The soldering iron was for working on circuit boards, and while it had electric current powering it, only heat was produced externally. Pia didn't need Zee's help figuring out what was necessary. She began smashing the tool against a nearby strut, again and again until it cracked open and the wires sparked in protest. She touched the damaged soldering iron to the engine wiring, but nothing happened. Then she brought the tip to her finger and saw an arc form before swinging her hand away in pain.
Somehow she held on, her lips curled into a growl. “Alright, damn it, here goes nothing.” She wiped sweat off her face then placed the wet hand behind the wiring before touching the iron to it again. As soon as the arc formed, the last engine came roaring back to life, bringing cheers from the crew.
Barton, however, was not cheering. She wrestled with the controls, keeping Cerex stable mostly through instinct and sheer force of will. But now more problems cropped up and the room grew quieter.
“Engines one, two, and four have nearly finished their burns, but three has just fired up. We need to slow down more, we're showing some heat build up.”
“Heat? It's a rocket, of course it's hot.” interrupted Miller.
Vineland explained, “It's the atmosphere, Commander. Thin as it may be, the water vapor and volatiles are enough to cause plenty of friction at our speed. We'll need to jettison the rockets soon or they'll break up.”
“Don't you mean blow up, Colonel?" Theo chimed in, keeping a smile on his face despite his nerves.
“That too, yes,” deadpanned the Colonel.
“Charles, we need a new target before we lose the rockets.” Hixly had been watching the holos intensely and saw no sign of Occator crater, their planned landing site.
“Shit, she's right,” Barton said. “The partial burn threw us off course.”
“How far off?” asked Charles.
She did the calculations using her chip. “We're looking at a possible dark side landing.”
“No, gotta keep it daylit." Charles responded. "Heatshield temp is increasing, but manageable.”
“For now,” Barton sighed.
Santos chimed in, “what if we jettison just the three engines? Cut our weight and increase the effectiveness of the last one?”
“Yeah, because this wasn't hard enough already,” Barton cursed to herself, but Vineland cut her off.
“Do it, now. Only way we're gonna slow in time to stay daylit during landing.”
“Engines away. Hold onto your asses.” Sara said. Cerex groaned as the ship dealt with uneven stresses. “Anyone have a new target for me yet?”
“Theo, Gabe, you worked the topography maps, thoughts?” Vineland asked. “Keep in mind we have under two minutes to final descent.”
“How far off primary are we?” came Theo’s gruff voice.
“Two thousand kilometers, maybe more, east southeast.”
“From Occator?” Santos thought out loud, “mostly lowland plains, good for landing but not target rich.”
“Ahuna Mons,” Theo muttered, then again louder, “head to Ahuna Mons.”
“You want to aim for the tallest damn mountain on Ceres with an uncontrolled ship?” griped Santos.
“What's the matter, Gabby, scared?” Barton shot back. “Your call, Colonel. We're getting low on fuel.”
“Make it happen, Sara. Squeeze every drop out of engine three then hand control over to the drone jets.”
“Almost there, stand by…” Barton replied. Everyone held their breath as the five kilometer high mountain appeared on the horizon of the holo display. “Down to 150 km/hr, acceptable range for the drones, 140, 130…” Silence returned as the last engine stopped. “Jettisoning three, turning the controls over to the drones. Take us down, little friends.”
Pia’s face went pale as the sheer cliffs of the mountain first filled the holo. They had traveled over the Cererian nightside and were now the first humans to witness sunrise from the surface. The desolate landscape made the mountain loom like an alien monument, with massive craters to the north and south causing Ahuna Mons to appear even taller in contrast. Quickly rising over top was the same familiar Sun that had warmed Pia’s face on countless mornings, only here it was as diminutive as Ceres itself. The ultrathin atmosphere was faintly visible as a halo making the Sun appear to spit flecks of ash like a campfire.
Dozens of drones fired like welders’ torches around the ship, pushing and prodding it towards a flat surface. The seemingly random bursts suddenly became a single chorus as they joined together to halt Cerex at ten meters, followed by a soft landing on newly extended leg trusses. Pia’s muscles finally gave out and she fell from her makeshift harness, landing hard on the airlock door she climbed through less than half an hour earlier.
Chapter 2
“There you go, Pia,” Barton whispered, “open your eyes.” Pia felt her head throbbing and struggled to focus. “Where am I?” she asked, then closed her eyes again.
‘I should've climbed out of my pod, not you.’ Pia forced herself to look for who said it, but only Sara hovered over her. The rest of the crew had scattered to begin operations.
Then she felt him. A static electricity spread through her, tingling its way from bruised forehead to bleeding shins taking inventory.
'Zee?’ she guessed.
'Just checking in on you, sorry,’ he said.
'I appreciate it, but keep your sensor checks to yourself.’
The tingling stopped, and Pia sat up. She slid her hands down under a mylar blanket covering her legs. They came back up smeared with blood from her cuts.
“Mostly minor injuries,” Sara comforted her. “That was brave what you did. Stupid, but brave.”
Pia lay back down carefully, confused as to how Zee had entered her mind. She felt utterly exposed, all her barriers tossed aside like a child's toy lock. 'Clearly he hacked my mind, and easily. Is he still...here? That was terrifying, and disorienting, and exciting. God damn that was the most excitement I've felt in years!'
The ship was a swarm of activity in the days following the dawn landing. The plan had not changed despite the new landing site. Reconnaissance was the first order of business. A fleet of microdrones made constant trips in and out of the cargo bay. Gabriel drove three remote drills towards the looming monolith, while Theo installed stationary mining rigs around the landing site. Lara unfolded great expanses of solar paneling that had been pulled in for atmospheric entry. The pilots were with Miller and Coburn recording their first transmission back to Earth.
Meanwhile Pia began the process of converting her forest. The plants had to be reoriented now that Ceres provided natural gravity. The walls all folded down into platforms, so what was once circular forest floor now became a vertical greenhouse. Her muscles were used to leisurely strolls through dirt pathways, and they ached at the thought of daily watering.
Ahuna Mons kept watch over them like a sleeping titan, always drawing their attention and curiosity. Two days on Ceres had brought multiple sunrises due to the nine hour day. The going theory was an asteroid impact pushed Ahuna Mons up out of the crust like a see saw. The crater pressed down on a slab of material, forcing the rest up into a steep cliff nearly the height of the Rocky Mountains.
Pia visited the labs just as Gabe's bots climbed out of the crater and began ascending the base of Ahuna. As opposed to the reconnaissance rovers first used to explore the Moon and Mars, Gabriel's designs were a work of art. They looked more like fully stocked trucks with drilling equipment and storage spots for collection.
A thousand meters up, the surface became too steep and brittle. The rock wall broke apart under the wheels, sending debris floating off in explosive arcs across the landscape. A small ledge was located where the rover could anchor itself, and then the drill was deployed.
The outer layers of rock were pulverized before the drill met any serious resistance. Back onboard Cerex, Gabe sat at his desk directing the operation. He turned to Zee, who was monitoring recon drones at the next desk, and s
aid, “We’ve got a problem, come take a look at this.”
Pia stared over at Zee, watching his hands work like a conductor manipulating the holo display that surrounded him. Zee linked into the direct data feed and saw what Gabe was worried about immediately. The drill had stopped progressing, but appeared to be operating normally. “Could the depth sensor be broken?”
Gabe shook his head. “Cameras verify the depth, it's only three meters. No other sensors show any errors, the drill is working fine.”
“Maybe it just hit a hard deposit,” Zee suggested..
“That drill can go through anything.”
“You picking up that vibration pattern?” Zee pulled up a display of the seismographic sensors and swiped it onto a screen for Santos. “The drilling is making the surface unstable.”
“It’s still minor. When she pushes through it'll dissipate quickly.” Minutes passed but still it refused to budge, and the vibrations only grew stronger.
“You need to shut it down, try another spot Gabe,” Zee decided.
“Good idea,” Santos relented, but just as he said it the sensor warnings stopped. “There we go, broke through after all. Wait, now what's wrong with the sensors?”
Zee ran some diagnostics, then opted for a visual with one of his drones. Pia had been watching from across the room, but marched over after one look at the drone feed. She stood in disbelief for a minute while Santos tried to regain control over his drill bot.
Eventually Zee put a hand on Gabe’s shoulder, “the sensors are gone."
“What do you mean, gone?”
Zee swiped the video to the room's holowall, then turned Gabe’s head towards it with his hand. “A big chunk of the mountainside too." There was a gaping hole and a rumbling landslide slowly bouncing its way downhill.
“Great, first dig, already lost a bot,” Santos griped.
“Maybe we can salvage it, I'll take a look.” Zee redirected an incoming microdrone back out towards Ahuna Mons. There was no sign of the drill near the base of the landslide, so Zee flew up slowly in a zigzag pattern. Still nothing. He got to the drill site before halting the flight. A bright LED was activated and panned along the scarred fissure. “Gabe, take a look at this.”
“Found my bot?”
“Not even close, but we need to get another up there right now.”
“What's up?”
“Tell me what that looks like,” Zee gestured at the holo.
The landslide had opened a fifty meter long gash in the mountainside. The uncovered section looked smooth and glassy, and when the light shined a certain way it almost looked like…
"Diamond, or quartz most likely, it couldn't be diamond," Gabe stammered in disbelief.
“Does quartz usually break tungsten carbide drill bits?”
Gabe bolted up out of his chair. “Commander Miller, we need you down here immediately, sir.”
“What for, Santos?” Miller came through via chip.
“I think we may have just paid for the trip.”
Miller never moved so fast in his life, getting down to the tech labs just as Gabe was sending out another drill rig. One look at the exposed wall and Miller jumped up, forgetting the low gravity and groping awkwardly for a chair to pull himself back down. His normally strained face was actually relaxed and smiling. It looked as if his huge gamble on Ceres was going to pay off. “Time to change that report to Earth,” he joked, “damn good work Santos." Then switching to comm, 'Theo, get your ass back to Cerex.'
The news spread and everyone soon gathered in the tech labs. As they jostled for better views, Pia found herself pressed up against Zee's back. She tried to slide off him to the side when she felt him shaking. No one would have noticed unless they were actually touching him as she had.
Pia concentrated on the systems connecting them all, sifting through ship computers, wires, terminal displays, and finally the chips of the crew themselves. As her uniform rubbed across his shoulder, she could feel the presence of Zee's mind.
His electrical signature glowed much brighter than any of the others, flashing outwards into numerous networks at once. She reached out with her thoughts, directing their energy where she wished, and gently scanned his outgoing signals. His mind was organized, and powerful, but also heavily shielded. 'You're nervous,' Pia realized.
'And you're more surprising by the minute,' Pia heard Zee's voice in her head. She gave his shoulder a firm squeeze, then backed up out of the main pack.
Theo was like a big kid, dancing with nervous energy as he took over the controls. Determined not to lose this bot, he found a few meters of iron based rock above the gash, then shot a piton in as an anchor. With a line in place Theo positioned the drill off to the side of the exposed wall.
“I learned this move in Antarctica clearing away ice walls. Should work here, especially with the density gradient from diamond to this pumice slop on the surface.”
Pia went and sat down on the side of Zee’s desk, tucking her knees up to her chin as she watched the main holo. Zee glanced up at her and smiled before returning inward to his displays.
Theo continued explaining himself to Miller, who kept asking obvious questions to seem engaged while doing profit calculations in his back channel thoughts. “When the first drill hit diamond its computer cycled through different speeds and pressures trying to bust a hole through. It couldn't do shit to that diamond, but it did find a resonance frequency for a few seconds."
Miller nodded dumbly, his handsome face squinting in fake understanding. When it came to finance he was not to be messed with, but remained out of his depth in most other situations.
Theo got the drill up to speed and everyone held their breath. At first nothing much happened, with Santos merely calling out the depth periodically. Slowly a rumble could be heard in the lab, at first through the video feed, but growing more pronounced until the ship itself began to vibrate.
“Lot of movement here Theo," Miller said nervously, "are we in safe ranges?”
“Hell yeah, sir, same as a gentle earthquake, ship takes much worse anytime we fire the engines." Theo turned back to the displays. "Wooooooo, we got her shaking now though, don't we? C'mon, Ahuna, drop that dress and let us see what you're hiding under there!”
“Language, Theo, you're not on an oil rig anymore.”
“Sorry, boss.”
Just then all of the monitors and feeds went blank and the ship itself began noticeably shaking. Pia instinctively looked for a window, but found only gray walls. She impressed herself by mentally retrieving a station camera with the appropriate view. What appeared on the wall holo made an icy panic flood her body as she instinctively reached out to grab hold of something.
“Anyone else seeing this?” she managed to blurt out. All eyes that had been glued to the scrolling data monitors whipped around to see the projection. The whole screen gave an impression that the ship was launching back up into space, but then turbulence on the mountainside betrayed the true cause of the illusion.
The entire near side of Ahuna Mons was sloughing off in slow motion, a million tons of rock coming down like an avalanche. No one moved for what seemed an eternity, frozen in place watching the scene unfold.
Pia was the first to voice what they all must have been thinking. “Is that going to reach us?”
Theo’s booming voice was closer to a whisper, “Shouldn't, a slide that size on Earth would pancake us, but here it just won't have the steam. Shouldn't…”
Zee was rapidly doing the math with his enhanced network implants. “Theo’s right. Most of the material will pile up at the base, which will slow the rest even more. We're good.”
Slowly the debris settled and the dust scattered, some escaping the gravity well entirely, and what remained staggered the senses. The brain can often process something long before the mind is ready to accept it as reality. They all could see the mountain shining with countless reflected suns, each no brighter than a full moon due to Ceres’ distant orbit. But with no compara
ble sight existing, their minds simply groped for the words to describe what they plainly saw.
This time Miller was the first to find his voice. “It's fucking beautiful.”
“Language, boss,” smirked Theo.
Miller ignored him completely. “This is it. Game over. Earth belongs to Natocorps.” He ran both hands back through his gelled hair, disrupting the carefully manicured look. “I'm gonna be so fucking famous.”
Pia felt her stomach drop into her feet. 'Why did I ever agree to be a part of this?' she thought. In her head she had convinced herself this mission was just another step in an endless struggle for resources between soulless corporations. But she was looking at a diamond the size of a city, the consequences of which were staggering.
Back on Earth most precious gems had long since been mined, processed, and stockpiled. This discovery would let Natocorps buy out every last bit of competition several times over. Natocorps could now become the sole Globalcorps. 'What would that mean for what little remained of the natural world?' Pia thought.
For the briefest of moments, Pia wished the landslide would have crushed them along with the greed and ambition of Miller and all men like him. 'No, there are good people on board too,' she thought. No matter how self righteous she might be feeling, that was no excuse for what would essentially be murder.
Just then amid the growing jubilation, she noticed Zee staring at her from across the terminals. He often wore a glazed over look as he interfaced with his networks, so his current stare was dismissed by the rest of the crew. But this time his dark eyes were studying hers, causing Pia to force her glance down towards her boots as she shuffled in amongst the crew.
Theo was particularly gleeful and picked her up in his now famous bear hugs. When he let her down, Pia retreated as soon as she could without drawing undue attention to herself. She climbed down to the lowest platform and flattened her back against the cold metal wall.
Mission Cerex Boxset Page 5