crews would be experiencing extreme discomfort. Landing sites had been allocated: three sites in New Zealand—Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch—as well as Hobart in Tasmania, and Noumea in New Caledonia. Those towns and cities had not received nuclear strikes, and prevailing weather patterns had not yet blown fallout their way. Each of the five shuttles had a pilot and a volunteer trainee co-pilot, the latter being the result of a last-minute decision, recognising the need to train more shuttle pilots. Kit turned to her co-pilot and said, “Do you think you’ve got a handle on the basics now?”

  “I think so,” Zac answered.

  “Just remember, let the computer do all the hard work for you.”

  “Sure.”

  Zac had volunteered, partly because he couldn’t sit back and allow others to go into danger when it had been his idea. And there was no doubt that this was a dangerous mission. As the shuttles hurtled earthwards, Zac was intensely aware that this could end very badly. He glanced at Kit beside him and wondered how she managed to look so calm; he was sure his heart rate was through the roof. I wonder if this is how all “heroes” feel? he wondered. Maybe all the heroic deeds throughout history were simply carried out by people who were equally terrified but refused to give in to the fear? Is this how Pliny the Elder felt as he and his men sailed towards the shores of Pompeii t
o rescue the citizens from Vesuvius’s deadly eruption? Was his heart pounding like mine? Zac reflected that Pliny never made it out alive. Hundreds of people were rescued by the lifeboats that day, but Pliny was overcome by poisonous fumes and died on the beach. He glanced back over his shoulder at their space-age lifeboat and sent up a silent prayer that they would all make it back to Genesis safely.

  He glanced again at Kit and was acutely aware that, as a history professor, he had no real skills to contribute to the mission. At least by training as a shuttle pilot, he might prove useful at some point. He also hoped that doing something like this would take his mind off the tide of grief and hurt that threatened to overwhelm him. He felt a terrible numbness deep in his soul. How could I have been so naive to believe that someone as vivacious as Annisa could love someone as boring as me? I was a fool! I was naïve! She must have been laughing behind my back the whole time!

  Kit looked at him, sensing some kind of inner turmoil. “You haven’t told me how you ended up wandering around the moon in a drugged stupor.”

  “I told you. They drugged me.”

  “Yeh, but why?”

  Zac wondered how much he should share. Oh well, it’s going to come out sooner or later, he thought. He took a deep breath and let out a long sigh. “My wife was one of the terrorists. She blew up the fusion reactor. She murdered hundreds of people.” He stared straight at Kit, gauging her reaction, waiting for her to register disgust and loathing. There was a long pause while Kit digested the information, the wheels of her mind spinning.

  “And they thought you were involved?”

  “Yes. She and some other staff went missing on the base. Wisecroft thought I would know something.”

  “But you didn’t.”

  “No. I am a naïve idiot. She fooled me for three years.”

  “Don’t beat yourself up. It sounds like she fooled everyone.” Kit glanced at him again. “Did you love her?”

  “Yes. At least I loved the idea of her; the ‘her’ that she presented to me. But it wasn’t the real ‘her’, was it? It was a pretence. A false persona. I fell in love with a fraud. What does that say about me?”

  “I think it says that you’re normal. Better than normal, actually. It says that you have a heart that’s ready and willing to trust, and to love, and to give yourself to someone. And that’s a good thing. Don’t lose that.”

  Zac looked at her with raised eyebrows. “When did you become a counsellor?”

  “You haven’t seen my bill yet,” she said with a smile.

  The comm pinged, and Lance Catrell’s voice impinged on their counselling session. “Kit, do you copy?”

  “Yeh. Go ahead, Lance.”

  “What’s your timing on landing?”

  “Two more minutes’ deceleration and then we commence re-entry. Given that we will be well below orbital velocity by then, we should be landing in about 12 minutes from now.”

  “Copy that.” He paused. “Kit, the situation is changing rapidly. Satellite images indicate that the tether cable has broken up. There are three sections, each at least 50 kilometres long, that are falling separately now. They are going to impact the Earth prior to the asteroid.”

  “When and where?”

  “Our computer modelling indicates four separate impacts. American Samoa in 22 minutes. The Solomon Islands in 24 minutes, and Papua New Guinea in 25 minutes from now. The asteroid will impact somewhere near Singapore a few minutes later.”

  Kit swore. “That hardly gives us any time on the ground!”

  “That’s correct,” said Lance. “The shock waves from the tether cable impacts will be travelling at 30,000 kph. They will reach your landing sites within two minutes after each impact. That means that each of you has a maximum of only seven minutes on the ground before you need to launch. I’ve patched the other shuttles into this transmission. Shuttle Four, you’re landing at Noumea. You will only have five minutes on the ground. Do you all copy?”

  One by one, each of the shuttles acknowledged the message. Lance continued. “Good. This means you will have to grab whatever civilians are closest, on the tarmac and in the nearest terminal buildings. Bundle them into your shuttle and then get the hell out of there. Do not wait for anyone! Do you understand?”

  The shuttle pilots all acknowledged, and Lance signed off, wishing them all good luck.

  “We’re gonna need it,” Kit said to Zac. “Tighten your seatbelt, Doc. I hope you didn’t have too much to eat for lunch, because I don’t think even the inertial dampeners are going to cope with the manoeuver I’m about to pull off.”

  24

  Elizabeth Canning was normally a patient woman, but her patience had finally run out. She looked at the faces around the conference table and said, “I’m giving the order to leave the shelter. It’s been five hours since the EMP knocked out our electronics, and we have no idea how long until communications will be restored. It might be days, weeks or even months. In the meantime, we are blind and deaf down here, and we are not doing anyone any good.”

  “But Madam President,” said General Armitage, “the surface could be radioactive. We have no way of knowing if it’s safe.”

  “We have no way of knowing anything down here, General,” responded Elizabeth. “I will not hide in a hole in the ground. Besides, at no point have we felt tremors indicating detonations near us. I suspect New Zealand has been spared, and, if that is the case, I will not go down in history as the president who stayed in hiding when the world above needed her.”

  She looked around the table. “We will leave the technical staff down here to continue attempting to restore communications, but it’s time for us to leave. Let’s open the rabbit hole and see what has become of our world.”

  Five minutes later, surrounded by her security team and her war cabinet, she stepped out of the lift in a concrete bunker built into the side of a hill. They emerged into a grey, overcast afternoon. At first, they could perceive no difference from any other typical New Zealand late afternoon. But as they stood looking around them, two differences gradually became apparent. First, there were no engine noises of any kind. No planes overhead, no cars on the nearby country roads, no compressors or man-made noises. Just an eerie silence. The electromagnetic pulses from nuclear detonations all over the world had completely fried even the simplest of electrical circuits. The second difference was the clouds. Far above the scattering of low cloud, there was an ugly, dark-brown cloud layer that covered the entire sky, seething and roiling, in constant motion. Looking at her watch, Elizabeth realised it was only a little after 2 in the afternoon, yet the darkness made it look like early evening. She turned to her entourage. “Does anyone have any suggestions about how we can get into town? I don’t suppose any of these vehicles with modern computerised engines are going to be working,” she said, indicating the adjacent hangar full of government cars.

  One of the base staff spoke up. “Ma’am, we have a restored 20th century vintage bus behind the hangar. It’s EMP-proof—no electronic circuitry of any kind, just a very basic combustion engine. It’s been maintained in pristine condition for such an emergency.”

  “Good. Bring it around.” Turning to one of her security team, she said, “Bring my daughter up. I’m not going anywhere without her.”

  Fifteen minutes later, the president of the Democratic Alliance of Nations arrived in Wellington in a 1965 Dodge bus, along with her war cabinet and security team. As they drove through the city streets, there was an eerie silence. No vehicles were moving. No machinery could be heard. The sound of their engine echoed off the walls of the buildings. People were milling about on the sidewalks and standing in the streets, looking around them in puzzlement.

  “Where to, ma’am?” asked the driver.

  “Take me to the city council buildings,” said Elizabeth. “I want to speak to whoever is in charge.”

  Five minutes later, they pulled up outside the council building in Wakefield Street and disembarked. Puzzled shopkeepers and offic
e workers were standing around on the sidewalk. Computers were down. Electricity was blacked out. Nothing was working. The city had ground to a halt. Walking into the reception area with her entourage, Elizabeth asked directions to the mayor’s chambers. A large Maori man who had been standing at the window, looking out into the street, turned and said, “No need. I’m the mayor. Lionel Tuatini.”

  “Elizabeth Canning,” she said, holding out her hand.

  “I know who you are,” he said, shaking her hand. “What’s happened?”

  “The Caliphate launched a full-scale attack. There has been a major nuclear exchange.”

  “Why weren’t we warned?” he asked.

  “I’m sorry. There was no warning for anyone.”

  “How bad is it?”

  “I honestly don’t know,” Elizabeth admitted. “But it can’t be good. At the point when we lost comms there were literally hundreds of missiles in flight. Even if only a quarter of those made it through to detonation, we are all in for a pretty grim time.”

  As she spoke, they became aware of a growing roar. An aircraft of some kind flew directly overhead, rattling the windows. They ran out onto the street and saw an impressive-looking space shuttle banking towards the south-east, lowering its landing gear.

  “How can that shuttle still be flying?” Elizabeth asked.

  “No idea, ma’am,” answered General Armitage. “But that might just be our ticket out of here.”

  “Let’s get to the airport,” she said. “Are you coming, mayor?”

  “No. I need to stay and coordinate essential services. But please keep me informed if you can, Madam President.”

  Lionel watched the ancient bus as it roared down the street. He had no idea that he only had minutes left to live.

  25

  The shuttle came screaming in across the city, low and fast. Kit spotted the airport to the south-east and banked hard left to line up the runway. She struggled with the controls, saying, “These things are a dream in space, but they fly like a brick in an atmosphere.” The Genesis shuttles were capable of making a vertical landing, using landing thrusters located on the underbelly, but that kind of manoeuvering took far too much time—time Kit did not have. They would have to make a high-velocity touchdown. As they made their landing approach, she suddenly swore.