Magwave (The Rorschach Explorer Missions Book 2)

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Magwave (The Rorschach Explorer Missions Book 2) Page 3

by K Patrick Donoghue


  Dante was the first to speak. “We just got off the phone with NASA. We need to talk.”

  “Fine, fine,” Amato said, resuming his path to the elevator. “Let’s do it inside before I melt.”

  On the ride up to the office level of A3I’s Command and Control Center, Dante filled Amato in on his conversation with Ed Chen at JPL. When he finished, Myers said, “Dr. Brock called as well. She said she needed to speak with you as soon as possible.”

  As the elevator doors opened, Amato nodded. “Yes, I imagine she’s anxious to talk. Go on ahead and ring her back and tell her we’ll call her in thirty minutes. I want to confer with Dante and Dennis first.”

  “She’s on hold on your office line,” Myers said.

  “Ah. Well, go on ahead and tell her I’ll be there as fast as I can shuffle.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  On the turtle-paced walk to his office suite, Amato asked Dante, “How big of an issue is it?”

  “I don’t think we can say yet.”

  “Dennis, you’ve been quiet,” Amato said to Pritchard. “What’s your view?”

  Hands stuffed inside the pockets of his khakis, the bespectacled Pritchard shrugged. “Hard to know without more data, but there’s a scenario where it could force us to scrub.”

  “I was afraid you might say that.”

  When they finally arrived at Amato’s office, the three men gathered at the meeting table at the far end of the room. Myers followed them in and activated the conference speakerphone to connect the waiting Dr. Brock. Then Myers left the office.

  Brock began the conversation by covering the same ground that Chen had discussed with Dante, but with more details than Dante had shared during the quick elevator ride. Amato listened without question or comment. He left that for Dante and Pritchard, and they did not disappoint. For fifteen minutes, they engaged the NASA chief in a robust scientific dialogue about pulsars, magnetars and gamma rays.

  As the conversation turned more technical, Amato’s thoughts began to drift. A magnetar…a magnetar. He imagined a twenty-kilometer-sized ball — small enough to comfortably fit on Mayaguana’s northern peninsula — rotating once every second. A magnetar of such dimensions would be three times heavier than the Sun. He could envision the hypermagnetic neutron star shooting out gamma rays like a disco laser ball. Get within reach of its electromagnetic beams and you’d be cooked. Dodge them and live to explore another day.

  “The first thing we need to do is isolate the source of the bursts,” Dante was saying, “then find out whether we’re dealing with a one-time event or one that’s ongoing.”

  “Agreed,” said Pritchard. “You’re thinking of sending the Recons ahead of Rorschach?”

  “It’s the only thing we can do.”

  “Unfortunately, Dante’s right,” Brock said. “Juno’s last position only gives us one data point, and we don’t have any other assets near Callisto. If it’s an ongoing phenomenon, you’re going to have to triangulate gamma readings from several spectrometers to pinpoint the source. The Recons are your best bet. You don’t want to sacrifice your Shield probes.”

  Amato winced at the thought of sacrificing any of his CubeSats traveling with Rorschach, but he understood Brock’s reasoning. Of the sixteen probes in Rorschach’s fleet, six were designated as Recon probes. These CubeSats were as long and wide as medium-sized surfboards and as thick as large roller-suitcases. Outfitted with a variety of instruments, they had originally been intended to detect anomalies in Rorschach’s path.

  “Do we need to sacrifice them all?” Amato asked. “I’d like to hold at least two of them back with the fleet. We may need them to back up the Shields.”

  While Rorschach’s onboard radiation shield would suffice for most of the journey to Callisto, it would need an extra layer of protection when it approached Jupiter’s massive magnetic field. The radiation streaming from the planet would eventually breach the ship’s unique shield design unless that shield was bolstered by six Shield CubeSats. The Shields were of similar dimensions as the Recons but the makeup of their components was different given their unique mission. The Shields would use ion-projecting magnets to form an ionosphere-like bubble around Rorschach and its four Cargo probes. Inside the bubble, VLF radio waves ejected by the fleet’s engines would bounce around, helping to block dangerous radiation.

  “I don’t think we have a choice,” Dante said. “We have to send all six Recons ahead. Besides, we can always launch replacements.”

  “They’d never catch up in time,” said Amato.

  “Not necessarily, Augie,” Pritchard said. “Until we know what caused the burst, and whether to expect further gamma bursts, it’s prudent to slow the fleet down.”

  “That’s right,” Dante said. “And if need be, we can have the fleet turn back and rendezvous with the Recon replacements before resuming the mission.”

  The call continued for several more minutes, during which time they discussed the risks associated with scanning the spaceport and its resident colony of UMOs for signs of gamma radiation. Given the UMOs’ known sensitivity to high-frequency radiation, there was a concern the UMOs would attack the probes, thereby wearing out Rorschach’s welcome before it arrived.

  When the call ended, Dante and Pritchard left to convene the rest of the Mission Control team to craft a plan for the gamma-burst hunt.

  Alone in his office, Amato loosened his tie and unbuttoned his sweat-dampened collar. Replaying the phone call in his mind, he recalled an exchange about magnetars between Brock and Pritchard. Magnetars, Brock had told them, are poorly understood. They are thought to be byproducts of supernova explosions, and most of them burned out long ago. “There are very few documented examples of spontaneous restarts and no consensus as to what triggers magnetars to wake up.”

  “If memory serves me,” Pritchard had said, “the reigning belief is that a disturbance in a neutron star’s magnetic field can reactivate a magnetar.”

  “Yes, but what causes the disturbance?” Brock asked. “The influence of a nearby neutron star? A gamma beam from an active magnetar or an X-ray beam from a pulsar? The pull of a black hole? The ripple of energy from a new supernova?”

  “I’m sure all of those are capable of triggering magnetic instability if they’re close enough and powerful enough.”

  “Yet none of those have been observed near a documented magnetar-restart.”

  Now Brock’s final words on the subject echoed in Amato’s mind. Leaning back in his chair, he mumbled, “Magnetar…I wonder…”

  CHAPTER 2: STING LIKE A BEE

  Set of Expedition to Callisto

  World Network News Studios

  New York, New York

  September 1, 2019

  In the production booth, the director gave the command to queue the title sequence of Expedition to Callisto, the weekly broadcast chronicling the Rorschach Explorer’s mission to the second largest of Jupiter’s moons.

  Since the show’s inception a month prior to the spaceship’s departure from Earth, the series known colloquially among viewers as XTC, or ecstasy, had become the most-watched program in the history of television and the Internet, with each successive week’s episode setting a new viewership record.

  Jenna Toffy, the show’s host, looked up from her notes to watch the familiar opening sequence on an off-camera television monitor. As the intro music played, a video of Rorschach flying through space appeared on the screen. Below the image, a caption read: Episode XII — Entering the Asteroid Belt. The voice-over announcer then teased the episode’s lineup of features and guests, and a montage of video and still images cycled on the screen, including shots of Rorschach, its crew, the Mission Control Center and, of course, UMOs.

  XTC’s viewers loved UMOs. They found the aliens’ honeybee-like behaviors fascinating. And their fascination had been rewarded with stunning clips of interactions between the UMOs, Rorschach and its fleet of probes during the early stage of the five-month journey to Callisto.


  Now, two months into the trek, Rorschach had arrived at the inner boundary of the asteroid belt. Powered by the breakthrough VLF propulsion technology and an additional speed boost provided by the UMOs, the ship had traveled 225 million kilometers in record time. And with 400 million kilometers left to go, the producers of XTC were anxious to shift viewer attention away from the UMOs and toward the mission’s ultimate goals: the exploration of the Nuada crater and the two mysteries inside, the abandoned Cetus Prime and an ancient spaceport built by a race of humanoid aliens that NASA had named Callistons. As such, the montage for tonight’s episode included not only the CubeSat photograph of the crater, but also renderings of both the ship and spaceport created by artists from five continents.

  While the director delivered last-minute instructions through her earpiece, Toffy watched the final two segments of the montage. The first was a slow-motion video clip of the three members of the Cetus Prime crew, Lieutenant Colonel Avery Lockett, Captain Nick Reed and Mission Specialist Christine Baker. The video was shot at a pre-launch picnic held in the crew’s honor at the Johnson Space Flight Center in September 1994. Less than a year after the video was recorded, the three astronauts were marooned on Callisto after clashing twice with UMOs in orbit around Mars. With little food and water left aboard the ship, and no means by which to return to Earth, the crew abandoned their crippled vessel and left in a Calliston spacecraft they discovered in the spaceport.

  That was twenty-four years ago.

  While the picnic video ran, the audio of the crew’s final message, recorded by Nick Reed, played in the background.

  “Well, folks, this is the last you’ll hear from us. Kind of sad we won’t see any of you again, but excited at the same time to start our new adventure. As angry as we were about what happened to us around Mars, it’s all good now. If things had gone differently, we wouldn’t have connected with the UMOs, they wouldn’t have led us here, we wouldn’t have discovered the spaceport or found our new ride.

  “It’s a slick-looking ship, and it comes with our own UMO hive. They’re actually useful little guys and gals, not the threats we made them out to be. So, we’re off to wherever Christine’s ‘beekeepers’ went, with our UMO hive leading the way. Not sure where that might be or how long it will take to get there, but we figured it was a better option than starving to death here. Anyhow, ’til we meet again, love to our families and friends. Be good to one another. Cetus Prime out.”

  As the audio neared completion, the picnic video clip faded and was replaced by computer-generated simulations of a male and female Calliston, the humanoids that Nick had dubbed “beekeepers” in his final message. The side-by-side CGI headshots were based on murals photographed inside the spaceport by Christine Baker on the crew’s first reconnaissance of the structure.

  Toffy didn’t care for the images. The studio’s graphic designers had cast dark shadows on the left side of the Callistons’ gray-green faces to give them a more mysterious look; Toffy thought the shadowing instead created a cold, sinister vibe that would lead their worldwide audience to believe the Callistons were evil. Better to portray them as friendly, she thought. It’ll drive better ratings. But she’d already waged that fight with the director earlier, without success.

  Shivers raced through Toffy as she stared at the lizard-like features of the Calliston faces one last time before the light atop the studio’s center camera flashed red. Then Toffy turned her head toward the camera and smiled, her eyes drifting to the teleprompter display below the lens. “Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to another edition of Expedition to Callisto. I’m your host, Jenna Toffy. On tonight’s program…”

  While two billion people across the globe settled in front of televisions, smart devices and computers to watch Toffy deliver the latest mission updates, another two billion people congregated in bars, theaters, stadiums and other public venues to do the same.

  Little did any of them know that the five crewmembers of the Rorschach Explorer were, at that very moment, engaged in a desperate fight for survival.

  Crew ready room — the Rorschach Explorer

  Flying through the asteroid belt

  225 million kilometers from Earth

  Colonel Paul Morgan examined the sullen faces of his crew. It had been two days since Mission Control on Mayaguana had delivered the news about Juno and the gamma burst. He’d done his best to focus his shipmates on executing their new instructions, but their frustration and disappointment had inevitably bubbled up. Kiera and Shilling fought like teenaged brats. Ajay moped around like someone had stolen his favorite Elroy T-shirt. Even the normally stoic Carillo exhibited signs of strain.

  Morgan sympathized with all of them. There was nothing he could do to change their circumstances — at least, not until the Recons located the source of the gamma radiation — but he could try to change their moods.

  He opened the storage container on the ready room conference table and addressed the crew. “I had hoped to save this surprise for our first night on Callisto, but I feel like we could all use a little pick-me-up now.” He pulled out the first pouch, looked at the label and tossed it to Ajay. “Don’t open it until I tell you.”

  “It’s pretty light. What is it?” Ajay asked.

  “You’ll see.”

  He retrieved two more packages and slid them across the table to Kiera and Carillo.

  “What are you up to, Paul?” Carillo said. “Where did the box come from? That’s not Mayaguana issued.”

  “Never mind that.” Morgan pulled the last two bags from the box and gave one to Shilling. “Bob, this one’s yours.”

  “I’ll bet it has something to do with the other boxes he took into the cargo bay this morning,” Ajay said.

  “What boxes?” Kiera asked.

  “Boxes like that one.” Ajay pointed to the empty container on the table.

  Morgan removed it and sat down. He picked up the last remaining pouch, the one labeled Skywalker. Holding it up, he said, “Now, I want you all to return to your cabins and open up your packages. Follow the instructions inside, then meet me at the cargo bay airlock in ten minutes. Is that clear?”

  Instead of a chorus of assents, the four astronauts gave Morgan the fisheye.

  “Cargo bay airlock,” he repeated. “Ten minutes. No exceptions. Dismissed.”

  Morgan completed his change of clothes in two minutes and headed for the cargo bay to make the final preparations. While his magnetic boots looked ridiculous with his Bermuda shorts and Hawaiian shirt, they did prevent him from floating away as he clanked down the magnetic flooring of Rorschach’s center corridor.

  He ducked his way through the airlock and emerged into the cargo bay. After admiring his decorating handiwork, he turned to the intercom panel and worked his way through the touchpad menu until he located the desired option. He pressed the icon and the sounds of ukuleles began to echo in the bay. If he’d entered the command correctly, the same music could now be heard throughout the ship. A smile crossed his face as he dipped his hand in the box beneath the panel, withdrew one of the plastic flower leis, and draped it around his neck. Adorned with magnetic beads, the lei lay flat against his chest, pulled by magnetic sensors woven into the shirt.

  Morgan retrieved the remaining leis and passed back through the airlock to wait for his crewmates to arrive for the party. He knew they’d be late, but that was okay. He was sure they would read and reread the handwritten notes tucked inside their party gear.

  Ajay was the first to appear from the ship’s center-cross-section corridor where their cabins were located. He sported a red Hawaiian shirt embellished with images of the sixties cartoon character Elroy, Ajay’s alter ego. Morgan was happy to see the tailored shorts fit the string-bean thin Nepali, as the measurements had been estimated by Ajay’s mother. In Ajay’s hand, he clutched a dozen notes family and friends had written before they launched. He beamed as he pointed at Morgan. “You’re da man, Skywalker!”

  “Mahalo,” Morga
n said with a smile and a bow. He draped a lei around Ajay’s neck and invited him to join in greeting the rest of the crew.

  Next to arrive was Carillo. Her Hawaiian shirt looked a little loose on her lithe frame, but the shirt’s design turned out better than Morgan had expected. Against the deep blue background was a repeating pattern of images: headshots of her husband, her two teenaged daughters, the Carillos’ horse, Lucy, and the family Labrador, Linus, along with pictures of the Carillo family horse farm. She didn’t carry her notes, but she dabbed her eyes with a tissue as she walked down the corridor. In the tight curls of salt-and-pepper hair by her ear, she had anchored the plastic magenta orchid with bobby pins included in her pouch.

  When she reached Morgan, she wrapped her arms around him. “This is too much.”

  He hugged her and put on her lei. As she admired the lei’s matching magenta orchids, she took a closer look at Morgan’s shirt and laughed out loud. “Are those lightsabers?”

  Kiera and Shilling stepped into the hallway at the same time — the five-foot-three Kiera from her cabin on the starboard side of the corridor, the six-four Shilling from the port side. What an odd pairing. Kiera’s sun-bleached hair and tan had faded early in the flight, but she still carried herself with beach-bum ease as she sauntered toward the cargo bay. By contrast, Shilling’s skin was so pale it almost glowed, as if he’d never set foot on a beach in his life, and his posture was stiff and formal.

  For the first time in three weeks, however, Morgan saw them smile at each other. He had worried one or the other wouldn’t get into the spirit of the occasion, but from the looks on their faces, the tension between the two appeared to have thawed. They were even pointing to the images on each other’s Hawaiian gear and chatting. Kiera’s shirt was pink, with pictures of paddleboarders and beach umbrellas. Shilling’s shirt had been the toughest to design, because Morgan knew so little about the man, but a consultation with the scientist’s wife had resulted in the perfect solution: a baby-blue background featuring crayon artworks drawn by his five-year-old son and eight-year-old daughter.

 

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