OUTPOST-Chapter 24
For Tom Luong Films-Development
By Julian Phillips
2010-04-22
To conduct an emergency situation or circumstance, from a command position, is difficult for anyone. Command, leadership, control, office or power, in emergency, or danger, is an urgency and trouble. Anyone who really enjoys it, or who seeks it, or thrives thereon, is probably un-reliable to begin with. With lives on-the-line, people who are depending on clear and successful decision-making, and with the dynamic and changing urgency of any dangerous emergency, a leader such as Guy Reisling is hard-pressed to win the day, even unto death. And yet his normal job was only to transport goods across the sky to Mars---easy and non-threatening, food, water, oxygen, supplies. If they all died, in a conflict now with the Russian-Islamic space-ships having approached un-seen, to a dangerously near place, as the ships were speeding along---that is, if Guy and his crew were all killed, for some reason, for it was a war, now---they would not even know, or realize, or understand, that Guy had failed them, and they had lost everything under his command, for the aspect of the ignorance of being dead. In a flash of fire and freeze, if the Russians for example fired missiles at the Penelope, destroying their ship, killing them all, a moment of intense pain and anguish---maybe, ten or 20 minutes of panic, in which all hands were to be lost---as they left the Universe of the living, for the Beyond, it might approach awareness, in a miniscule, tiny, group or individual nervous-system of human consciousness they shared as the crew of the Penelope, that the hour had been lost to failure and fate. Guy, as the commander, was driven in a passion of perfect decision, to save them, his men, and not let this happen. And deep inside, he knew, he would prevail, somehow.
Guy arrived on the flight-deck or command-control helm of his ship, within only 15-minutes of Rob’s alert. Their discovery of the very-near approach of the Russian lead-ships, was indeed quite alarming. A layman, or one who may know nothing at all of space-travel in the future year of 2077, might not understand. After 15 years or more of the establishment of the USMars base, called the Snikta Ridge Volcanic Basin Research Mars Facility, space-flight back and forth was almost entirely educational and research-oriented. Now, with the advent of an approaching meteor which may strike the Earth with overwhelming destruction, an act of God, if you will, Guy and his crew, and the teams of leadership and science-leaders managing the USMars program, now were suddenly at war. This alone was a shock. For Guy, Rob Cowan (with his anti-biotic issue concerning his testicular loss), and the eight other men working this particular flight aboard the beloved Penelope---a grand and noble ship they all loved more than life---now, they faced uncertainty, that was beyond doubt. The common procedure for Earth-Mars corridor travel, was well-established for any of the ships and launches, either USMars, Russian-Islamic, or even others, that ships never traveled the Abyss, so close or near, by miles or kilometers, as they presently knew and had confirmed, that these two Russian ships, were now ‘at their side’. So without a doubt, they were alarmed and in a trouble about it. Again, the reason was, that aside from docking procedures, because space-flight was dangerous and un-predictable, that distances of at least 10,000 or 20,000 kilometers—more than the distance on Earth from California to Australia, or the Horn of Africa---these safety zones of separation, were standard. It was only good practice. The ships flew at great speed, conditions were fatal if there were any failure, and also for purposes of navigation, variations might arise at any time. So with Rob’s call to Guy’s sleeping bunk, and the navigator’s confirmed data that the two lead ships for the Russian-Islamic voyagers, were now ten-miles off, or even three or four miles off, from their ship’s position, it was an urgent circumstance that Guy took very seriously. It could only mean they wanted something, or were ‘up-to-something’, and it was his problem. He wasn’t happy about it, to say the least.
The entire crew of the Penelope was now at all-hands alert. Guy and Rob, along with the flight-path navigator Tom McGee, and the Flight Specialist in charge of Vandenberg-to-ship communications, a thin, brown-skinned man from Indonesia named Raza Brahman, were on-deck. The goal, or orientation to the situation, was to gather accurate information, and respond, within the structure of the instructions and current-moment advise from Vandenberg. To over-react was an error. Each man took his work at his own level of performance-skill and duty, knowing it would effect the outcome, either way.
Brahman was on his radio-link to Vandenberg within half-an-hour. He needed to transmit their codes and connection, and establish the link, and also to contact the appropriate Vandenberg leadership, who might not be instantly available, or even asleep, or off-duty, rather than the 24/7 USMars Earth-base communication dispatch monitor underling, who would have no authority or information. This took time.
“We’ll have Okman within 20-minutes,” Brahman said. “That’s the best I can do, he’s the transport-cargo commander for this ship.”
“Okamn won’t know anything,” Guy said. “He’s still hurting from my competency trail last year. All he knows about is our cargo and general orders. I need to speak with command. We have a general order forbidding any contact with the enemy. I have a feeling it won’t be long before that becomes inevitable. I need to know what Rogers-Smith wants from me. Maybe we can get out of this.”
“Working on it,” said Brahman. He continued to ply his skill with the ship’s communication set-up, mostly waiting for Vandenberg to realize they had a situation, from their previous message. So, he simply watched the in-coming monitors for Vandenberg’s response, across half a million miles. He also repeated their signal-code emission, a ‘cry for help’, that would not be mistaken, by the Vandenberg 24/7 monitor for their flight. All the flights were in perpetual contact with ‘mission-control’, but it was usually entirely routine, even dull, boring.
Guy confronted Tom McGee, again. “Give me the current details,” he said. “Show me on a piece-of-paper if you have to. Who are they, which ships, and what are the relative positions from us to them.”
Of course, McGee was tracking the Russians moment-to-moment. The Penelope had scanners, mostly for far-distant objects like Earth, star-positions for navigation, Mars, Molinari space-dock, and the every-now-and-then meteor shower or heat-flare from the Sun. And also the Mars moons, and other celestial features.
“Hasn’t changed much,” McGee said. “Our ship is traveling at 10,000-kilometers per minute. They’re matching us perfectly. I have to say, their pilots must be skilled. We’re in formation, like it or not. One ship is roughly 4-kilometers below us and back. The other is ten kilometers, or I guess about nine kilometers, to the other side, above, like two o-clock star-board, left. These fuckers know what they’re doing. They know we know. It’s bull-shit, Guy.”
There was a pause. Rob was looking at their forward motion, to plot a variety of control-commands, that might be useful if they wanted to change position. Guy was looking at life-support, and preparations they had already made for any confrontation. For instance, he urgently needed the ship’s four engines to be adjusted for a longer-term burn, without clean-and-trim cycle, in case they could not rest the engines for restoral, as they usually would. So, the rocket-engine team was working with him to make sure they would not fail to have full thruster-power for all engines, for example, to increase the ship’s speed and escape trouble. Rob’s momentary task, was to look at how they might track the Penelope---down, up, across, loop-the-loop---even within the hour, to avoid the Russian ship’s advances, should they attack. None of them had any idea what the Russians might do next.
Three hours passed in this way. Each team-member did what they could, and Transport-Cargo Commander Okman was on-the-line to the Penelope after the first hour. But he didn’t have much to offer.
“You have your orders,” Okman told guy, once Brahman had set up the connection. “No contact. No hostile action. No negotiation.”
“Eat my shorts, Okman,” Guy told him. “For all I know, they’ll fire a bomb at us without warning. I need to ship-to-ship their pilot, find out their terms. They’re right on top of us. It’s totally abnormal. It’s not like they’re sleeping over there. The bastards are just waiting. It’s been ten hours. They moved on us at high-speed, probably three or four times our speed. It was intentional. That alone is a hostile act.”
“Don’t interpret the situation, Guy,” Okman told him. The radio-link was compressed and jerky. “Not your job. Hold your position, fly silent. We’ll wait for command. Rogers and the others are being alerted. Just sit tight, it won’t be long. I think that Jew, Ibrahim, the science-guy, was bar-hopping in Santa Barbara late last night. It’s only going to get more and more complicated. Winton Berle’s squad of ships is a month or two behind you. That has to be considered, too.”
“Yeah, sure,“ Guy said. “And three other Russian ships between our position and Berle. Like he’s going to get me out of this. He’s too far back. 700,000-miles or something. They won’t help me.”
The link was silent for about five minutes. Guy and Rob, with Tom and Raza Brahman, chatted about it all.
“The signal to Earth is compressed,” Brahman said. “He’ll be back on-line in a few minutes.”
“Even Rogers-Smith or Earth-tracking can’t really give us anything,” Rob said dismally. “We’re on our own.”
“I say we run for it,” McGee offered. “Hit our maximum speed, maneuver away. Why not? The Penelope is probably superior to their ships for speed. We can hit 100,000 kilometers per minute. Why not? Run for it. Out-maneuver them, make it a race. All we have ahead is either Mars or Molinari. At least it would save us from a blind attack, like a missile.”
Guy was cold, thinking, structuring his options sub-consciously. A missile attack was maybe un-likely, but from a strategic point-of-view, it might be possible, or it might even be their goal. Ten hours had passed, at-speed, and the Russians had been silent. No attack, which they certainly could have accomplished at such close range, if that had been their idea. On the other hand, Guy didn’t really have any confirmation that the Russian ships were equipped with such ship-to-ship destructive armaments. After all, it had never happened before, in the history of space-travel or space-exploration. But this was---different.
Okman came back on-line with the link. He had nothing else to say of any value. What Guy really wanted, was permission or authority, from Vandenberg command. He was hand-cuffed by the standing orders. Okman couldn’t change that. Also, command-authority would have other information he could apply to their crisis. Or, even, as Guy might wish, some kind of plan, or back-up. The radio-hookup with Okman finally went dead, until Rogers-Smith and her people were advised and could respond intelligently. Estimated time for that was an hour or so. Meanwhile, the crew of the Penelope started to sweat. The prospect of death and disaster, floating away into the Abyss like corpses of stone, was not welcome to their minds. The Russians were laughing at them, behind the silence. The Penelope thrust forward on her course, and they along, with the other ships at-pace, only to vary their relative positions by a few hundred feet. Thousands of miles of nothingness went by, and yet, was like a stillness, or even seeming motionless.
Guy was seated in his command-chair, looking at ship’s systems. Oddly enough, he had on the normal foot-ware they all used, the magnetic slippers that held them down in the null-gravity, on his feet, instead of bare-footed. Raza, the tele-radio expert, floated upside down above, working on a hand-held computer that kept track of his radio-link, to assure the connection from Earth when ready. Rob Cowan worked on the engine status and other tasks, by inter-ship link to the engine crew. McGee, the path-plotter and star-guide, seemed to have fallen asleep, his head slumped over into his hands at his post. Then without warning, a radio-link monitor started to bleep loudly with an alarm. Raza lurched to his desk-top kiosk, part of the helm-deck work-area, to respond. They all knew what that alarm meant, from the sound and desk-of-origin, there on the helm-command: an in-coming signature-coded radio-communication signal, indicating and outside message or link to a responder. It could be Earth, Molinari, Mars, Winton Berle’s armada---or ‘them’.
“Go ahead with it,” Guy told Raza. “Proceed. I’ll take responsibility.”
Raza activated the link, with the standard salute. “This is US-Mars transport vessel Penelope, under command of Captain Guy Reisling and US Space Authority, in Vandenberg, California,” he said. “We have your signal. Go ahead, please.”
He pumped the volume onto the helm-command deck, so they could all hear. There was static for a tense moment.
“This is Colonel Robat Zolotny, of the Krenika, originating from Ukrainian space-port KK-F/Region Six, on Earth, commanded by Russian authority under General Rudolph Terchenko. Do you have my radio? Please respond?”
Static, dead-sir. “Handle it,” Guy told Raza Brahman tersely, who was at the radio-monitor.
“We have your signal, Krenika. Go ahead,” he said. The flight-deck on the Penelope was now all-ears. A moment.
We are apparently at war, Penelope. Who is your commander?” , came the voice on the other end of the radio-link. Tom McGee, the plotter-navigator, quickly attempted to track the radio-signal to figure out which of the two Russian ships was the Krenika, which was not clear.
Guy was steaming. “All right, dammit,” he told Brahman. “I’ll talk to him. Give me the phone.”
He moved over to Raza’s station, floating and pulling himself by chairs and hand-holds, then settling down. Another moment, static.
“This is Captain Reisling of the Penelope,” Guy said, using the radio-microphone. “The Krenika is too close to our ship. We are in danger of a potential collision at flight-speed, as per protocol. I’m aware of your position. I’m requesting the immediate withdrawal of your vessel to a safe distance of at least 5,000-kilometers. What the fuck are you idiots doing? This is non-standard, and you know it. Get the hell off my ass, Krenika.”
Now, from the other side, on-board the Krenika, they could hear laughter, over the radio. The crew on the Krenika flight deck found Guy’s request very humorous.
“We are at war now, Penelope,” came the reply, apparently the pilot, Zolotny. His voice had an Eastern-European accent and dialect. “Surely you realize this?”
“Please withdraw the Krenika to a safe distance,” Guy responded. “Surely you realize standard practices. I am requesting your vessel to comply for the safety of all concerned. Withdraw the Krenika to 10,000-kilometers immediately.”
A long pause. Static. “We shall see, Penelope. We shall see.” There was now more laughter and rude remarks from the other side on the radio.
2,515-words
Julian Phillips
Saturday, April 24, 2010
Friday, April 16, 2010
The real Chapter 23:: too close for comfort!
OUTPOST-Chapter 23
For Tom Luong Films-Development
By Julian Phillips
2010-04-15
Thinking of rings, and worlds, and ways between them. One, Mankind’s eternal home, the other (Mars), virtually dead. And between, as they spin in distant, silent orbit, the small moons, asteroids in clusters or fields, like scattered stones, very small. After a million years of human evolution and progress, the Molinari space-dock was also there, a monument to technology and the space-program’s long-term success. All these, and more, in spherical paths, like grace, stately, slow, vast.
As the battle dance now moved forward, early in August of 2077, the space-ships were an added factor, including Guy’s Monsanto-Dunlop Condrum-21 Local-Planetary Cruiser (transport). And, just a few hundred thousand miles behind him, the Russian-Islamic ships, and the US-Mars teams in their ships, led by Winton Berle, the Old-School astronaut with a lot of hours in the Abyss, and other pertinent experience. Who was the Lord of this dance, this ‘war-in-heaven’, if any? Perhaps again, as usual, only human pride, ego and vanity.
The ‘Penelope’ was now in-transit, at her normal speed of about 10,000-kilometers per hour. Molinari was Guy’s next stop, for re-fuel and re-charge, rest, and easier communication with Earth. Lila Meetek, his one-and-only true love, (which was certainly disputable for either of them at this point), waited patiently, day-after-day, knowing her white-knight was on his way swiftly to her side. Sex with Tommy, the external repair space-worker, or space-walker at the space-dock, was---well, fun? Healthy? Sleazy? Or, for Lila, all of the above. But Tommy also had the unpleasant habit of sleeping with nearly every other sexually active female on the Molinari facility, and the gossip was terrible. Besides which, he ignored her when she needed more than mere orgasms, such as heart-to-heart knowingness or relatedness---talking about things, sharing. Which was why she really did love Guy Reisling. He gave her so much more.
Despite the brewing situation ahead on Mars, Lila managed to link with Guy’s radio-desk on-board his ship, at one point in the slow dance. He was still many thousands of miles away, even hundreds of thousands of miles, or kilometers. In her role as one of the Earth-Mars Corridor Environmental Conditions Monitors, she had all kinds of communications gear at-hand. So she could set up a radio-call to her boyfriend fairly easily, and also somewhat privately. For the two lovers, it was a naughty moment their superiors may have frowned on. After all, they were now ‘almost at war’, and the enemy could intercept the communications-link or signal. But all they would hear, if they did, was their mindless lover’s prattle, and both Lila and Guy knew this, too.
“Be clear with me, Guy,” Lila said. “Ambiguity right now is not working. You told me before, we’re not exclusive, we’re not---married. So if you intend to be angry about my sex-life, I suggest you go ahead and ‘let-her-rip’ right now. That way, when you dock, you’ll be finished with all that, and you can just enjoy the pleasure of my company. Know what I mean?”
Guy was again on the helm, or operations-deck, aboard the Penelope, halfway through his shift. Nothing unusual was happening, ship-side. Engines were trimmed clear-and-clean, perfect-running. Earth had no urgent instructions, commands, or information. The pilot’s cabin-deck looked to Guy much like a rather large flight-cabin on a traditional jet-liner back on Earth, or ‘jumbo-jet’. There were seats, numerous controls, view-screens and view-ports (sealed during deep-space travel). There were computers and radio-gear, and various hatches and levers. It was large enough for five men, or even six, to work at once. But, at the moment, he was alone. There was no video-link to Lila, at that time, which he regretted. But her voice was clear, through the radio-link. Guy was in his ship-board working ‘jump-suit’ or ‘flight-suit’, a single-piece, efficient pull-over, elastic and warm. Once again, at the ship’s controls, he was barefoot, which he preferred.
“Jane, you ignorant slut,” he replied to her comment. The signal carried his words. “Saturday Night Live, 1982, Jane Curtain and Dan Ackroyd. Remember?”
“No, not really. And it was Chevy Chase,” she said. “Those old-time TV shows are in the past. I don’t waste my time on that sort, I guess. But this is now. I am not ignorant. My slutiness is my bliss. You ought to know.”
“Well, I remember, yes,” said Guy sheepishly. “But the memory is fading fast. Need to re-boot that one.”
There was a pause. “I’m tracking you for about 10-days out, about 123,000-miles,” she told him. In his thoughts, he confirmed. Just about right.
“Right on track,” he said. “And into your loving arms. Or your pants. You know.” He chuckled.
“Don’t expect too much, hero,” she said. “Molinari is not exactly a love-nest hide-away for private space-romps with horny astronauts. There’s a lot of gossip, it’s a closed society, there are no secrets. And we still have all the daily work-tasks. The Life-Sustain recycle has been losing power-integrity and re-charge purity. Translation: stale air.”
“No smoking, right,” said Guy.
Another pause. “What about those bad-ass Russians following you to Mars by about a week’s worth of absolute nothingness? What are you going to do?”
Her voice over the radio was sweet and clear, unlike the signal from Earth, now much more distant. Maybe it was only because he liked her so much, wanted to be with her. Guy took a moment to answer. There was a minor energy-gauge measurement irregularity on one of the ship’s solar-panel arrays, almost like a shadow had passed over them. He looked again. The levels returned to normal. He assumed it was meaningless.
“Guy? Are you there?” the signal penetrated again through space and into his pilot’s deck.
“I have your signal, Molinari,” he responded. “To answer your question, I have command from US-Earth on that. I’m to proceed with the transport as-normal, as if nothing was unusual. The ship is loaded with communications tech-gear, for the Mars-base. A gal named---uh, Karen. Karen Tutturo, a communications-science analyst, and current resident of Mars, is waiting for my load. They had a communications problem. So, basically, I could give a crap about the Russians. My ship has no weapons. I’m defenseless. So it doesn’t matter anyway, much. There are minor preparations I can make in case of a conflict.”
“But---what if they attack?’ said Lila, legitimately concerned.
“Then I’ll be floating home, into the abyss with my crew, like a quick-freeze popsicle,” Guy smirked. “And all my lustful dreams of rolling around with you in your private null-gravity bunk at the dock will be over for us both.”
“Not necessarily. They might not kill you. Why don’t the Russians just turn around and wipe out the US ships anyway, before anyone even reaches Mars? It’s Winton Berle’s ships they have to be afraid of. Not you.” Lila was keeping track of the whole thing like everyone else.
“Totally impractical, not efficient at all. Deep-space dog-fight battles are just in the movies,” said Guy. “In reality, it’s essentially not even possible. The distances are too great. They have five ships, loaded with soldiers. Maybe 20 or 30 armed men on each ship. Plus bombs and missiles, and other weapons. So—if they attack the Penelope---what do you think they’ll do? Ask me directions to Jupiter? Very funny. No, dear. They could easily decide to blow me to hell. But personally, I doubt that’s their plan.”
Back on Molinari, in the work-area where Lila was assigned, also surrounded by the cold-sterile façade of technology and LCD’s, she winced a little privately, thinking about Guy as a frozen-solid corpse floating away from her forever, dead. “Just---drive carefully, Guy, okay? When we get home it will be different. We can start over, have a barbecue at your place near Santa Barbara. Travel around in a motor-home. Or take the bullet-train somewhere, just you and me.”
She now lowered her voice to a more personal tone. “What are we, Guy? What are we really? Just two star-crossed lovers floating around in circles? Is that all there is?”
“Standard-issue human beings, male-female, life span of 80 or 90 years if we’re lucky,” he answered quickly. “Personally, I enjoy floating around in circles. It’s---a lifestyle.”
There was a muted beeping-alarm in the inner-workings of the radio-link, telling them their time was up. It meant the system had other uses at that time, and they had to let go of their connection.
“Data-feed on the corridor for environmental,” Lila told him, so far away. “Have to let go of this link.’
“All right,” Guy said. “Not very satisfying anyway. Reisling out, Penelope transport-vessel, 1215-hours, day 61.”
“Confirmed. Molinari out,” Lila said in her official dispatcher-voice. “See you soon, Guy.”
Another series of alarm-beeps and a few control-buttons later, the link went dead.
Twelve hours passed. Guy’s shift at the controls lapsed, Rob Cowan took the deck, things were stable. Other crew members kept their posts---the navigation, communications, engines, life-support, ship-systems. Right about the time Rob was ready to pass off his station-post back to Guy, who was getting some sleep, one of the two navigators, whose name was Tom McGee, had an urgent matter for the attention of Rob, or Guy. Tom was a mature space-man skilled in highly-technical ship-tracking and star-positions, such that he could get them home, or to Mars, or to Molinari, by studying the relative position of the ship and her destination-points. Without his work, if anything went even slightly amiss, they could literally be ‘lost in space’. And since the Penelope could only sustain them for so long, getting to their destination-points safely was a life-or-death matter. Since Rob was the ship commander at the moment, Tom brought it to him, and appeared on the flight-deck or pilot’s helm through the entry-way, floating by hand-pulls like they all did, then settling down into a seat with the magnetic strips.
“Rob, uh, you need to look at something right away,” he said. “Is Guy on deck?”
Rob soured. “No,” he said. “Guy’s not on for another hour. What do you have?”
McGee had a small data-computer in his hands, the sort that could move complex information from one place to another quickly and easily, like a portable drive or hand-held unit for data-transfer. He booted up a page-file, which came to life on a small screen. Rob took the unit and studied the screen.
“I was running my usual plotting scans, in this case, pointed backwards towards home. You can see, the other ships behind us are still tracking. We already know this much. But look what happens when I magnify on the Russians, and then compare to our position,” McGee said. Rob handed him back the data-unit, and he worked some controls for a moment.
“See?” he said. “Two of the Russian lead ships are now close enough to the Penelope to spit at us and not miss by much. I mean, they snuck up on us, over the past 24-hours, I guess. They must have increased their speed, and a lot, not a little. The fuckers could hit us with a rock. I mean---well, from this, at this hour---one is about three kilometers away---the other is maybe ten. See? That’s not good, Rob. They want something. We need an all-hands alert, right now.”
Rob scowled and viewed the data-unit. “How old is this file?” he said.
“Less than an hour,” McGee answered.
“Mother-fucker,” Rob said. He knew, as they all did, that any ship-to-ship contact was forbidden by US-Earth command, and also that ships in transit rarely if ever got that close, in terms of material proximity of the actual ships. Anything closer than about 5,000-kilometers was considered dangerous, considering the speeds at which they traveled, especially for ships from different launch-sources.
“All right,” Rob said. “Good work, thank you, Tom. I’ll alert the captain. Tell the men to expect a general alarm within 15-minutes. Use the ship’s inter-comm. Then I want you to track every move they make to a gnat’s ass, back at your plotter-scanner.”
McGee sighed heavily. “What do you think they’re up to, Rob?” he asked.
Rob was working to punch-up his voice-alert to Guy’s sleeping berth. “Not sure. It’s a fucking war, Tom. US-Mars command warned us. But, you know---we should have been notified by Earth-tracking that they were moving in. It’s bull-shit---“
“I’ll get on the ship’s inter-comm to the crew, from my station,” McGee said. “Then I’ll just track their ships.” He quickly released the tether that held him down to the seat where they were working on the flight-helm deck, then pulled himself out of the room, down the hatch and into one of the level-to-level tunnels.
Now Rob had his alert-system connected to where Guy was sleeping. There was a loud beeping.
“This is the captain. What the hell—Rob? What’s going on?” Guy said. He was already awake and getting ready for his shift at the command deck. But he was resting and hoping to enjoy a few moments of peace and a hot coffee in a plastic tube.
Rob was terse. “We have a problem, Houston,” he said.
“Like what?” Guy answered.
“Uh---Klingons off the starboard bow, captain. No shit. Tom McGee just confirmed two of the Russian ships have snuck up fast behind us and are less then ten miles off from our position each. One of them is only three miles out. Right on top of us. He just figured it out an hour ago.”
He could hear Guy huffing and puffing on the other end, in his sleep-cabin, living-quarters, like he was dressing quickly.
“God-dammit,” Guy said. “All right. I’ll be on-deck in 10-minutes. Alert the crew and dispatch an emergency-alert to Earth-base, Molinari, and Mars, with the essential information.”
“Yes, sir,” Rob said.
They were not smiling.
2,320-words
-Julian Phillips
For Tom Luong Films-Development
By Julian Phillips
2010-04-15
Thinking of rings, and worlds, and ways between them. One, Mankind’s eternal home, the other (Mars), virtually dead. And between, as they spin in distant, silent orbit, the small moons, asteroids in clusters or fields, like scattered stones, very small. After a million years of human evolution and progress, the Molinari space-dock was also there, a monument to technology and the space-program’s long-term success. All these, and more, in spherical paths, like grace, stately, slow, vast.
As the battle dance now moved forward, early in August of 2077, the space-ships were an added factor, including Guy’s Monsanto-Dunlop Condrum-21 Local-Planetary Cruiser (transport). And, just a few hundred thousand miles behind him, the Russian-Islamic ships, and the US-Mars teams in their ships, led by Winton Berle, the Old-School astronaut with a lot of hours in the Abyss, and other pertinent experience. Who was the Lord of this dance, this ‘war-in-heaven’, if any? Perhaps again, as usual, only human pride, ego and vanity.
The ‘Penelope’ was now in-transit, at her normal speed of about 10,000-kilometers per hour. Molinari was Guy’s next stop, for re-fuel and re-charge, rest, and easier communication with Earth. Lila Meetek, his one-and-only true love, (which was certainly disputable for either of them at this point), waited patiently, day-after-day, knowing her white-knight was on his way swiftly to her side. Sex with Tommy, the external repair space-worker, or space-walker at the space-dock, was---well, fun? Healthy? Sleazy? Or, for Lila, all of the above. But Tommy also had the unpleasant habit of sleeping with nearly every other sexually active female on the Molinari facility, and the gossip was terrible. Besides which, he ignored her when she needed more than mere orgasms, such as heart-to-heart knowingness or relatedness---talking about things, sharing. Which was why she really did love Guy Reisling. He gave her so much more.
Despite the brewing situation ahead on Mars, Lila managed to link with Guy’s radio-desk on-board his ship, at one point in the slow dance. He was still many thousands of miles away, even hundreds of thousands of miles, or kilometers. In her role as one of the Earth-Mars Corridor Environmental Conditions Monitors, she had all kinds of communications gear at-hand. So she could set up a radio-call to her boyfriend fairly easily, and also somewhat privately. For the two lovers, it was a naughty moment their superiors may have frowned on. After all, they were now ‘almost at war’, and the enemy could intercept the communications-link or signal. But all they would hear, if they did, was their mindless lover’s prattle, and both Lila and Guy knew this, too.
“Be clear with me, Guy,” Lila said. “Ambiguity right now is not working. You told me before, we’re not exclusive, we’re not---married. So if you intend to be angry about my sex-life, I suggest you go ahead and ‘let-her-rip’ right now. That way, when you dock, you’ll be finished with all that, and you can just enjoy the pleasure of my company. Know what I mean?”
Guy was again on the helm, or operations-deck, aboard the Penelope, halfway through his shift. Nothing unusual was happening, ship-side. Engines were trimmed clear-and-clean, perfect-running. Earth had no urgent instructions, commands, or information. The pilot’s cabin-deck looked to Guy much like a rather large flight-cabin on a traditional jet-liner back on Earth, or ‘jumbo-jet’. There were seats, numerous controls, view-screens and view-ports (sealed during deep-space travel). There were computers and radio-gear, and various hatches and levers. It was large enough for five men, or even six, to work at once. But, at the moment, he was alone. There was no video-link to Lila, at that time, which he regretted. But her voice was clear, through the radio-link. Guy was in his ship-board working ‘jump-suit’ or ‘flight-suit’, a single-piece, efficient pull-over, elastic and warm. Once again, at the ship’s controls, he was barefoot, which he preferred.
“Jane, you ignorant slut,” he replied to her comment. The signal carried his words. “Saturday Night Live, 1982, Jane Curtain and Dan Ackroyd. Remember?”
“No, not really. And it was Chevy Chase,” she said. “Those old-time TV shows are in the past. I don’t waste my time on that sort, I guess. But this is now. I am not ignorant. My slutiness is my bliss. You ought to know.”
“Well, I remember, yes,” said Guy sheepishly. “But the memory is fading fast. Need to re-boot that one.”
There was a pause. “I’m tracking you for about 10-days out, about 123,000-miles,” she told him. In his thoughts, he confirmed. Just about right.
“Right on track,” he said. “And into your loving arms. Or your pants. You know.” He chuckled.
“Don’t expect too much, hero,” she said. “Molinari is not exactly a love-nest hide-away for private space-romps with horny astronauts. There’s a lot of gossip, it’s a closed society, there are no secrets. And we still have all the daily work-tasks. The Life-Sustain recycle has been losing power-integrity and re-charge purity. Translation: stale air.”
“No smoking, right,” said Guy.
Another pause. “What about those bad-ass Russians following you to Mars by about a week’s worth of absolute nothingness? What are you going to do?”
Her voice over the radio was sweet and clear, unlike the signal from Earth, now much more distant. Maybe it was only because he liked her so much, wanted to be with her. Guy took a moment to answer. There was a minor energy-gauge measurement irregularity on one of the ship’s solar-panel arrays, almost like a shadow had passed over them. He looked again. The levels returned to normal. He assumed it was meaningless.
“Guy? Are you there?” the signal penetrated again through space and into his pilot’s deck.
“I have your signal, Molinari,” he responded. “To answer your question, I have command from US-Earth on that. I’m to proceed with the transport as-normal, as if nothing was unusual. The ship is loaded with communications tech-gear, for the Mars-base. A gal named---uh, Karen. Karen Tutturo, a communications-science analyst, and current resident of Mars, is waiting for my load. They had a communications problem. So, basically, I could give a crap about the Russians. My ship has no weapons. I’m defenseless. So it doesn’t matter anyway, much. There are minor preparations I can make in case of a conflict.”
“But---what if they attack?’ said Lila, legitimately concerned.
“Then I’ll be floating home, into the abyss with my crew, like a quick-freeze popsicle,” Guy smirked. “And all my lustful dreams of rolling around with you in your private null-gravity bunk at the dock will be over for us both.”
“Not necessarily. They might not kill you. Why don’t the Russians just turn around and wipe out the US ships anyway, before anyone even reaches Mars? It’s Winton Berle’s ships they have to be afraid of. Not you.” Lila was keeping track of the whole thing like everyone else.
“Totally impractical, not efficient at all. Deep-space dog-fight battles are just in the movies,” said Guy. “In reality, it’s essentially not even possible. The distances are too great. They have five ships, loaded with soldiers. Maybe 20 or 30 armed men on each ship. Plus bombs and missiles, and other weapons. So—if they attack the Penelope---what do you think they’ll do? Ask me directions to Jupiter? Very funny. No, dear. They could easily decide to blow me to hell. But personally, I doubt that’s their plan.”
Back on Molinari, in the work-area where Lila was assigned, also surrounded by the cold-sterile façade of technology and LCD’s, she winced a little privately, thinking about Guy as a frozen-solid corpse floating away from her forever, dead. “Just---drive carefully, Guy, okay? When we get home it will be different. We can start over, have a barbecue at your place near Santa Barbara. Travel around in a motor-home. Or take the bullet-train somewhere, just you and me.”
She now lowered her voice to a more personal tone. “What are we, Guy? What are we really? Just two star-crossed lovers floating around in circles? Is that all there is?”
“Standard-issue human beings, male-female, life span of 80 or 90 years if we’re lucky,” he answered quickly. “Personally, I enjoy floating around in circles. It’s---a lifestyle.”
There was a muted beeping-alarm in the inner-workings of the radio-link, telling them their time was up. It meant the system had other uses at that time, and they had to let go of their connection.
“Data-feed on the corridor for environmental,” Lila told him, so far away. “Have to let go of this link.’
“All right,” Guy said. “Not very satisfying anyway. Reisling out, Penelope transport-vessel, 1215-hours, day 61.”
“Confirmed. Molinari out,” Lila said in her official dispatcher-voice. “See you soon, Guy.”
Another series of alarm-beeps and a few control-buttons later, the link went dead.
Twelve hours passed. Guy’s shift at the controls lapsed, Rob Cowan took the deck, things were stable. Other crew members kept their posts---the navigation, communications, engines, life-support, ship-systems. Right about the time Rob was ready to pass off his station-post back to Guy, who was getting some sleep, one of the two navigators, whose name was Tom McGee, had an urgent matter for the attention of Rob, or Guy. Tom was a mature space-man skilled in highly-technical ship-tracking and star-positions, such that he could get them home, or to Mars, or to Molinari, by studying the relative position of the ship and her destination-points. Without his work, if anything went even slightly amiss, they could literally be ‘lost in space’. And since the Penelope could only sustain them for so long, getting to their destination-points safely was a life-or-death matter. Since Rob was the ship commander at the moment, Tom brought it to him, and appeared on the flight-deck or pilot’s helm through the entry-way, floating by hand-pulls like they all did, then settling down into a seat with the magnetic strips.
“Rob, uh, you need to look at something right away,” he said. “Is Guy on deck?”
Rob soured. “No,” he said. “Guy’s not on for another hour. What do you have?”
McGee had a small data-computer in his hands, the sort that could move complex information from one place to another quickly and easily, like a portable drive or hand-held unit for data-transfer. He booted up a page-file, which came to life on a small screen. Rob took the unit and studied the screen.
“I was running my usual plotting scans, in this case, pointed backwards towards home. You can see, the other ships behind us are still tracking. We already know this much. But look what happens when I magnify on the Russians, and then compare to our position,” McGee said. Rob handed him back the data-unit, and he worked some controls for a moment.
“See?” he said. “Two of the Russian lead ships are now close enough to the Penelope to spit at us and not miss by much. I mean, they snuck up on us, over the past 24-hours, I guess. They must have increased their speed, and a lot, not a little. The fuckers could hit us with a rock. I mean---well, from this, at this hour---one is about three kilometers away---the other is maybe ten. See? That’s not good, Rob. They want something. We need an all-hands alert, right now.”
Rob scowled and viewed the data-unit. “How old is this file?” he said.
“Less than an hour,” McGee answered.
“Mother-fucker,” Rob said. He knew, as they all did, that any ship-to-ship contact was forbidden by US-Earth command, and also that ships in transit rarely if ever got that close, in terms of material proximity of the actual ships. Anything closer than about 5,000-kilometers was considered dangerous, considering the speeds at which they traveled, especially for ships from different launch-sources.
“All right,” Rob said. “Good work, thank you, Tom. I’ll alert the captain. Tell the men to expect a general alarm within 15-minutes. Use the ship’s inter-comm. Then I want you to track every move they make to a gnat’s ass, back at your plotter-scanner.”
McGee sighed heavily. “What do you think they’re up to, Rob?” he asked.
Rob was working to punch-up his voice-alert to Guy’s sleeping berth. “Not sure. It’s a fucking war, Tom. US-Mars command warned us. But, you know---we should have been notified by Earth-tracking that they were moving in. It’s bull-shit---“
“I’ll get on the ship’s inter-comm to the crew, from my station,” McGee said. “Then I’ll just track their ships.” He quickly released the tether that held him down to the seat where they were working on the flight-helm deck, then pulled himself out of the room, down the hatch and into one of the level-to-level tunnels.
Now Rob had his alert-system connected to where Guy was sleeping. There was a loud beeping.
“This is the captain. What the hell—Rob? What’s going on?” Guy said. He was already awake and getting ready for his shift at the command deck. But he was resting and hoping to enjoy a few moments of peace and a hot coffee in a plastic tube.
Rob was terse. “We have a problem, Houston,” he said.
“Like what?” Guy answered.
“Uh---Klingons off the starboard bow, captain. No shit. Tom McGee just confirmed two of the Russian ships have snuck up fast behind us and are less then ten miles off from our position each. One of them is only three miles out. Right on top of us. He just figured it out an hour ago.”
He could hear Guy huffing and puffing on the other end, in his sleep-cabin, living-quarters, like he was dressing quickly.
“God-dammit,” Guy said. “All right. I’ll be on-deck in 10-minutes. Alert the crew and dispatch an emergency-alert to Earth-base, Molinari, and Mars, with the essential information.”
“Yes, sir,” Rob said.
They were not smiling.
2,320-words
-Julian Phillips
Monday, April 5, 2010
Chpt.-22 'Sauce for the Goose'
OUTPOST-Chapter 22
For Tom Luong Films-Development
By Julian Phillips
2010-04-05
“How do you cook a goose? First you kill the damn thing. Once it’s dead, it’s much easier to cook, and you can be as creative as you want. They’re delicious, with stuffing and you baste them with the best butter you can buy.”
--Commander Rudolph Terchanko, leader of the Russian-Islamic space program, 2077, from the KK-F/Region-6 space-port in the Ukraine.
And so it went, with the race to Mars, where Tweedle-Dee (the US side), and Tweedle-Dum (the Eastern-block) had agreed to have a battle. Mars, the barren, virtually dead world and stuff of Earth-legend for ages, sat in the sky like a fat brown-red marshmallow, half-roasted. And there on it, somewhere (a planet, after all, of considerable size), was a life-support research station deemed far more valuable than the ‘marshmallow’ itself. The reason, re-stated: God or whoever, had sent a very large rock through space towards home, looking very much like a collision, down-the-road some four years or so. Deep-thinkers on Earth thus now felt the battle to take Mars-base was worth the effort, or, an intelligent ‘move’, like an epic struggle for survival for human species survival, into eternity, or, however long the human species might survive. Despite the fact that no one seemed to get along anyway, as far as the human family was concerned.
There in the deep woods and mountains of the Ukraine, where KK-F/Region-6 was actually a very similar facility to the sought-after prize on Mars, Commander Terchenko was sweating the details, there in the frosty cold. The whole thing was making him feel taller, he thought idly. To move his thoughts skyward towards Mars, a reddish star in Earth’s night sky, and to plan, rehearse, study and commission Mother Russia’s considerable resources ‘out there’, to do her will---it gave him a headache. Not to mention the whole idea of his Earth-home being hit by an asteroid the size of the British Isles, or larger, and what all that might mean. Standing tall might help. But maybe not that tall.
“I’m not God, Milana,” he told his young secretary-assistant. “Despite what you think. I wish I was. Personally, I can only do my best. We are all in the hands of fate together.”
Once again, Terchanko’s work at Region-6 meant many hours of labor, holding together the many-numbered threads that would give Russia and the Islamic-coalition the ‘win’. This meant, in effect, that he had stepped into the role in direct opposition to that of the US-Mars program leader, Lynn Rogers-Smith, the Commander of Angels. Had they spent any time together in-person, such as over a Lone-Starr longneck back home in her native Texas, it’s true, the two would have likely been good friends, or ‘muy sympatico’, in any case. Smith could certainly be as tough as nails, like he, and was hella-smart. To kill a goose was not beyond her means and ways, at all. Or a space-ship full of men, sad-but-true. Not her venue anyway, military.
Terchenko, on the other hand, had very similar responsibilities. Launches, ships, men, women, fuel, navigation, orbit-paths, science-tech, politics. Both had power, and also during a critical juncture in history, supposedly. Each sensed their own mortality, and just how small they really were in the grand scheme of things. But a job’s a job. So, they laughed. It was all they could do.
Yet, they would never meet at all, ever, these two. Terchenko was Tweedle-Dee, and Smith his complimentary Tweedle-Dum? It hardly mattered. Earth’s political and global space ambitions now meant that two people, a man and a woman, in such roles, would indeed stand like giants on either continent, squaring off to reach for a star. Smith was but five-foot, seven-inches tall. Terchenko was six-feet, two inches.
Milana, Terchenko’s deeply-devoted assistant, had worked with him for more than five years. Gruff, hard, cold at times, yet, he loved her. Who wouldn’t? She was very healthy, quite young and fresh about herself. Her devotion to him was near absolute. Rich, powerful, mysterious, Terchenko was her father-figure. She was always busy, his needs were demanding. Meals, drink, and also books, data-files, research, many phone-calls, urgent contacts with distant lands and hard-to-reach men or women who held one or three or ten-thousand of the many-numbered threads he needed to control his complex task and command.
Milana and the Region-6 Commander were now working with three space-path navigators, and others, to plot the course ahead for the ships on both sides, projected right into Mars orbit, and how the military-battle planners and Generals would intend for the take-over to go ahead. Because this was now a ‘war in heaven’, the navigations for the ships was as critical as any other aspect. Terchenko knew enough about the methods to keep up. They all worked in one of the ‘mission-control’ centers, with many computers and monitors, and telemetry devices, and data-streams from various points around the world, pointed skyward.
“Now, here, Commander, you see?” said one of the navigators, a small man with a red face, very tech-savvy with his endless math and projections. “The one transport vessel, which is ahead of the rest. Our ships will over-take his position by less than 10,000-kilometers. That will take place in about two weeks, at the current speeds and paths. This may be an advantage for us.”
“How so?” Terchenko asked.
“Well, it has to do with the launch-dates and the curvature of the telemetry. The transport is ahead, yes. But prior to the mid-point, ours start to reduce the distance because of the orbital movement. It’s not much. But it will place them closer. Even, close enough for some kind of---inter-activity.”
The Commander frowned. A certain Colonel for the program, a military man they called ‘Bowder’ (for some reason), now offered an opinion, hearing this talk.
“Ship-to-ship,” Bowder said, his voice was like a clarinet with a broken reed. “Destroy them!”
“At 10,000-kilometers, colonel?” said Terchenko.
“It can be done. There is a way. Our team’s ships were re-invented for this with weapons. Bombs. Missiles. Of course we can. They could target the transport and---“
So, with this, they spent more time on the idea, with more experts and math-scientists working the space-telemetry, there in the Ukraine. Guy Reisling, of course, knew nothing about whatever they might decide, now some half-million miles away, sleeping comfortably in his bunk, dreaming of Lila Meetek, with a very nice erection to deal with, too. But it wasn’t lost on the US Mars-team at Vandenberg, that at some point the transport would be vulnerable. And this was why Okman, the transport program leader for the US, was placing long-distance calls to Guy, with the specific instructions for him to have no contact whatsoever with the Russian ships, of his own initiative.
The sunset over the woods in Russia that night was hidden beneath gray clouds without rain. The trees and woods were still, and if one had taken the time, perhaps half-an-hour, it was possible to view the floating drifts of moisture-clouds, moving en-masse, like a huge gray pancake, just above the tops of the hills and mountains, and the green trees that seemed to shiver in the wind. Then it grew dark and you could not see the clouds at all, or the stars. As the world turns, within a few hours, the sunshine of the morning on the California coast revealed the far-away Vandenberg space-port, inland a few miles off the sea. Sparks of blinding white reflection bounced off the many windows and shiny metals from the cranes and fuel tanks and hangars.
Rogers-Smith and some of the tech-planners, along with Branson Porter, Ibramim Mehudi, and members of the Mars-Base Defense Task Force, took an early breakfast conference-briefing, complete with all the tools they needed for their work. Muffins, hot coffee, eggs, orange-juice, vitamins. It was a working-day, they wasted no time, so to eat together while they talked and reviewed the reports was just more efficient. They used one of the smaller VIP dining halls.
“Go ahead with what they’ve been working on at Mars, Mehudi, would you? Some of the task-force haven’t been up-dated,” said Rogers-Smith to Ibrahim Mehudi, the loyal and highly intelligent Middle-Eastern scientist.
“Shitting bricks, I’d say,” Porter joked, with a few chuckles. Branson, also a Texan, was the security man, now recruited to plan various war-efforts and measures proposed for the battle ahead on Mars.
“Wouldn’t that be convenient, Branson?” Smith replied. “Easier to dispose of. Conserve water.”
Mehudi replaced his cup of hot-coffee, following a swallow. He had a lap-top connected to other computers within the facility, and tapped the keyboard for a moment. “The base on Mars has not been idle since all this started,” he said. “They’ve gone ahead with many of the task-force plans, but maybe not all, and some have not been completed. By the time the ships enter orbit—the Russians ahead of us by 50-days or so---the Mars-base will have considerable means to defend itself. All the men at the base on Mars are now being prepared with whatever weapons they had on-hand. They didn’t have many weapons, but of course they had some.”
“What kind of weapons?” asked Porter.
“I’m not quite sure, Branson. It’s in the data-base for their permanent inventory. But, you can pretty well guess. Standard modern fire-arms, for one thing. They work fine, the Mars-atmosphere has no effect. So, the large-bore shot-guns, the military style multi-shot rifles like our Earth soldiers have. They were included only---well, I guess only for something like this. But there are not enough for every man. There are other---“
“All right,” said Rogers-Smith, impatient. “Yes, yes. Guns, they have guns, and that sort. We knew that. I want to know about the external defenses. The air-lock gates, and the---what did you call them? The Oxygen-Igloos on the perimeter, outside? And what about any way they might have to shoot down the damn Russians when they are in orbit?”
“None,” Mehudi replied instantly. “None at all. Why would they? No one would plan to build a research base anticipating to shoot down our own ships as they arrive with goods or people? So, there are no missiles they can launch or target at the Russian ships once they are in orbit.”
“Too bad,” said one of the task-force men.
“Anyway, the plan on the external perimeter fox-holes has gone ahead. They’ve created about 50 of them, at various points in a circle around the air-tight facility. They aren’t quite ready, yet, from the reports we’ve gotten. But they will be. They used cargo containers, and other supplies. Men from inside can survive in one of these for about two days, on the outside. They can also re-charge the walker-suits they use, for oxygen. Each igloo has electricity, and some of them have communications back to the base. They’re air-tight once they enter. They used the plans and designs from before the base was built.”
“That’s what we wanted,” said the same man, from the Mars-base Defense Task Force, who was a military planner. He was finishing his small meal. None of the military men worked at Vandenberg in-uniform. “When they arrive, if things get into an attack situation---and that is what we expect---the men inside the base take stations in the igloos, and defend the base, moving in and out, onto the surface, or into the fox-holes, if you will, and back into the well-guarded air-locks. So, any progress there beforehand is excellent.”
Lynn looked dour. In her thoughts, the idea of ruining the costly space-suits and Mars-base resources they had worked so hard to build, over many years, not to mention the loss of lives---it was hard to see the point of it all. Asteroid 5726-b was just a dream, distant, un-real to them. Almost not a worry anyway, and she well-knew of the plans to stop or divert the asteroid, as it grew closer, from other Earth-global resources. Shot-guns? God! My Mars surface suits are worth more than a million credit-units each!! She cast an eye across the faces at the long table.
“All right, thank you,” she said tersely.
They paused. People were going over paper-work and reports, or gazing at their computers. Rogers-Smith also had hers. Two or three minutes.
“Who the hell is Rudolph Terchenko?” said Rogers-Smith, after another moment. “Commander Rudolph Terchenko, at one of the Russian launch-sites. Does anyone know?”
Dull stares and ignorance. No one seemed to know off-hand. Some shook their heads.
“No one knows him? That figures. They’re very secretive. Well, just FYI, everyone. According to my desk-top, this commander or whoever he is, is the responsible party on their side for a series of intercepted radio-communications and instructions in the past week to the Russian ships. Translations say they want their ship that is closest to the single transport we have---the ‘Penelope’, under Captain Guy Reisling, I believe---they are moving to encounter him. I guess because they are in range at some point in the near future. Did we know about this?”
Okman, Guy’s immediate superior, was not at this breakfast work-session, or he could have told her. But the Mars-base Defense Task Force man, named John Williams, was privy to that aspect.
“Yes, we know,” he said. “We can probably get something on this Terchenko.”
“What the hell do we tell the transport pilot? He’s defenseless, less than halfway to Mars,” said Lynn.
“Not sure,” said Williams. “We’re working on it. Depends what the Russians have planned for him.”
She breathed a deep sigh, heavy with the entirety of the effort, the emptiness of it all. For Lynn Rogers-Smith, a career space-program leader with a ton of experience, the ships and technology, the gear, the science applications---these were things of great beauty to her, near-perfection in their advanced functionality, very rare birds indeed, valued for the causes of research and exploration. Each ship took years to build and prepare, and even ages of learning and discoveries, from the past, for them to even be possible. And they were expensive to society, if that meant anything. And the cargo, and the people working at mission-control, and the planners---and the men on the ships. Human beings, real people, they wanted to come back alive.
“Well, whoever the son-of-a-bitch is, I think I hate him,” she said, half-joking, still reading more of her reports and data. Some laughed, some didn’t. “If they shoot him down, his goose is cooked, know-what-I-mean? Helluva’ way to die, floating away in space. Have somebody find out about this rat, this Rudolph the Red-Nosed Russian mother-ducker. And connect directly to the sources here that are picking up their radios to their ships. I want every detail every hour, to keep ahead of them, and maybe save this transport.”
“You got it, Lynn,” answered Branson Porter, a bit stunned, even for a Texan.
2,480-words
Julian Phillips
For Tom Luong Films-Development
By Julian Phillips
2010-04-05
“How do you cook a goose? First you kill the damn thing. Once it’s dead, it’s much easier to cook, and you can be as creative as you want. They’re delicious, with stuffing and you baste them with the best butter you can buy.”
--Commander Rudolph Terchanko, leader of the Russian-Islamic space program, 2077, from the KK-F/Region-6 space-port in the Ukraine.
And so it went, with the race to Mars, where Tweedle-Dee (the US side), and Tweedle-Dum (the Eastern-block) had agreed to have a battle. Mars, the barren, virtually dead world and stuff of Earth-legend for ages, sat in the sky like a fat brown-red marshmallow, half-roasted. And there on it, somewhere (a planet, after all, of considerable size), was a life-support research station deemed far more valuable than the ‘marshmallow’ itself. The reason, re-stated: God or whoever, had sent a very large rock through space towards home, looking very much like a collision, down-the-road some four years or so. Deep-thinkers on Earth thus now felt the battle to take Mars-base was worth the effort, or, an intelligent ‘move’, like an epic struggle for survival for human species survival, into eternity, or, however long the human species might survive. Despite the fact that no one seemed to get along anyway, as far as the human family was concerned.
There in the deep woods and mountains of the Ukraine, where KK-F/Region-6 was actually a very similar facility to the sought-after prize on Mars, Commander Terchenko was sweating the details, there in the frosty cold. The whole thing was making him feel taller, he thought idly. To move his thoughts skyward towards Mars, a reddish star in Earth’s night sky, and to plan, rehearse, study and commission Mother Russia’s considerable resources ‘out there’, to do her will---it gave him a headache. Not to mention the whole idea of his Earth-home being hit by an asteroid the size of the British Isles, or larger, and what all that might mean. Standing tall might help. But maybe not that tall.
“I’m not God, Milana,” he told his young secretary-assistant. “Despite what you think. I wish I was. Personally, I can only do my best. We are all in the hands of fate together.”
Once again, Terchanko’s work at Region-6 meant many hours of labor, holding together the many-numbered threads that would give Russia and the Islamic-coalition the ‘win’. This meant, in effect, that he had stepped into the role in direct opposition to that of the US-Mars program leader, Lynn Rogers-Smith, the Commander of Angels. Had they spent any time together in-person, such as over a Lone-Starr longneck back home in her native Texas, it’s true, the two would have likely been good friends, or ‘muy sympatico’, in any case. Smith could certainly be as tough as nails, like he, and was hella-smart. To kill a goose was not beyond her means and ways, at all. Or a space-ship full of men, sad-but-true. Not her venue anyway, military.
Terchenko, on the other hand, had very similar responsibilities. Launches, ships, men, women, fuel, navigation, orbit-paths, science-tech, politics. Both had power, and also during a critical juncture in history, supposedly. Each sensed their own mortality, and just how small they really were in the grand scheme of things. But a job’s a job. So, they laughed. It was all they could do.
Yet, they would never meet at all, ever, these two. Terchenko was Tweedle-Dee, and Smith his complimentary Tweedle-Dum? It hardly mattered. Earth’s political and global space ambitions now meant that two people, a man and a woman, in such roles, would indeed stand like giants on either continent, squaring off to reach for a star. Smith was but five-foot, seven-inches tall. Terchenko was six-feet, two inches.
Milana, Terchenko’s deeply-devoted assistant, had worked with him for more than five years. Gruff, hard, cold at times, yet, he loved her. Who wouldn’t? She was very healthy, quite young and fresh about herself. Her devotion to him was near absolute. Rich, powerful, mysterious, Terchenko was her father-figure. She was always busy, his needs were demanding. Meals, drink, and also books, data-files, research, many phone-calls, urgent contacts with distant lands and hard-to-reach men or women who held one or three or ten-thousand of the many-numbered threads he needed to control his complex task and command.
Milana and the Region-6 Commander were now working with three space-path navigators, and others, to plot the course ahead for the ships on both sides, projected right into Mars orbit, and how the military-battle planners and Generals would intend for the take-over to go ahead. Because this was now a ‘war in heaven’, the navigations for the ships was as critical as any other aspect. Terchenko knew enough about the methods to keep up. They all worked in one of the ‘mission-control’ centers, with many computers and monitors, and telemetry devices, and data-streams from various points around the world, pointed skyward.
“Now, here, Commander, you see?” said one of the navigators, a small man with a red face, very tech-savvy with his endless math and projections. “The one transport vessel, which is ahead of the rest. Our ships will over-take his position by less than 10,000-kilometers. That will take place in about two weeks, at the current speeds and paths. This may be an advantage for us.”
“How so?” Terchenko asked.
“Well, it has to do with the launch-dates and the curvature of the telemetry. The transport is ahead, yes. But prior to the mid-point, ours start to reduce the distance because of the orbital movement. It’s not much. But it will place them closer. Even, close enough for some kind of---inter-activity.”
The Commander frowned. A certain Colonel for the program, a military man they called ‘Bowder’ (for some reason), now offered an opinion, hearing this talk.
“Ship-to-ship,” Bowder said, his voice was like a clarinet with a broken reed. “Destroy them!”
“At 10,000-kilometers, colonel?” said Terchenko.
“It can be done. There is a way. Our team’s ships were re-invented for this with weapons. Bombs. Missiles. Of course we can. They could target the transport and---“
So, with this, they spent more time on the idea, with more experts and math-scientists working the space-telemetry, there in the Ukraine. Guy Reisling, of course, knew nothing about whatever they might decide, now some half-million miles away, sleeping comfortably in his bunk, dreaming of Lila Meetek, with a very nice erection to deal with, too. But it wasn’t lost on the US Mars-team at Vandenberg, that at some point the transport would be vulnerable. And this was why Okman, the transport program leader for the US, was placing long-distance calls to Guy, with the specific instructions for him to have no contact whatsoever with the Russian ships, of his own initiative.
The sunset over the woods in Russia that night was hidden beneath gray clouds without rain. The trees and woods were still, and if one had taken the time, perhaps half-an-hour, it was possible to view the floating drifts of moisture-clouds, moving en-masse, like a huge gray pancake, just above the tops of the hills and mountains, and the green trees that seemed to shiver in the wind. Then it grew dark and you could not see the clouds at all, or the stars. As the world turns, within a few hours, the sunshine of the morning on the California coast revealed the far-away Vandenberg space-port, inland a few miles off the sea. Sparks of blinding white reflection bounced off the many windows and shiny metals from the cranes and fuel tanks and hangars.
Rogers-Smith and some of the tech-planners, along with Branson Porter, Ibramim Mehudi, and members of the Mars-Base Defense Task Force, took an early breakfast conference-briefing, complete with all the tools they needed for their work. Muffins, hot coffee, eggs, orange-juice, vitamins. It was a working-day, they wasted no time, so to eat together while they talked and reviewed the reports was just more efficient. They used one of the smaller VIP dining halls.
“Go ahead with what they’ve been working on at Mars, Mehudi, would you? Some of the task-force haven’t been up-dated,” said Rogers-Smith to Ibrahim Mehudi, the loyal and highly intelligent Middle-Eastern scientist.
“Shitting bricks, I’d say,” Porter joked, with a few chuckles. Branson, also a Texan, was the security man, now recruited to plan various war-efforts and measures proposed for the battle ahead on Mars.
“Wouldn’t that be convenient, Branson?” Smith replied. “Easier to dispose of. Conserve water.”
Mehudi replaced his cup of hot-coffee, following a swallow. He had a lap-top connected to other computers within the facility, and tapped the keyboard for a moment. “The base on Mars has not been idle since all this started,” he said. “They’ve gone ahead with many of the task-force plans, but maybe not all, and some have not been completed. By the time the ships enter orbit—the Russians ahead of us by 50-days or so---the Mars-base will have considerable means to defend itself. All the men at the base on Mars are now being prepared with whatever weapons they had on-hand. They didn’t have many weapons, but of course they had some.”
“What kind of weapons?” asked Porter.
“I’m not quite sure, Branson. It’s in the data-base for their permanent inventory. But, you can pretty well guess. Standard modern fire-arms, for one thing. They work fine, the Mars-atmosphere has no effect. So, the large-bore shot-guns, the military style multi-shot rifles like our Earth soldiers have. They were included only---well, I guess only for something like this. But there are not enough for every man. There are other---“
“All right,” said Rogers-Smith, impatient. “Yes, yes. Guns, they have guns, and that sort. We knew that. I want to know about the external defenses. The air-lock gates, and the---what did you call them? The Oxygen-Igloos on the perimeter, outside? And what about any way they might have to shoot down the damn Russians when they are in orbit?”
“None,” Mehudi replied instantly. “None at all. Why would they? No one would plan to build a research base anticipating to shoot down our own ships as they arrive with goods or people? So, there are no missiles they can launch or target at the Russian ships once they are in orbit.”
“Too bad,” said one of the task-force men.
“Anyway, the plan on the external perimeter fox-holes has gone ahead. They’ve created about 50 of them, at various points in a circle around the air-tight facility. They aren’t quite ready, yet, from the reports we’ve gotten. But they will be. They used cargo containers, and other supplies. Men from inside can survive in one of these for about two days, on the outside. They can also re-charge the walker-suits they use, for oxygen. Each igloo has electricity, and some of them have communications back to the base. They’re air-tight once they enter. They used the plans and designs from before the base was built.”
“That’s what we wanted,” said the same man, from the Mars-base Defense Task Force, who was a military planner. He was finishing his small meal. None of the military men worked at Vandenberg in-uniform. “When they arrive, if things get into an attack situation---and that is what we expect---the men inside the base take stations in the igloos, and defend the base, moving in and out, onto the surface, or into the fox-holes, if you will, and back into the well-guarded air-locks. So, any progress there beforehand is excellent.”
Lynn looked dour. In her thoughts, the idea of ruining the costly space-suits and Mars-base resources they had worked so hard to build, over many years, not to mention the loss of lives---it was hard to see the point of it all. Asteroid 5726-b was just a dream, distant, un-real to them. Almost not a worry anyway, and she well-knew of the plans to stop or divert the asteroid, as it grew closer, from other Earth-global resources. Shot-guns? God! My Mars surface suits are worth more than a million credit-units each!! She cast an eye across the faces at the long table.
“All right, thank you,” she said tersely.
They paused. People were going over paper-work and reports, or gazing at their computers. Rogers-Smith also had hers. Two or three minutes.
“Who the hell is Rudolph Terchenko?” said Rogers-Smith, after another moment. “Commander Rudolph Terchenko, at one of the Russian launch-sites. Does anyone know?”
Dull stares and ignorance. No one seemed to know off-hand. Some shook their heads.
“No one knows him? That figures. They’re very secretive. Well, just FYI, everyone. According to my desk-top, this commander or whoever he is, is the responsible party on their side for a series of intercepted radio-communications and instructions in the past week to the Russian ships. Translations say they want their ship that is closest to the single transport we have---the ‘Penelope’, under Captain Guy Reisling, I believe---they are moving to encounter him. I guess because they are in range at some point in the near future. Did we know about this?”
Okman, Guy’s immediate superior, was not at this breakfast work-session, or he could have told her. But the Mars-base Defense Task Force man, named John Williams, was privy to that aspect.
“Yes, we know,” he said. “We can probably get something on this Terchenko.”
“What the hell do we tell the transport pilot? He’s defenseless, less than halfway to Mars,” said Lynn.
“Not sure,” said Williams. “We’re working on it. Depends what the Russians have planned for him.”
She breathed a deep sigh, heavy with the entirety of the effort, the emptiness of it all. For Lynn Rogers-Smith, a career space-program leader with a ton of experience, the ships and technology, the gear, the science applications---these were things of great beauty to her, near-perfection in their advanced functionality, very rare birds indeed, valued for the causes of research and exploration. Each ship took years to build and prepare, and even ages of learning and discoveries, from the past, for them to even be possible. And they were expensive to society, if that meant anything. And the cargo, and the people working at mission-control, and the planners---and the men on the ships. Human beings, real people, they wanted to come back alive.
“Well, whoever the son-of-a-bitch is, I think I hate him,” she said, half-joking, still reading more of her reports and data. Some laughed, some didn’t. “If they shoot him down, his goose is cooked, know-what-I-mean? Helluva’ way to die, floating away in space. Have somebody find out about this rat, this Rudolph the Red-Nosed Russian mother-ducker. And connect directly to the sources here that are picking up their radios to their ships. I want every detail every hour, to keep ahead of them, and maybe save this transport.”
“You got it, Lynn,” answered Branson Porter, a bit stunned, even for a Texan.
2,480-words
Julian Phillips
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