Back | Next
Contents

19

From the Global News Network

“It has been over a week since contact was lost with the Prospector spacecraft, the civilian expedition mounted by billionaire immigrants Max and Jasmine Jiang.

“The Prospector Foundation’s mission control center has not only lost voice communication with the Jiangs, they have lost nearly all telemetry with the spacecraft. An active ‘carrier wave,’ indicating at least one ultra-high-frequency channel remains open, is their only indication that the spacecraft is in fact still there and somewhat functional. Without telemetry or voice communication, there is no way to know if the Jiangs are still alive.

“That in itself is enough to occupy the technicians in Palmdale. What has become even more troubling is the open radio channel is essentially a beacon that allows them to track the spacecraft’s movement. Now due for a correction burn that would have taken them past Mars, something has altered their trajectory enough that there is now a high probability they will instead crash into the Red Planet.

“The American Space Force has dispatched their only crewed rescue spacecraft, the USS Borman, on a high-speed course that will intercept Prospector and save the Jiangs—assuming they are still alive.”


The aggressive duty schedule they’d implemented to keep Borman running on a skeleton crew might have been exhausting if anyone had the time to realize how tired they were.

For Marshall, it had become an unexpected and exciting opportunity: For the first time, he was able to work at the pilot’s station. Though it had come about by accident and absolute necessity, he relished every moment—even if it were only monitoring what the spacecraft had already been programmed to do. That was modern flying anyway: watch the machine fly itself and be prepared to intervene if it broke or tried to do something stupid.

He’d been rotating duties at the flight deck every twelve hours with Wylie, with occasional relief from Poole himself. As they’d drawn closer to their destination, that had happened more frequently: He and Wylie would have to set out with the rescue spacers aboard Specter, meaning they’d be doing the hard flying while leaving Poole and a couple of engineer’s mates behind to mind the ship.

The tension between necessity and opportunity gnawed at him. Marshall was torn between the gravity of the task and his excitement for it. The anticipation had threatened to become all-consuming as the bright speck of RQ39 grew steadily larger—originally invisible against the background of stars, it had shone brighter than most after only a few days in transit.

They’d been traveling backward relative to their destination for days, keeping their engines pointed into the direction of travel until the time had come to decelerate and match orbits with Prospector. This had kept the ship and its asteroid companion out of view except from the cupola, which no one had much time to indulge themselves with. So those tantalizing views had represented only stolen moments taken from days packed with work. With the braking burn done, they’d turned Borman around to keep the smaller ship in view as they closed in.

Now it grew larger with each passing hour, first becoming a bright speck in the distance to now revealing its irregular, potato-like shape. The stark clarity of seeing it in airless space created an illusion that it might truly be that small, something he could reach out and grab were it not for the bright speck that now appeared near it: the still-silent Prospector. They’d pointed their high-gain antenna at it and began hailing it yesterday, and had so far only been answered with static.

The little bright speck hung there in the darkness like a distant ornament, a trinket waiting to be taken. Just as the asteroid they had come for grew increasingly larger as they closed in, the Jiang’s distant spacecraft began to reveal its shape though it was still distant enough to remain stubbornly indistinct.

Marshall found himself spending far too much time gazing at it through the forward windows, having to force himself to bring his head inside and keep up his instrument scan. He was quickly finding the ship did a lot for itself, but he needed to be able to sense its pulse like a doctor hovering over a patient.

“Any change?”

Marshall turned to see Simon floating in through the connecting node, and was glad he’d just finished a scan—the first thing the captain asked for was a status report on his ship, and he expected details to be cited from memory.

“Relative velocity to target is ten meters per second, sir. We’re due for another burn from the forward jets at the top of the hour, that’ll take us down to six mps. Prop levels are—”

Simon held up a hand, stopping him short as he pulled himself into a nearby empty seat. “Not what I meant.” He pointed out the window. “I’m asking about them.”

Relieved, Marshall tried not to smile to himself. “Of course, sir.”

Simon clapped him on the shoulder. “And lighten up a bit, Mister Hunter. Get the broomstick out of your sphincter.”

“So that’s why it hurts when I sit down.”

“I didn’t mean all the way out, son. You really are a chip off the old block.”

“Sorry sir. Still not sure where the boundaries are.”

“Eh, that’s partly my fault. You just keep doing what you’re doing, because you’re doing fine. The only people on this boat who know we have some history are the XO and the master chief.”

“That explains a lot,” Marshall said, immediately wishing he hadn’t. He must have been more fatigued than he thought. Still, it didn’t seem to faze Simon—though not much did.

“You think the XO didn’t want you here?”

“I did get that impression, yes sir.”

He laughed. “Wicklund didn’t have a problem with it. The chief was the one who was worried.”

Marshall did a double take. “Seriously . . . sir?”

“Surprised?” Simon asked, looking amused. “It’s because they’re both damned good at their jobs. You’ll find a lot of leadership is just about learning to play the role, especially when you don’t feel like it. A good XO is always hard on junior officers, and a good chief is always there to mentor them.”

“So the chief—?”

“Don’t take it personally. He was more concerned about how it might look for me than he was about you. That’s the other thing a good chief does: He keeps the new guys from making his skipper look bad.” He gave Marshall a moment to digest that, then shot a glance up at the overhead. “So you haven’t been up in the dome recently?”

Marshall gestured at the windows in front of him. “The view’s pretty good here, sir.”

“Maybe, but the optical telescope’s up there and I want a better look at that ship.” Simon pushed away with his fingertips and flew up into the cupola, motioning for Marshall to follow him. “Turn off the overhead lights on your way up.”

He looked around the flight deck—should he be leaving it unoccupied? And why was he even questioning it when the captain had just invited him up into the dome? He made one last instrument scan, memorizing each reading before pushing out of his seat and floating up through the opening overhead. He remembered to snap off the ambient lighting, leaving the control deck dark but for the dim glow of instrument screens.

Marshall had deliberately refrained from coming up here, afraid he’d indulge himself too much and let some critical task escape his attention. As the protective shutters outside folded open like flower petals, he was reminded of why.

Simon had kept the cupola’s interior lights off as well. He had pulled a compact Cassegrain telescope out of a storage locker and was setting it on a mount he’d unfolded from beneath the forward window. With the cabin dark there’d be no reflections to interfere with the view. Marshall held on to the opposite side with his fingertips as he absorbed it all.

The Sun hung off the ship’s port side, its brilliance dimmed by electrostatic shades embedded in the windows, yet still washing out all but the brightest stars. Earth and Moon lay behind them, distinct but alarmingly distant. Marshall was able to cover both with a single outstretched hand.

Ahead was the lumpy gray mass of RQ39 and its tiny companion, Prospector. If Simon had any feelings about seeing their home world left so far behind, he was keeping them hidden while he was absorbed with aligning the telescope.

“Tally ho,” he said, centering the view in the scope’s wide-angle lens. He made a tut-tut sound and swapped out the eyepiece for one that would offer a closer look. As he adjusted the focus, Marshall thought he saw his shoulders sag. “It doesn’t look good.”

“How so, sir?”

“Hang tight a sec.” Simon made sure the scope was tracking its target, slipped a CCD imager into the tube and captured some pictures before replacing it with the eyepiece. He checked that the image was still centered and motioned for Marshall to come look.

Without the atmospheric distortions of an earthbound telescope, the view should have been crystal clear. Through a thin cloud of vapor surrounding Prospector, he could make out the gray and white command and service module berthed to the silvery drum of a large habitat and logistics section. Solar wings and radiator panels extended like flower petals from its forward end. He was quite familiar with the layout, as it was almost identical to the cislunar cruise liners his father’s company operated.

Beyond the cloud, larger shreds of the spacecraft tumbled about it. Marshall’s heart sank. “Is that collision damage, then?”

“Atmospheric venting. Looks like they got holed all right,” Simon agreed. “Their ground control didn’t report anything indicating a tank was about to go. We’ll have to get closer to see, but it looks like at least one panel of the service module’s blown out.”

“Assuming the service module’s dead, could they be in the hab?”

“I’ve been thinking about that.” Simon floated quietly for a time, staring out into the depths. He had too many memories from his own experience of being stranded in a crippled spacecraft in lunar orbit—it was the root of his distrust of inflatables, and this left him puzzled. They should’ve been fine in a “hard” hab unless it had been breached as well. He studied a schematic of Prospector on a nearby monitor, comparing it to one of the images he’d just captured. “It’s possible since that’s where the storm shelter is. But it has redundant systems, so they should have been able to communicate.”

Marshall covered one eye, relaxing his dominant eye to try and tease out more details. “I can’t see how many antennas were damaged.”

“Assume anything on the service module’s toast. That leaves the low-gain stuff on the hab.”

“They’d still have two-way voice, then. Just no data.”

“Exactly. I’ve seen this movie before,” he sighed. “Better let your team know.”


Marshall had assembled his small team in the wardroom. Their normal workspace, which had begun the journey locked down, well organized and sparkling clean, had become cluttered with emergency gear and spacesuits in varying stages of inspection. “I wish we had better news,” Marshall began. He turned on the big monitor above the foldout table and pulled up the images Simon had taken earlier. To their credit, Rosado and Harper mostly kept their thoughts to themselves other than sharing some muted groans.

Prospector was severely damaged, perhaps fatally so. The images weren’t any sharper than he remembered, though seeing them on a larger screen for the first time brought out details he hadn’t noticed before.

A panel of the service module was indeed blown out, with the scorched frame and innards suggesting considerable heat before the resulting fire was quenched by vacuum—it had burned just as long as there was oxygen, so it had been fierce but short-lived. Through the haze of sublimated gases that had somehow escaped the conflagration lay a dangerous thicket of contorted alloys and splintered composites.

He pulled up Prospector’s schematic on the adjacent screen and rotated the image. “The blowout was on the Z-1 panel, which puts the debris field right in line with the CSM’s hatch. That means we won’t be able to make a direct approach with Specter, and I’m not about to send anyone outside through that cloud.”

“Appreciate that, sir,” Rosie said.

“Lieutenant Wylie will get us in position on the Z+1 side, close enough to hop across without full maneuvering packs.”

“Untethered?” Rosie asked, though she already suspected the answer.

“We’ll have our SAFER units activated, but yeah,” Marshall said, almost apologetically. “Their command module has standard connections we can hook up to once we get there. We’ll stay tethered to each other for the trip across just to be safe.”

We, sir?”

Marshall looked around the room. “I don’t see who else can do this with you guys, Rosie. Chief Garver’s qualified but Captain Poole’s going to need him back here since Wylie’s going to be chauffeuring us.”

She nodded at the image of Prospector hidden behind the fog of debris. “You ready for this, sir? It could get dicey.”

Marshall thought he knew where she was going. “Here’s how I want this to work: I might be the on-scene commander, but you’re the senior rescue spacer. I’m following your lead and trusting you guys to keep me out of trouble. Fair enough?”

She and Harper nodded their agreement. “Fair enough, sir.”

He remembered once hearing that courage was being scared to death but saddling up anyway. “I’m counting on it.”


Strapped into one of the quick-release harnesses next to Rosie in back of Specter, Marshall couldn’t stop fidgeting with one leg of his suit. It didn’t escape Rosie’s notice, though nothing did on an EVA.

“You okay, sir?”

He grunted with frustration. “I think I cinched up my right leg too much. That whole side keeps pulling at me.”

“Happens a lot in fitting,” she said. “What seems fine in normal pressure all of a sudden doesn’t in the actual environment. Most of us compensate by letting the adjustments out a half-inch or so.”

“I did already. Thought I was being clever. Seemed like too much after my first couple of walks so I took out the slack.” He stretched out his leg, kicking inside at the boot. “Must have been too much.”

“You won’t notice it once we’re working outside, sir. At least not much. Next time let me know and I’ll help you, okay?”

“Okay.” The shuttle rocked as it detached from Borman.

“We’re underway,” Wylie called from up front. “ETA ten minutes.”


The transit from Borman was straightforward enough: undock, clear the mothership, and make a quick burn to put them on a tangent that would take them clear of the debris obscuring Prospector. As they circled the spacecraft, Wylie began recording what he saw through the heads-up display and relayed it back to the Borman.

Marshall unstrapped from the aft jump seat and made his way forward, hovering behind Wylie. It felt surreal, as if it were something he was watching on television: The little ship that had captured his imagination for the last few months now waited outside, not twenty meters away.

Wylie pointed at a dark spot on the service module. “Looks like our entry wound,” he said, and keyed his mic. “Borman Actual, there’s a hole in the Z+1 service panel, maybe a few centimeters wide. Really clean, too. I think that’s the impact site.”

“Copy that,” Simon answered. “How’s your approach from that side?”

“Clear. I can get them almost right up against the spacecraft.”

“Understood, but I want you to back off and stay at safe maneuvering distance once you’ve dropped them off. Hunter, you up on freq?”

With his helmet already sealed, Marshall engaged his voice-activated suit radio. “Yes, sir?”

“I think Mr. Wylie has given us a pretty good bead on what happened to their spacecraft. Make boarding your priority, after the Jiangs are secure you can go inspect the entry damage. Stay on the Z+ side of the spacecraft, understood?”

“Aye, sir. Stay out of the wreckage.”

“Good man. Actual out.”


Wylie backed them in slowly and brought them to a stop within a meter of each other. When Marshall opened their outer door, Prospector was almost in arm’s reach. He gestured for Rosie to take the lead and she jumped into action, reaching for their safety tether.

“Nice work, Lieutenant. I barely have to go outside.”

“Just don’t ding my spacecraft, Rosie. I can’t afford the insurance.”

Rosie smirked beneath her visor and answered Wylie with a quick double-click of her mic. She checked her connection then reached out to test Marshall’s and Harper’s, tugging at their waists. Without a word, she clipped the opposite end to a ring beneath Prospector’s hatch. “Excursion team is secure. I’m going to give us some distance, sir.”

“Copy.”

She went through the opening feet first, keeping her arms against the rim and pushing against the other craft with her legs. The two spacecraft began to separate, falling away from each other slowly. She slipped her arms back outside and pushed away, the coils of her tether following behind. Harper floated out soon after. “You’re next, sir.”

Marshall pivoted into the opening and let himself be pulled through as his own line played out behind him. When it grew taut, the tension naturally turned him to face her. “Nice move, Rosie. Separates us without him having to use the RCS.”

“Something we came up with on our own,” she said, and pointed at Prospector’s closed hatch. “It’ll also protect Specter when we open this tin can up. Who knows what’ll come out of it?”

“Good point.”

She called back to Wylie. “We’re secure, sir. You can hail them again.”

Two mic clicks, then Wylie’s voice over the universal emergency frequency: “Prospector, Prospector, this is the USSF shuttle Specter. Comm check.” He repeated it twice more, each time answered by hissing static. “No joy, Rosie.”

“Understood. Thank you, sir.” Rosie returned to their suit intercom. “Didn’t think there would be, but we had to try,” she explained. She banged on the hull and set her faceplate against it, listening for any vibrations transmitted up through it. She looked up at Marshall. “Could you head up to the hab and try the same thing, sir?”

“Got it.” He pushed off, aiming for a handrail around the rim of the big logistics module overhead. After a minute of trying the same thing, he shook his head before realizing she couldn’t see him. “Same here. Nobody’s answering.”

“Can you see anything through the portholes? Because I’ve got nothin’ here.”

Compared to the command module’s big oval windows, the hab’s small portholes were like trying to inspect the inside of a barrel looking through a garden hose. There was power but no obvious movement. “Lights are on but nobody’s home. No movement, no signs of loose gear or debris either.” Better than the last spacecraft I boarded, he thought.

“Crew cabin’s dark,” Harper said, shining her helmet lamp through one of the windows. “No movement, no response. That doesn’t leave us many options.”

He pulled against his tether to begin heading back to them. “Breach entry?”

“Afraid so, sir.” Rosie removed a long-handled tool from her utility harness. “If you’ll pull up their quick-reference guide, I’ll do the dirty work.”

“Got it.” He tapped at a small display on his wrist where he’d already loaded Prospector’s emergency checklists. “First open the manual pressure equalization valve, staying clear of the adjacent purge vent. One-half clockwise turn.”

She set the tool inside the valve fitting. “Opening the MPEV, one-half clockwise.” She braced against a nearby handrail and pulled on the handle. Expecting a geyser of ice crystals to erupt from the purge vent beneath it, instead they saw nothing.

Marshall had been eyeing the cabin through a nearby window. There were no signs of venting atmosphere. “It opened, right?”

“Yes sir. No resistance. Just no air either.”

“So they were already in vacuum.”

“If they weren’t, then venting the cabin into space sure would’ve gotten their attention,” Rosie said. “What’s that tell you, sir?”

“That the hab’s either sealed off or also in vacuum. Otherwise there’d have been a lot more to vent.”

“Bingo.” They weren’t giving up yet. She folded up the tool and slipped it back in her harness, then reached for the ratchet handle centered beneath the viewport. “That’s funny—it’s unlocked.”

“That might explain things. Cabin must have vented when they got hit.”

“Opening the spacecraft,” she announced over their common frequency and waved for Marshall to stay put. “Clear?”

He kept his grip on the opposite railing. “Clear.”

The hatch swung out easily. No random loose equipment spilled out into space. “Entering the vehicle.”

“Copy that,” Simon answered. “Keep me posted.”

Rosie let go of the handrail and pulled herself in headfirst with Harper in trail. From outside, Marshall could see their helmet lamps light up the cabin. “We’re in, sir. You’re clear to enter.”

“Right behind you,” Marshall said, following them inside. He shut the hatch behind him.

In sharp contrast to the Stardust capsule, Prospector’s command module was spotless. Everything was in its place: flight couches stowed, equipment bays latched shut, a single blinking blue light signaled the touchscreen control panel was waiting on standby and ready to be reactivated.

“Okay, this is weird,” Rosie admitted. She floated down the docking tunnel, following a stream of light from the viewport on its far end. There was a small status panel nearby. “You were right, sir. Logistics and hab are under pressure, but I still can’t see much.”

“We need to get in there.” Marshall held down the blinking standby button until the control screen blinked into life. “Here we go. Equalizing now.” He soon found the pressure controls and air began flowing back into the cabin.

The small compartment pressurized quickly. Harper heaved its forward hatch open and Marshall watched her and Rosado disappear into the big logistics module. He moved into the docking tunnel to follow, waiting for their all clear to move ahead.

He was used to not hearing muck from Harper, but Rosie was uncharacteristically quiet. That didn’t portend pleasant news. He took a deep breath, preparing himself for a gruesome scene and trying to clear his head of all the stories he’d read about the Jiang’s expedition, all of the interviews he’d seen. He stared down the length of the tunnel, expecting to find the famous couple dead on the other side. He pushed ahead.

The hab and logistics module was easily eight meters deep and half as wide. The near end had been set up as their extended living space: pictures and small personal effects cluttered one wall in a similar manner as he’d seen aboard the Borman, with sleeping bags against the opposite wall, a widescreen monitor mounted to the overhead, and a folding table with seat restraints for a dining area.

The far end held their supplies: a tightly packed jumble of soft containers, mostly food, wedged behind an octagonal cargo netting that resembled a giant spiderweb. They’d looked to have gone through roughly half of their load, which would be right about on schedule.

Floating in front of that web was Rosie’s spacesuited form, her back turned to him, staring into the half-empty logistics section. Harper continued inside, searching the nooks and crannies.

“Rosie?”

She turned silently, eyes wide and mouth agape in shock.

“Where are they?”

She blinked hard. “I don’t know.”

Marshall grabbed a nearby handhold, turning about to look for himself. “Where are they?” he repeated, more to himself than her.

“EVA Team,” Simon cut in over their headsets with concern in his voice. “Report.”

His eyes searched Rosie’s. She simply shook her head in disbelief, again mouthing, “I don’t know.”

Marshall answered for them. “They’re not here, sir.” He said the words, but it felt as if it were coming from someone else.

“Say again, EVA One?”

Marshall collected himself and cleared his throat. “Actual, this is EVA One. Spacecraft is abandoned. I repeat, spacecraft is abandoned.”


Back | Next
Framed