by Laer Carroll
Travels of the Orphan
Laer Carroll
Copyright © 2020 by L. E. Carroll
Summary: Jane Kuznetsov has long wanted to travel among the stars. But first she must travel the Solar System, gaining the capabilities and the expertise to do so.
Along the way she discovers that the Earth system has surprises. Such that once Cats, those blue-furred six-limbed near centaurs, lived in the asteroids. And even on Mars.
Further, she will find that Earth is known to the inhabitants of other systems. Including the friendly green-skinned humanoids the Lizards. And the not-so-friendly grey-skinned Frogs, some of whom are lurking in the Kuiper Belt.
Can Earth protect itself from the Frogs? Jane Kuznetsov is determined to make it so.
Disclaimer
All people, places, and events are fictional or used fictitiously. They exist in an imaginary alternate reality, and any resemblance to actual people and events is purely coincidental.
Credits
All cover and interior art is the sole creation of L. E. Carroll, who retains copyright as of 2020. They may be reproduced for any purpose, commercial or otherwise, but only if reproduced without any change except to increase or decrease its size.
Books
by Laer Carroll
The Eons-Lost Orphan
The Orphan in Near-Space
Travels of the Orphan
The Once-Dead Girl
The Super Olympian: Bloodhound
The Super Olympian: Mystic Warrior
Sea Monster's Revenge
Shapechanger's Birth
Shapechanger's Progress
Shapechanger's Destiny (forthcoming)
Chapter 1 - Discovery
Major Jane Kuznetsov of the U. S. Space Force floated in virtual space which mimicked real space 4.1 astronomical units from the Sun, or a little over 381 million miles.
The disembodied voice of Captain Riku Kobayashi said, "Actually it's further from us than that because the thing is a quarter of the way further around the sun from Earth."
The "thing" was a small potato-shaped asteroid a little over 300 feet, the length of a football field, on its longest axis. It was pockmarked from perhaps a million years of strikes from meteoroids and micrometeoroids.
"So what's so special about this one?" said Captain Nicole Romero's voice.
"See the view on the right?"
The image was split in the middle by a green vertical line so that the group's vears, virtual/augmented reality glasses, showed the asteroid from two viewpoints.
"That's not a second view. It's a view of another asteroid. An identical one."
"Identical? Not similar?" This was from an equally invisible Captain Klaus Hoffman.
The view of the right-most image jumped into the same orientation as the one on the left. The lighting was different but not so much that it couldn't be seen that the two looked like the same object.
"Exactly," said Riku. "The astronomer that I was talking to has the images down to a few meters across."
"Then that means..." Klaus could not complete his sentence.
"That," said Jane's executive officer Kate Schiller, who rarely spoke up in these meetings, "means these objects are faking their age. They're alien spacecraft."
The darkness of virtual space vanished and Jane and her crew blinked to adjust to the sight of the posh conference room in which they sat around a long oval table.
The conference room was very different from the makeshift one they'd used three years ago in building 243 on the southern edge of NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab. It was in the top floor of a tall black-glass- surfaced building near the center of JPL. Just five floors down, ground level, was JPL's Mission Control Center where all JPL's spacecraft were controlled.
"Where is the second one? You told us where the first one is."
"Get this. It's exactly a fourth of the orbit further around the sun. Meaning--"
Nicole cut him off. "--there are more on the other two quarters."
"Probably." Riku looked at Jane.
"Seems likely," she said. "Not certainly, of course. We'll have to find out. Or get this astronomer to find out."
"Not her. She's gone on to head up the astro department at Harvard. She passed on all her data to me to pass on to you, Boss."
"So," said Nicole, "we get somebody else to pass to. Or keep it ourselves. Which, Ma'am?" Jane had finally gotten all of them to quit calling her Sir and to call her Ma'am.
Jane spun her ergonomic chair away from the four faces and closed her eyes to think.
Merged with the robot whose parts were inside every cell in her body, JANE considered all the possibilities of fact and action. The cyborg decided. SHE had to get Robot close enough to the alien craft so that it could use its super-advanced senses to examine them.
Back fully in her biological self Jane spun back and said, "We're going to do that. And more. We're going out there to investigate up close and personal."
<>
When Jane had returned from her second and last year in Southeast China where she was building a spaceplane she'd come back to face a lot of unhappy people.
Some of the general public thought she'd betrayed her county.
Some aircraft companies were unhappy that she'd established a Taiwan aerospace company to build space jets. It would rent not sell them to the Chinese and so get around laws which disallowed transfer of space jet tech to potentially hostile countries.
Some of the military gave several reasons for their unhappiness with her. However the real reason had been that she'd reduced tension between the US and the most radical of the three splinters of old China. Thus Congress would give them less money to defend the US.
Happily for Jane there were more people happy with her actions.
Many in the general public had less fear of a nuclear war. Southeast China had moderated its threats against the US. They had also ceased to expand further beyond international waters in the South China Sea.
The space technology pie had expanded tremendously in just a few years. The money some aerospace companies lost to Taiwan's competition was more than made up for in sales of all sorts of space and space-related products.
Many in the military HAD received more money, but this time for space warfare rather than ground warfare.
Jane had merged with Robot and monitored the tidal movements of social approval and disapproval and decided the unhappiness with her would subside. So she had ignored it and gone ahead with her various activities and plans.
A year after her return she was promoted to major. This was two years before the usual time in grade for Air Force officers. Her four staff members were likewise elevated to captain.
The workload and budget of her group was increased. Officially its job was to "analyze near-space threats and suggest counter-force activities." Actually it was to let Golden Goose genius Jane do whatever she wanted--as long as she delivered something to enhance the job and reputation of the Space Force, the informal term for the US Air Force Space Command headquartered in Colorado Springs.
So far she and her crew had delivered spectacular results. This included a force shield similar to those in sci-fi movies and books. Another was a power source labeled "warm fusion" but actually built on virtualizing antimatter. And a faster-than-light communication system utilizing hyperspace.
Making radical inventions work in practical ways took much work after inventors delivered them to engineers, technicians, managers, and support people. Armies of such people had taken Jane's inventions and made them real in numerous products. Jane's inventions had contributed several percentage points to each year of Ame
rica's GNP, some economists said.
Creating a deep-space craft likewise took much work. But a year and a half after Jane had sent in a request to do so such a craft was ready to begin testing.
<>
"Isn't it a beauty, Major?" said Klaus in the seat next to her on the interorbital shuttle they'd taken from the World Space Station. That station now was more than a hundred miles behind them in the orbit shared by over two dozen other space stations. All of which were much smaller than the WSS.
But not the Space Force station a mile or so ahead of them. It was nearly as large as the WSS.
The basic design was the same. There was a central box with slots for the entry and exit of spaceplanes and smaller craft. There were space jets to maintain orientation and altitude of the entire structure. There were four arms extended outward to "cans" where personnel spent their sleep and other off time. Many of them also worked in the cans, but almost as many worked in the can at the core of the station and thus in zero-g. The arms and cans were spun around the core to provide artificial gravity to maintain the health of personnel.
But there were various additions to the Space Force station to help it survive attack from hostile forces. And the cans could be brought down to huddle next to the core. In that configuration the station could maneuver and go higher or lower in its orbit. It could not do so nimbly but it could do so.
Beside it was Jane's deep-space craft, a smaller version of the space station. The farthest extension of its cans was 340 feet from its core. Its body included a cluster of space jets which could accelerate the whole at one gravity indefinitely. It had solar panels, folded now, but its main energy source was four virtual-antimatter power plants.
"I wouldn't say that," was Jane's reply. "But impressive, I'll grant. Especially if you know what went into it and how it works. Speaking of which, brief us on its status, Klaus."
Klaus Hoffman was the team's mechanical engineer and specialized in space civil engineering. He'd been staying up to date on the progress of the construction of the spaceship they could see in the view screen. So had Jane but even more completely via Robot. She did not let on, however. Klaus was the official overseer.
"They've brought all the parts up to orbit and put them together. The last month they have been testing all the joins and the individual pieces such as the air recyclers. This last week they brought up each of the generators and added their output to the power grid that previously only received power from the solar panels."
Nicole wanted to know if "anybody can live in that thing yet."
"The air and life support systems were activated two weeks ago. That lets them take their helmets and gloves off. That makes it easier to finish the installation and test of the control center and other systems. Off times everyone lives in the Fort."
That term was the informal one giving the Space Force station near the deep-space craft.
Riku wanted to know if "their" spacecraft was ready to go Vroom Vroom Swoosh.
"The space jets are installed and have been powered up and diagnostics run. But they haven't tried to deliver any thrust. That's what we're here to oversee."
"Then will we be ready to go?"
Kate said, "Read the schedule I gave you. But yeah, in five weeks we're on our way. Start saying goodbye to Mary."
<>
There was much more to preparing to leave than saying Goodbyes. The propulsion tests were successfully run and minor glitches fixed. Jane and her crew moved from the Fort into the deep-space ship.
They began working with the engineers of the Fort to complete all the work. This included finding a name for the craft. It was tentatively called Pathfinder but Riku felt this didn't quite fit with its core purpose. He preferred Snoopy.
At that Klaus lifted a big fist and stared at Riku.
"I'm beginning to change my view of Nicole's desire to swat you occasionally."
Nicole said, "That's MY job. Hands off."
Kate was thoughtful. "I can kind of appreciate Snoopy. Let me check a thesaurus. Hmm. Hmm. SEEKER. That comes close enough to our job: find stuff out."
"'Explorer,'" Riku said, "would cover it too." He was peering at his slate computer. "No. Too many syllables. 'Investigator' also. What about 'Scout'?"
More suggestions arose and were discarded. It came down to a vote between "Seeker" and "Scout." "Seeker" won.
<>
The last task before their ship was complete was loading four runabouts into Seeker and test procedures for them to exit and enter the deep-space craft. These were craft which could hold up to ten people for a day or three and let them enter and exit via a big airlock. They were used for work near space stations. They had big and small mechanical arms which could be controlled from within the runabouts.
They also carried small drones which could view a work space from close up and from several viewpoints. The drones had mechanical arms and hands which runabout personnel could use to remotely do work.
Then the Jane Gang boarded Seeker. Along with them came the chief engineer of the construction project and her aides. She was a Space Force civilian employee equivalent to a lieutenant colonel. Their job was to observe Jane and her crew and double check their efforts. They'd stay silent unless the Jane Gang screwed up.
Jane and her people entered Seeker's bridge, floated to their seats, and belted in. The belts were just to hold them in their seats when the spacecraft was not under acceleration. The observers took up extra seats on the bridge.
Klaus was the pilot. He turned to Jane and said, "Captain, ready to begin first flight." No matter their rank the sole direct controller of a spaceship was called Captain.
"Thank you, Commander. Initiate flight readiness checklist." On the bridge people with the rank of captain were called "commander" to be sure there was no confusion as to who was the ultimate boss.
"On this date," said Klaus, tapping a virtual button on his command console which filled in the precise date and time, "beginning first flight of space ship Seeker, number 17 DSP." There were 16 older spaceships which traveled deep-space: anything beyond "near-space." This was a sphere surrounding Earth a bit larger than the Moon's orbit.
He consulted a list on his console and read off the first item. "Power up from standby to full power to all systems."
Riku, copilot, said "Power up from standby to full power to all systems." He punched a virtual button on his console that replaced a red check mark beside the list item duplicated on his control console with a green check mark. This double-checking of the list items process was to ensure that the pilot did not miss any item.
Seconds which seemed minutes passed until the consoles of every member of the bridge crew (and their watchers) saw all the subsystem checkmarks go from black to red to orange to green. These included power generators, environment, communications, radar, and so on.
The orange period was the period when each subsystem ran self-diagnostics. It could take a much longer time than the red, power on, part of the process.
As each subsystem came green each crew member punched a virtual button for the subsystem to which they were responsible. With Jane's skeleton crew most of her subordinates were responsible for more than one subsystem. Nicole, for instance, was environment and power and power distribution.
"Control Tower Quadrant One, space ship Seeker, number 17 DSP, is lit and ready to proceed on previously filed flight plan. Major Jane Kuznetsov is Number One, Captain Klaus Schiller is pilot. May we proceed?"
"Captain Kuznetsov, Commander Schiller, that plan is still current and you may proceed. Be advised that the space is clear on your path if there are no delays in your flight."
Jane in her cyborg identity had been monitoring all activity. SHE said, "Proceed, Pilot."
"Leaving dock at minimum power."
The clamps holding Sleeper to the Quadrant One fort, one of four forts spaced around the planet, released. They were on the end of several long stiff composite material ropes which held Sleeper near the station but a
t a distance of almost a thousand feet. The tethers began to be reeled into the body of the fort.
Sleeper inched, literally, away from Station Quadrant One.
Everyone except JANE closely watched telltales of the several hundred strain gauges which were in every part of Seeker. JANE felt the strain. And it was normal.
Slowly the acceleration of Seeker rose from tenths of a percent of one gravity, the acceleration everything on Earth felt. To one percent, two, four, eight percent.
Her speed--JANE'S speed--increased along the orbit ahead of the fort and of the World Space Station further behind the fort. Its orbit rose away from the Earth. Further. Further still. In an arc which would send it halfway around the planet toward its target: a swoop around the Moon and into deep space. Though not further. It was not quite time to peer at the alien space ships beyond the asteroid belt.
JANE sat in her chair for a long time which was even longer for her in her cyborg state. Around HER the cyborg's senses lengthened, stretched to encompass everything that floated or flew about the planet, through the radiation belts, touched the synchronous satellites. Touched the Moon.
HER imagination stretched further, to the alien objects. In HER mind she said.
"I'M COMING."
Chapter 2 - Voyage 1
The major systems in and working, the Gang and the engineering firm contracted to build Seeker worked to complete the smaller systems and to work out the inevitable bugs in all the systems.
Finally six weeks later the deep-space vessel was ready to receive a full crew. These were 37 Air Force personnel, a mix of one third officers and two thirds enlisted women and men led by a major.
They arrived on a Tuesday morning late having been flown directly up to the fort. The enlisted filed out into Bay Three led by a Master Sergeant. Jane and her crew were waiting for them lined up and standing at parade rest with their backs near one wall.
