resin out of it around the ring.
He kept heating the resin to begin the cure, shaping it around the joint, then switched the heat off and watched the white blob begin to solidify. “How’s that look, skip?”
“Looks good. Come on in.”
Jerem cleared the ejector and holstered his glue gun. He closed up the maintenance hatch and locked it down, pushing the lock into place. He took a moment to look around, spotting Jupiter glowing brightly off to the side. The milky way cutting a bright path overhead. Antares burning redder than Mars beside it.
He kicked off and began boosting around the shield. The Sisters of Mercy still playing “First and Last and Always”.
016
Lighthouse.
“I know, Mrs. Bruno. Right now, we’re just trying to make sense of the logs. We’re broadcasting and looking for signal. We’re looking into sending a ship…”
Chloe Bruno was crying. This was one of the hardest pieces of news Mancuso had ever had to deliver in his long career. There had been accidents before on the station – even fatal ones – but they’d known what happened. Right now, he just didn’t know anything for sure.
She wiped her tear-streaked face. Her youngest daughter, Raven was sitting on her knee, almost ten years old. “Is daddy alright? Are you alright, mommy?”
“You have to do something to … to see if there’s anybody out there. They could be in a shuttle or …”
“I know Mrs. Bruno.” They didn’t have shuttles. Or escape pods. And it would take days to get a ship into position and worse, the vectors would be complicated to match up, if not impossible. He didn’t want to tell her that though. “We’re doing everything we can from here. I’ll be in touch as soon as we have anything new.” He wanted to give the woman a hug. He killed the channel and sat back in his chair, exhaling loudly. Fingers digging into his forehead.
Two terrible calls to the surface out of the way. What’s next on the menu? He was in the small boardroom on Lighthouse off the command deck. The lights were dim and he sat there rubbing his chest absently.
His pad said he had two missed calls from Dr. Powell. Both marked urgent. He activated a connection and put it on the screen in front of him. Doctor Tadeuz Powell replaced the dialling screen almost immediately, pushing his glasses up his nose. “Hello David. I’ve been trying to reach you.”
“Hi Tad. What have you got for me?” He waited for a count of three for the reply to make it back up. They were on the other side of the planet and bouncing their signal out to a comms satellite in high orbit and back. Communications from orbit sometimes required patience and touch of protocol. The lag would drop in a few minutes.
“I heard the news about Pandora. Funny timing. Some of my students spotted something on an intercept trajectory with your ships.” Powell was fidgeting with something on his desk off camera, a light tapping sound came over the speakers.
This is not the conversation Mancuso was expecting. “Go on…” three second pause. He felt a dizziness completely separate from the slow turning of the station’s ring section.
Powell took a sip of coffee and put his cup down. “The students, Emma Franklin actually, found this thing while reviewing logs from Olympus as part of her course work. She and her friends plotted it. She figured out it was going too fast to be an asteroid in any regular orbit.” He waved his tablet’s stylus in the air in front of him. “I think it was Pohl that figured out the intercept part.” More tapping.
Mancuso recognized the names immediately. His stomach rolled not for the first time that day and he fought down some heart burn and a feeling of nausea. “An object?” Pause. “What are you talking about? A rock? Comet?”
The pauses were getting shorter. “We don’t know what it is. I reviewed their data and it looks solid. The object is moving across the near belt in an almost straight line. Very fast.
He kept heating the resin to begin the cure, shaping it around the joint, then switched the heat off and watched the white blob begin to solidify. “How’s that look, skip?”
“Looks good. Come on in.”
Jerem cleared the ejector and holstered his glue gun. He closed up the maintenance hatch and locked it down, pushing the lock into place. He took a moment to look around, spotting Jupiter glowing brightly off to the side. The milky way cutting a bright path overhead. Antares burning redder than Mars beside it.
He kicked off and began boosting around the shield. The Sisters of Mercy still playing “First and Last and Always”.
016
Lighthouse.
“I know, Mrs. Bruno. Right now, we’re just trying to make sense of the logs. We’re broadcasting and looking for signal. We’re looking into sending a ship…”
Chloe Bruno was crying. This was one of the hardest pieces of news Mancuso had ever had to deliver in his long career. There had been accidents before on the station – even fatal ones – but they’d known what happened. Right now, he just didn’t know anything for sure.
She wiped her tear-streaked face. Her youngest daughter, Raven was sitting on her knee, almost ten years old. “Is daddy alright? Are you alright, mommy?”
“You have to do something to … to see if there’s anybody out there. They could be in a shuttle or …”
“I know Mrs. Bruno.” They didn’t have shuttles. Or escape pods. And it would take days to get a ship into position and worse, the vectors would be complicated to match up, if not impossible. He didn’t want to tell her that though. “We’re doing everything we can from here. I’ll be in touch as soon as we have anything new.” He wanted to give the woman a hug. He killed the channel and sat back in his chair, exhaling loudly. Fingers digging into his forehead.
Two terrible calls to the surface out of the way. What’s next on the menu? He was in the small boardroom on Lighthouse off the command deck. The lights were dim and he sat there rubbing his chest absently.
His pad said he had two missed calls from Dr. Powell. Both marked urgent. He activated a connection and put it on the screen in front of him. Doctor Tadeuz Powell replaced the dialling screen almost immediately, pushing his glasses up his nose. “Hello David. I’ve been trying to reach you.”
“Hi Tad. What have you got for me?” He waited for a count of three for the reply to make it back up. They were on the other side of the planet and bouncing their signal out to a comms satellite in high orbit and back. Communications from orbit sometimes required patience and touch of protocol. The lag would drop in a few minutes.
“I heard the news about Pandora. Funny timing. Some of my students spotted something on an intercept trajectory with your ships.” Powell was fidgeting with something on his desk off camera, a light tapping sound came over the speakers.
This is not the conversation Mancuso was expecting. “Go on…” three second pause. He felt a dizziness completely separate from the slow turning of the station’s ring section.
Powell took a sip of coffee and put his cup down. “The students, Emma Franklin actually, found this thing while reviewing logs from Olympus as part of her course work. She and her friends plotted it. She figured out it was going too fast to be an asteroid in any regular orbit.” He waved his tablet’s stylus in the air in front of him. “I think it was Pohl that figured out the intercept part.” More tapping.
Mancuso recognized the names immediately. His stomach rolled not for the first time that day and he fought down some heart burn and a feeling of nausea. “An object?” Pause. “What are you talking about? A rock? Comet?”
The pauses were getting shorter. “We don’t know what it is. I reviewed their data and it looks solid. The object is moving across the near belt in an almost straight line. Very fast.
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