from that thing?”
“Nothing on radio that I can see. Just little pops of static every time that thing flashes.” He looked at a three-dimensional line graph of the past few hours. Spikes on the graph bulging about the Z-axis at decreasing intervals became a solid mass of noise around 10:33 before becoming distinct blips again shortly around 10:34. Pradeep turned back to his screen to look at it. “It’s just noise.”
Ortega was watching this exchange and pulled in the comms data on his terminal to begin analyzing it.
“Well, see if you can find a signal in there. Maybe there’s something.” Grasping for straws.
Bryce patted him on the shoulder and walked back to the Commander’s chair. He could really use some guidance with this. He was out of his depth.
027
Calypso.
“How’s that bomb coming, Trig?”. Captain Franklin radioed to the cargo pod slung beneath the hab module.
Ben came back over the ship’s radio a minute later. “Good, skip. I think Carl’s got it rigged to blow.” He paused. “Bigger problem is propulsion. I think Carl and I are gonna need to steal the Pup. Suit thrusters just don’t have enough juice to move this thing very far out, and we’re gonna want to be a good distance away when it goes up.”
Trigger inspected his work from inside the cargo module’s service bay. Lights from his suit helmet illuminating the dark block studded with tubing and electronics in front of him. The feeder was no longer really recognizable as the piece of mining equipment it was designed to be. The extraction tube had been redirected back onto the reactor module’s blocky core housing. They’d attached the radios and helmet camera from their spare suit to the top, mounted the thrusters from a suit harness and bottles of compressed gas for fuel to its sides. The material conduit that had been the back of the feeder had become the front of their bomb. Ben and Carl had cut the exhaust tubing and reinforced it with some spare thruster nozzles from the ship’s main engine.
Carl looked at the monstrosity and shook his head inside his helmet. “No way this thing’ll work.”
Trigger picked up some of the excess suit materials and bundled them up in his bag. “Oh, it’ll explode. When the feeder sends a line of plasma into the side of the reactor housing, it’ll blow up real good.” He picked up the suit’s thruster control module and started flicking switches. “We just need to make sure the controls work.” He was very careful to avoid the toggle switch labeled “Ch 8”. He had a piece of duct tape holding it down.
Carl watched him handling the control box. “Careful ‘round that switch, Trig. We know what happens when you get excited around feeders.”
“Har, har.” He’d never live down his first mining operation. He’d insisted on manning the feeder, letting everybody know he was the most qualified as their mining engineer. When he’d grabbed hold of the tube he accidentally squeezed the trigger and punched a hole in the side of the ship’s cargo module. He spent the rest of the day patching the hole while Carl ran the feeder. The name had stuck, but he never had another accident.
Captain Franklin came back on the radio. “Can we use the Pup without disassembling it? We might be able to use its propulsion to help boost this thing away and then come back to the ship.” The Pups were valuable components on these ships. High-powered wide-band sensor packages, optics and control systems were hard to reproduce on Mars. Limited manufacturing capabilities on the station meant there was a long wait for parts.
Ben answered, clicking in on his radio. “We’ll see what we can do, Skip.”
“Alright. Just bring that stuff up to our airlock. Out.” Captain Franklin was sipping tea, Bob Marley and the Wailers playing “Don’t Worry About a Thing” low on the sound system in the cockpit. He was going over their trajectory again, thinking about the cargo hold full of iron he
“Nothing on radio that I can see. Just little pops of static every time that thing flashes.” He looked at a three-dimensional line graph of the past few hours. Spikes on the graph bulging about the Z-axis at decreasing intervals became a solid mass of noise around 10:33 before becoming distinct blips again shortly around 10:34. Pradeep turned back to his screen to look at it. “It’s just noise.”
Ortega was watching this exchange and pulled in the comms data on his terminal to begin analyzing it.
“Well, see if you can find a signal in there. Maybe there’s something.” Grasping for straws.
Bryce patted him on the shoulder and walked back to the Commander’s chair. He could really use some guidance with this. He was out of his depth.
027
Calypso.
“How’s that bomb coming, Trig?”. Captain Franklin radioed to the cargo pod slung beneath the hab module.
Ben came back over the ship’s radio a minute later. “Good, skip. I think Carl’s got it rigged to blow.” He paused. “Bigger problem is propulsion. I think Carl and I are gonna need to steal the Pup. Suit thrusters just don’t have enough juice to move this thing very far out, and we’re gonna want to be a good distance away when it goes up.”
Trigger inspected his work from inside the cargo module’s service bay. Lights from his suit helmet illuminating the dark block studded with tubing and electronics in front of him. The feeder was no longer really recognizable as the piece of mining equipment it was designed to be. The extraction tube had been redirected back onto the reactor module’s blocky core housing. They’d attached the radios and helmet camera from their spare suit to the top, mounted the thrusters from a suit harness and bottles of compressed gas for fuel to its sides. The material conduit that had been the back of the feeder had become the front of their bomb. Ben and Carl had cut the exhaust tubing and reinforced it with some spare thruster nozzles from the ship’s main engine.
Carl looked at the monstrosity and shook his head inside his helmet. “No way this thing’ll work.”
Trigger picked up some of the excess suit materials and bundled them up in his bag. “Oh, it’ll explode. When the feeder sends a line of plasma into the side of the reactor housing, it’ll blow up real good.” He picked up the suit’s thruster control module and started flicking switches. “We just need to make sure the controls work.” He was very careful to avoid the toggle switch labeled “Ch 8”. He had a piece of duct tape holding it down.
Carl watched him handling the control box. “Careful ‘round that switch, Trig. We know what happens when you get excited around feeders.”
“Har, har.” He’d never live down his first mining operation. He’d insisted on manning the feeder, letting everybody know he was the most qualified as their mining engineer. When he’d grabbed hold of the tube he accidentally squeezed the trigger and punched a hole in the side of the ship’s cargo module. He spent the rest of the day patching the hole while Carl ran the feeder. The name had stuck, but he never had another accident.
Captain Franklin came back on the radio. “Can we use the Pup without disassembling it? We might be able to use its propulsion to help boost this thing away and then come back to the ship.” The Pups were valuable components on these ships. High-powered wide-band sensor packages, optics and control systems were hard to reproduce on Mars. Limited manufacturing capabilities on the station meant there was a long wait for parts.
Ben answered, clicking in on his radio. “We’ll see what we can do, Skip.”
“Alright. Just bring that stuff up to our airlock. Out.” Captain Franklin was sipping tea, Bob Marley and the Wailers playing “Don’t Worry About a Thing” low on the sound system in the cockpit. He was going over their trajectory again, thinking about the cargo hold full of iron he
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