Impact Event (Dargo Pearce Chronicles #1)

by David N. Frank

  Infiltrating the solar system itself covertly would be trivial, as the tiny colony had yet to install a Planetary Approach Network. The challenge was getting Pearce into a near enough orbit for a LOLO (Low-Orbit, Low-Opening) space jump. These were fairly common jumps for elite troops, but they usually entailed putting a ship into low orbit, or using a smaller dropship launched from a ship in higher orbit.

  That was out of the question in this case, because there was not a stealth ship in existence that could hide its emissions in any orbital vector. So they needed to come up with a different type of delivery vehicle. Upon careful analysis, the nature of the solar system in question provided the answer.

  Pearce had hitched a ride on a small stealth recon boat that had been modified specifically for the mission. The ship had carefully flashed-in to the system several light-days out to perform a system recon, taking careful note of everything that had changed since the last intel update.

  This solar system had a typical arrangement of terrestrial and gas giant planets, and an unusually high amount of asteroid belts indicating that eons ago there had been many more. One of the asteroid belts was within half a light-minute in-system of Nouveau Toronto, and after carefully scanning the system and the belt with passive sensors, the recon boat headed directly into the midst of a particularly dense area in the belt.

  With both movements the recon boat crew made sure to vector their ingress such that it hid their emissions and the directional flash pulses that accompanied any transition from FTL. As such, they shouldn’t be visible from the planet.

  This type of maneuver would have been futile in a more mature solar system. Even in smaller colonies that lacked a PAN it was still impossible to hide from a robust defense network spread across several AU. Despite the best attempts at true stealth in space, any starship had to face the immutable laws of physics regarding heat radiation. The recon boat had a temporary heat sinking system that could provide a few hours of infrared invisibility before having to be released; otherwise the crew would start to cook.

  The only reason this type of tactic made sense was that this system only had a minimal amount of planetary based detection equipment, and absolutely no space-based defensive systems aside from a handful of pickets. Even so, there was a chance of being detected optically, if a scope happened to be looking in just the right direction.

  The plan called for the recon boat to grab a suitably sized asteroid from the belt using an industrial-grade gravity tether which had been installed on the ship for this specific purpose. The gravity tether, usually used in commercial shipping and mining operations or with much larger warships, manipulated gravity in a localized field and could be used to push or pull another object near the ship.

  Using the tether, they picked a dark carbonaceous and oblong chuck of rock of about 50 meters in length that was large enough for the recon boat to hide behind. The engineers that had accompanied the ship’s crew then spent almost an entire standard day performing several EVAs in which they installed a special customized LOLO rig onto the surface of the asteroid.

  Once that part of the operation was completed, the ship with the asteroid in tow began a lengthy acceleration burn with its main engines, now carefully shielded from view of the planetary sensors of their target. They had picked the asteroid carefully so that the local star would be almost directly behind them on their approach to the planet, giving them free reign to radiate heat. Celestial mechanics meant that this vector would leave the asteroid blocking any view of the small ship or its emissions until they were almost at the launch point.

  Ten days of hard acceleration followed by 8 more of gentler deceleration put them almost within reach of the atmosphere. The recon boat, running cold now, had slowed their closing speed to roughly 12 km/s, slightly below the speed of an average asteroid travelling through the solar system. With about 6 hours to go, Pearce suited up and headed to the airlock.

  Now he prepared to make his small leap to his new ride planet-side. Taking a deep breath, he pushed up slightly with his legs while pushing outward forcefully with his hands on the edge of the airlock, executing a perfect release which slowly pushed him away from the ship and “down” towards the asteroid surface. This slowly reoriented his body so that by the time he touched down he would be facing towards it.

  His Virtually Intelligent Assistant automatically updated the crew of his actions and helpfully displayed on his implanted ocular heads-up display both a closing distance scale as well as a wire-frame interpretation of the surface of the dark rock he was slowly heading towards. Both his VIA and his OHUD were bleeding edge hardware, a generation ahead of the latest military spec. Price was no issue for Omega.

  As he floated, he relaxed his arms and legs and splayed them out as if he was a giant insect, slightly bent and in front of his body. He was dimly aware of the planet and its moons in the distance of his peripheral vision, rotating 90 degrees in place every few seconds and triggering a faint vertigo. He had spent days in VR simulations training on this insertion, but despite the incredibly convincing virtual reality effects Omega tech could provide there was no substitute for reality.

  He touched down on the surface and let his arms and legs collapse outward, stopping his velocity with his faceplate mere centimeters from the surface. It was a strange transition from free floating in space to suddenly feeling like he was rock-scrambling on a mountainside. The LOLO pod was a few meters “below” his current position, and he crab-crawled carefully across the asteroid’s surface towards it.

  Over the secure laser-directional radio he heard the pilot of the recon boat.

  “That’s one excellent landing, Legatus.”

  Legatus, the ancient Latin word for General, was Pearce’s code-name, humorously bestowed upon him in honor of his decision to join Omega and abandon any chance of actually getting promoted to the Brigadier General rank.

  “Not bad for a dust mite, I guess,” the first officer chimed in. The term was an inter-branch ‘insult’ used to refer to USC Army terrestrial soldiers. Pearce’s military career had started there, before he was selected for the 102nd which was technically a branch of the Fleet.

  “Well sure, of course that’s what I meant. A true-blue Marine wouldn’t need a leash for that hop. You gotta give credit where credit’s due, is all.”

  Pearce didn’t respond to the friendly banter, focusing on his hands and feet as he made it to the top of the drop-pod secured to the face of the asteroid and reached for the hatch mechanism. He waited for it to open, and then swung his legs carefully away from the hatch and pulled himself into the tiny, cramped compartment head first. Though his mind was telling him that he was entering from the “ceiling”, he was actually oriented properly to secure himself in the harness system which would keep him from being tossed around like a ragdoll during the atmospheric entry.

  The compartment was little more than a meter wide cylinder packed with equipment and with a human sized crash bed against one side, dark except for the glow of a few low powered lights. Now that was inside, his VIA detached the tether to the recon boat which began to slowly retract, slightly bumping against the hatch as it was withdrawn. Pearce began securing his harness and finally responded to the jabs.

  “Tell me boys, have you ever seen a Marine ride an asteroid down a gravity well before at a dozen klicks per second?”

  “No sir, definitely not.”

  “I believe they Section 8 anyone crazy enough to consider such a thing, sir. Marine standards and all.”

  “Funny, I thought Marine’s led the way,” Pearce said with a smile. “I guess the Corps will just be stuck cleaning up after the Army yet again.”

  As he finished harnessing in his restraints, his VIA automatically connected to the drop pod’s computer, closed and secured the hatch, and activated the life support system which connected several tubes and wires to Pearce’s survival suit. Icons on his OHUD switched from red to green marking each step complete.

  The pilot spoke up again,
all serious now.

  “Beginning countdown to launch. Good hunting, Legatus.”

  A new countdown timer started ticking down from 30 in the corner of Pearce’s vision. When it reached zero, there was no discernable effect but he knew that the recon ship would be using the gravity tether to induce a small but powerful repulsion which would, in accordance with the laws of physics, push both the asteroid and the ship in opposite directions.

  The carefully plotted maneuver would nudge the asteroid into a shallow atmospheric entry path while simultaneously pushing the recon boat on a coarse that would zip “closely” past the planet at around five-hundred megameters, far enough away to avoid detection with their systems all cold and stealth systems activated. The recon boat would spend another few hours coasting before jumping out of the system. Pearce would have to grab another ride home.

  The timer in his OHUD had changed once again, and now counted down just under six hours until the fun would start. Pearce closed his eyes and began to meditate before falling quickly into sleep.

  ***

  His VIA woke him ten minutes before the re-entry would start, just as the interior of the capsule made a hissing sound and began pumping g-force reduction liquid into the compartment. It would fill the entire interior of the drop pod with the specially designed immersion fluid which would help negate some of the effects the high g-forces Pearce would experience during his rapid deceleration.

  The fluid took several minutes to fill the compartment, while Pearce ran through various diagnostics and last minute checks. As the final minutes counted down, Pearce wished for a brief moment that he could see his approach to the planet. He had never jumped blind like this before. Then again, no one had ever jumped like this before. It was going to make one hell of a story, which he would never be able to tell.

  The final seconds ticked down, and then everything happened very quickly. The asteroid hit the upper atmosphere like a stone being hurled into water, and immediately the friction in front of the leading edge compressed gaseous elements and produced a tremendous heating effect which began to literally burn away the surface, leaving a fiery trail in its wake.

  The friction began to slow down the asteroid, which was now technically a meteor, but only slightly. Inside the drop pod, which was positioned at the exact “rear” of the meteor and mostly protected from the tremendous heat and flames, Pearce was bounced around as if inside a bartender’s shaker despite the restraints and immersion liquid.

  Just seconds after the re-entry began, but already thirty kilometers diagonally into the atmosphere of Nouveau Toronto, the pod ejected from the rear of the meteor with an explosive jolt and the g-forces really kicked in. The LOLO pod, now free of its mothership and in its natural environment, was still moving much faster than it was designed for and so a specially designed solid-fuel deceleration rocket quickly flared to life. The engine burn was masked by the fiery meteor trail and designed to rapidly reduce the pods speed from 12km/s to 5km/s in about sixty seconds. The meteor itself would only plummet for another ten seconds at its current speed, however, and so a further distraction was required.

  Two seconds after the pod separated from the meteor, explosives drilled into the core of the rock detonated, splitting one large chunk of falling rock into dozens of smaller ones, all heading in slightly different vectors and creating an enormous fireball in the sky, trails of fiery rain flowing as if a giant pyrotechnic had just exploded. On the ground, anyone or anything watching the skies would never be able to make out the relatively small rocket amidst all of the smoke and fire that crisscrossed the skies. They would simply assume that the meteor had exploded, as many similar sized ones naturally did.

  Inside the pod, the shockwave from the explosion added a few extra jolts that were almost impossible to differentiate from the rest of the g-forces and shuddering that were chattering Pearce’s teeth together no matter how hard he clenched them. Pearce thought that he would recommend a mouthpiece for anyone crazy enough to try this in the future. Despite the immersion fluid, he was also starting to see red on the edges of his vision as the pod was decelerating with close to 25g’s, and he was feeling at least ten of them. Next time maybe complete bodily fluid immersion, lungs and all, would be better.

  Ten seconds after the explosion, the flames were mostly gone from the skies, and the smaller pieces of the meteor had all burnt completely up. A few larger pieces made it all the way to the ground and left some sizable craters as they ended their journey as meteorites.

  The insertion had been carefully planned to occur over a remotely populated area to avoid collateral damage. Nevertheless, as the shock wave from the explosion reached the ground, it blew out windows and some eardrums and created a massive localized panic, causing minor injuries to several thousand people.

  This was all part of the plan to create enough cover for Pearce’s insertion. The high number of asteroids in this solar system meant that the citizens of Nouveau Toronto actually experienced several similar meteor events each year, some even bigger than the one that they had staged. The damage wouldn’t cause any suspicion, as it was just business as usual.

  After the sixty second burn used up the rocket’s fuel completely, it detached from the drop pod and several small explosives blew it into a series of pieces which plunged harmlessly towards the ocean below. The relief to Pearce in terms of the reduction of g-forces was immediate. The pod began to react instantly, discarding the primary heat shield and deploying braking flaps and maneuvering stabilizers now that it was falling at a more reasonable speed. A large drogue chute deployed behind the pod, helping it increase drag and reduce speed further. The telemetry displayed on his OHUD showed Pearce that he was perfectly on track for the primary LZ they had designated.

  The pod was still plummeting towards the sea below at a terrific rate, now at almost a ninety degree angle and only a few kilometers of altitude. Less than a kilometer above the surface, the pods integrated retro rockets fired, again slamming Pearce with an enormous amount of g’s. The three main chutes deployed, and the equipment pod holding Pearce’s gear for the mission was ejected with its own explosive bolts, and quickly it too opened a parachute.

  Again Pearce found himself on the edge of blacking out, his eyelids growing heavy. Finally the pod slammed into the water with a tremendous splash and quickly slipped beneath the waves, sucking its chutes down after it. The chutes trapped air underneath them and acting as ballast, looking like enormous jellyfish. A few seconds later the equipment pod splashed down more gently into the water, its own chute folding gently nearby like an accordion being pushed together.

  The pod finally reached neutral buoyancy around a hundred meters beneath the surface, even as the retro rockets continued their burn, furiously sending bubbles back to the surface. A few more seconds and it was slowly rising towards the surface again with creaks and groans as the pod cooled rapidly.

  As the pod rose, Pearce released the restraint harness that had down an amicable job of protecting him and his VIA ordered the pod’s computer to detach his life support lines. Even though he was now planet-side, the immersion fluid still gave him the illusion of microgravity. He watched as his depth rose steadily on his OHUD, and when it reached thirty meters beneath the surface his VIA informed him the hatch was opening. As the entire pod was filled with immersion fluid, there was no wild rushing in of water. The higher density of the fluid kept it in the pod and the water outside the hatch. With a firm shove he pushed himself backwards out of the pod and quickly crossed his arms across his chest to avoid banging them on the hatches edges.

  Since his suit was designed to be neutrally buoyant in the immersion liquid, he now was positively buoyant in the less dense water, and began to quickly float to the surface. The pressurized survival suit protected him from any of the dangers of rapidly rising in water, and he broke the surface quickly only a few meters away from his equipment pod, which floated nearby.

  Pearce quickly took stock of his surroundings, seeing noth
ing nearby except for the landmass several kilos in the distance he would soon be heading towards. He began swimming towards his gear, in as clumsy of a way as his survival suit would let him. He mentally asked his VIA for a detection report.

  No active sensor detection identified. After-action analysis suggests 99% confidence that stealth LOLO insertion was successful.

  Glancing at the intricate spider web of smoke trails that hung over the skies above the shore he was heading to, he agreed with the artificial intelligence. They hadn’t been painted by active scanning and there was no way anyone could have visually spotted them. The area they had landed in was away from populated areas and the only real risk they had run would have been if a seafaring ship of some kind had been in the area. The LOLO pod would even now be sinking to the bottom of the ocean, and the equipment pod would soon follow, leaving no evidence of the insertion behind.

  Pearce opened the equipment pod and removed a large, watertight black bag and a meter-long metal object shaped like a tube, then pressed the button that would flood the pod and sink it. The tube was actually a DPV, or diver propulsion vehicle, and had a small electric motor that forced water through an impeller system to pull an underwater operator at speeds far faster than possible by swimming.

  He maneuvered the bag awkwardly in his suit until it was near his back, where it attached quickly with powerful magnetics. He then grabbed the handles of the DPV and turned it on, while his VIA automatically reduced the buoyancy in his suit to drop him beneath the waves again. He leveled off at a depth of five meters and followed his OHUDs guide arrow towards land.