by Ryk Brown
“The gravity will change as you travel deeper into the heart of the asteroid,” Tug continued, ignoring their sarcasm.
“Yeah, we understand. Just take your seat, okay,” Loki said. He knew that if he didn’t get the old rebel leader off their backs, Josh was going to get them in trouble with another smart remark.
Tug resigned himself to the fact that his life was in the hands of these two young pilots, both of which he highly doubted had ever flown under such conditions. But he had learned many decades ago that his destiny was not always in his own hands.
“Is that going to be a problem for the Aurora?” Jessica asked Tug as he took a seat across from her. “The gravity, I mean.”
“Once we are inside and the facility is powered up, there are compensation mechanisms built into the crack and the tunnels that will maintain a zero gravity environment. The Aurora will not have to compensate as we will.”
“Well that’s something, anyway,” she muttered. She looked at Marcus, who was still sitting on the bench across from her, next to Tug, sound asleep and snoring inside his helmet. She reached out her foot and gave him a kick.
“Wake up!” she hollered.
Marcus shook slightly, opening his eyes with a start. For a moment, he wasn’t quite sure where he was. The fact that he was closed up inside a pressure suit also caught him by surprise. It was in fact the first time he had worn one, and he didn’t care much for the idea.
Scrambling to get the faceplate up, they could hear his muffled curses aimed at Josh for closing his faceplate to begin with.
“There it is,” Loki said, pointing at the crack in the asteroid over their heads.
“Lining her up now,” Josh announced as he corrected their approach course to line up with the crack above them.
Both Tug and Jessica leaned in toward the center of the shuttle, trying to see forward through the cockpit windows. But despite their best efforts, the view was not very revealing.
Josh began thrusting toward the asteroid to bring them in closer. “Just a touch, to let the asteroid’s gravity pull us down,” he said. “Rolling over.” Josh rolled the shuttle on its longitudinal axis so that its bottom was now facing the asteroid.
“Are there any other windows back here?” Jessica asked. “I’m supposed to be checking the place out and I can’t see shit from back here.”
“Lock your visors down and go to internal support,” Marcus instructed them. Marcus watched as each of them locked down their helmet visors, checked that their internal life support systems were working and then reported such to him with a thumbs up sign.
“Depress the ship,” Marcus told Loki.
“Depressurizing.”
Slowly, over a few minutes, the sounds inside the shuttle faded away as the air that carried them was sucked out of the cabin. Once they were in silence and could hear nothing other than their own respirations, Marcus moved to the back of the ship and activated the loading ramp. The big ramp, that when closed made up the aft wall of the cabin, lowered away, creating a platform off the back end of the shuttle.
“Did you order a view?” Marcus asked, gesturing toward the open back end of the shuttle.
Jessica walked out onto the platform, activating the magnetic grips in the soles of her boots to keep from falling of the end. Once at the extreme end, she turned around to face forward. The shuttle was not all the way down in the crack, which was about three hundred meters deep and more than three times that in width. It was a breathtaking view, with the massive turquoise gas-giant in the distant black sky. “This is amazing,” she exclaimed.
“The entrance is coming up on the port side,” Loki reported. “We’ll be coming to port in about ten seconds.”
Jessica could see the overhang begin jutting out on the port side for a few seconds before they turned. Moments later, they were inside the massive tunnel. The walls were ragged, but overall they were a lot smoother than she had expected. Every twenty to thirty meters, she saw strategically placed rings that went around the inside of the tunnel’s diameter. “What are those rings?”
“Lighting, gravity displacement emitters, sensors, and comm-arrays,” Tug explained as he stepped out onto the ramp next to her. “They are located all along the tunnels. It makes the tunnels very easy to navigate when the facility is operational.”
“Did you guys do all this yourselves?”
“No. We could never afford this level of construction. The facility was once a mining base. It was abandoned decades ago and has been awaiting de-orbit. We simply took advantage of its availability. We only had to provide the power plant, which we got from a few otherwise inoperable Ta’Akar ships.”
“Still, it’s pretty impressive.”
“You do not have such facilities on Earth?”
“Oh, we’re mining our asteroid belt as well, just not from the inside out.”
“It takes many generations to fully excavate some of the more massive asteroids. This one is one of the smaller ones. It is only a few kilometers across, but it was perfect for our plans. I only wish we had been given an opportunity to utilize it much earlier.”
The tunnel suddenly opened up into a much larger cavern, at least a kilometer in diameter. The walls, floors, and ceilings were craggy and irregular, and there was another tunnel that appeared to be an exit on the opposite side. All along the walls were strange boxes and domes, some joined together by surface tunnels, others seemingly standing alone and disconnected. Along one side of the cavern there was a large framework surrounding what looked like a platform of some type jutting out from the wall. There was an entrance with big double doors that led from the platform into the rock itself.
“Is that the facility?” Jessica asked.
“That’s the dock, yes. All of these buildings are the facility.”
“But they’re all at such varying angles,” Jessica commented. “Doesn’t it get disorienting?”
“Each building has its own gravity plating. It’s easier than trying to orient every structure to use the asteroid’s rather weak gravity. You get used to it after a while.”
“Take us down onto the platform to port,” Tug instructed the flight crew.
The shuttle turned to port and descended slightly. As it approached the platform, it slowly rotated until its aft end was facing the big double doors on the wall. The shuttle backed over the platform before finally extending its landing gear and setting down.
Marcus lowered the boarding ramp the last meter until it made contact with the platform, allowing Tug, Jalea, and Jessica to step off the ramp and onto the platform.
Jessica turned back to face the shuttle. “Josh, you and Loki stay with the ship. If we’re not back in thirty minutes, head back to the Aurora and get help.”
“Got it.”
“What about me?” Marcus asked, not sure that he wanted to hear the answer.
“Come on, tough guy. You’re with me.”
“Great.”
Jessica and Marcus followed Tug and Jalea across the platform to a small personnel hatch just to the right of the cargo doors. Tug spun the hatch lock and swung the hatch open. There was very little illumination from the shuttle’s exterior flood lights making its way into the next room, so Tug and Jalea both turned on their helmet lights as they entered. Following suit, Jessica and Marcus did the same. They stepped into the airlock and closed the hatch behind them, repeating the process to pass through the inner hatch. Once inside, they made their way down a long, dark corridor, the beams from the helmet lights dancing about the walls. After about ten meters, they came to a door marked Control.
The small control room consisted of four consoles on one side of the room and another four opposite them. Within moments, Tug was at the correct control panel and had activated the emergency lighting.
“I have activated the emergency backup power. The external communications array should be active in a few moments. It will have a limited range until the main reactor is online, which will take about an hour. So it can provide communicat
ions in the general vicinity of this asteroid only. Once the main reactor is online, we should be fully operational.”
“Shuttle, this is Nash.”
“Go ahead,” Loki answered.
“We’re good here. It’ll take about an hour to get everything powered up. Meanwhile, take off and get outside. Once you’re outside the asteroid, contact the Aurora and tell her she’s clear to approach. Transmit your scanner data back to them and then stand by until you hear from me.”
“Copy that. Taking off.”
“So what do we do now?” Marcus asked. “Sit around and wait?”
“I don’t know about you,” Jessica said, “but I’m gonna take a look around this place.”
“It should take about an hour to bring the facility fully online,” Loki reported over the comms. “So by the time you get here, it should be fully operational.”
“Copy that,” Nathan answered from his command chair on the bridge. “How were the tunnels?”
“Pretty straight, not too long, plenty of room. Shouldn’t be a problem. Plus there’s an exit tunnel on the opposite side. The toughest part is the initial turn into the tunnel. You have to come down into a crack and then slip under this massive overhang that hides the entrance. The first turn into the tunnel is a little sharp, but after that it’s no problem. He had to fight the asteroids gravity the whole time, but Tug says the whole thing is lined with gravity plating, so you’ll have a zero G environment when you get here.”
“And the main docking area? How’s that?”
“It’s huge,” Loki exclaimed. “You could park three of your ships in there.”
“Copy.” Nathan turned to Cameron, who had been standing next to him and listening to the conversation the entire time. “What’s our ETA there?”
“We can go quite a bit faster than the shuttle, so just under an hour.”
“Send us your scan data,” Nathan ordered. “We’ll be there in just under an hour.”
“Copy that. Sending scan data now.”
“Whenever you’re ready, Commander.”
“We’re receiving the scan data, Captain,” the comm-officer reported.
“Very well. Kaylah, use their scan data to build a 3D navigation map. I think we’d like to get a look at the route before we take the ship in there.”
“Yes, sir,” Ensign Yosef responded.
Cameron took the seat at the helm console and prepared to break orbit.
“I don’t suppose you need my help flying the ship?” Nathan offered.
“For a basic transfer orbit?” Cameron said. “Please, I can do this in my sleep.”
“Doctor, I assume it’s just as pointless to ask if you have escape jumps plotted?”
“Correct, it is,” Abby answered, her eyes never leaving her console.
“All right, then. As strange an order as it may seem, take us to the hideout, Commander,” Nathan ordered.
The asteroid now filled most of the main view screen as the Aurora closed in on the massive rock. Lit mostly from behind and to port, the irregular mass was riddled with shadows that were barely softened by the ships external floodlights. Cameron had slowed their closure rate as they approached and they were now nearly matched in their orbital velocities around the parent star.
“I think this place will work fine,” Jessica reported over the comms. “We’ve been through most of the main compartments, but it’s only a fraction of the entire facility. According to Tug, most of it is closed off and powered down since they never really needed it. But there’s a full space dock, with gantries and robotic arms and the like. There are also several machine and fabrication facilities. In fact, they have something similar to the 3D component printing technology that we use, only a lot more advanced from the looks of it.”
Cameron looked at Nathan from her seat at the helm, her face showing hope for the first time in days. From what she was hearing in Jessica’s initial report, the rebel hideout might be a blessing in disguise.
“Sounds good. We’re on approach now, so we should be docking shortly.”
“Yeah, we’ve got you on our scope here, so we’ll be tracking you all the way in. Nash out.”
“Captain, Shuttle One has just arrived in our hangar,” the comm-officer reported.
“Very well,” he answered. “Have them refuel and get the shuttle ready to launch again, just in case.” Nathan turned back to Cameron. “Are you ready for this, Commander?”
“Don’t worry, Nathan. This will be easy.”
“Easy? You’re about to pilot a spaceship through a tunnel in an asteroid. I don’t remember ever running any simulations on this.”
“Not to worry. I used the 3D nav-map that Kaylah assembled to plot a series of maneuvering waypoints that I programmed into the navigation system. The ship will practically fly itself through the tunnels. All I’ve got to do is get her in the front door and to the first waypoint. The computer will take it from there.”
“Very well. Take us in.”
“Aye, sir.” Cameron pushed the nose of the ship down slightly and applied a bit of forward thrust to move closer and slip down under the asteroid, rolling the ship over as they drew closer. The image of the asteroid on the main view screen moved up and then rotated over, until it was only showing along the bottom quarter of the screen and was slowly rising as they descended towards it.
Nathan moved over into the copilot’s seat as he watched the main view screen. Cameron noticed him assuming the navigator’s position with some dismay, as she had been pretty much flying the ship solo since they had arrived in this part of the galaxy.
“I’ve got this, Nathan,” she said under her breath.
“I’ll be good,” he promised quietly. “I’m just going to sit here in case you need me.” She shot a quick glance his way, not wanting to take her eyes off the console displays. “Besides,” he added. “I feel useless sitting back there.” Nathan glanced back at Cameron and noticed a slight smirk forming on her face. “Don’t start,” he warned.
Cameron slid the ship slightly farther to port in order to line her up with the crack into which they needed to descend. The flight display showed a line drawing of the basic shape of the crevice, as well as both the recommended and their actual flight paths. All she really had to do was keep to the recommended flight path until they hit the first waypoint. At that point, she could use the ship’s auto-flight system to run them through a series of maneuvers she had already programmed using the data collected by the shuttle. Although she felt confident that she could pilot the ship through the tunnels manually, there was no reason not to let the computers do the work. She was quite sure that, had Nathan been sitting at the helm, he would have chosen to fly through the tunnels on his own. Back at the Academy, she had noticed that most of the male pilots were reluctant to let the computer do any of the piloting. It was just one more thing about the male ego that she failed to understand.
As they came uncomfortably close to the asteroid’s surface, she could see Nathan becoming agitated. He kept glancing over at her, checking to see what she was doing. She was sure that he was curious about the fact that her hand never went for the manual control stick, choosing instead to do everything by computer commands.
“Picking up a change in gravity ahead, Commander,” Kaylah reported.
“Must be the zero G corridor they were talking about,” Nathan said.
“That’s affirmative, sir. I’m now reading zero gravity in the crevice, starting in about five hundred meters.”
Nathan looked down at his flight displays. “Wow. You’re going to hit your mark perfectly,” he admitted, realizing that Cameron had chosen to let the asteroid’s weak gravity field pull the ship closer at a rate that would leave them at the perfect altitude when they crossed the threshold into the artificially induced zero gravity in the crevice.
“There’s more to piloting a starship than just yanking on a joystick,” she quipped.
“I’ll have to remember that.”
The
ship settled in a scant one hundred meters above the floor of the crevice as it crossed into the zero gravity channel. A small blast from the thrusters made sure that their descent stopped as they continued to crawl forward down the long, deep crack in the massive rock. Although it had appeared to be naturally occurring from orbit, up close it was obvious that much of the surface had been cut-away to make the crevice more easily navigable for larger ships. Nathan suspected that the Karuzari had been hoping to capture something as large as one of the Ta’Akar capital ships; although he wasn’t quite sure one of them would actually fit into this channel.
“Coming up on the entrance,” Nathan muttered before catching himself.
Cameron applied a slight thrust on the braking thrusters to slow the ship even further. The massive cliff faces on either side of them, visible through the main view screen, barely seemed to be moving at this point.
“There it is,” Nathan said, pointing to the left side of the screen.
Cameron didn’t react, didn’t even look up. Her attention was focused on her console as she prepared to initiate a slight turn to port. A few moments later, she fired the attitude thrusters, yawing the ship and bringing her nose slightly to port. But the ship continued to slide to starboard, still traveling along the same path it had been prior to the yaw maneuver. She simultaneously applied forward thrust as well as even bow and stern starboard thrust, thus changing the ship’s flight path to match the direction that its bow now pointed, which was directly into the massive tunnel veering off to the left of the crevice.
Nathan looked up as he watched the overhang of the tunnel entrance pass over them. The sight sent shivers down his spine. He remembered piloting the ship out of the assembly platform in orbit of Earth, watching the trusses pass overhead. But had he collided with them, the resulting damage to the ship would have been minimal. He was quite sure that any collision with this asteroid, even at their minimal velocity, would be far more serious.
“Coming up on primary waypoint,” Cameron announced as her fingers danced across her input keys. A few moments later, she tapped the final key, left her hands floating above the console for a moment, and checked that the auto-flight systems had taken over properly.
