by J W Murison
‘Right, then home to the moon for a few days before heading off into the black again.’ Steven thought it over, ‘How about we drop off the crew at the moon and anyone who is interested can come with us to test this thing out?’
Howe grinned, ‘Sounds like fun to me.’
Chapter 11
By the time evening came, Steven was much less in the mood. His mother had put on a large meal, and it was still sitting heavily in his stomach. Komoru sat beside him, she was only there to support Lewis. She had her hand on her belly; obviously not in the mood and feeling tired as well.
Lewis wasn’t happy until they were over a hundred thousand miles from anything, and the ship herself ten thousand. He sat at Hailey’s consul directing the operation himself. When he had planted the bomb, he gave Babes the order to withdraw to a safe distance. It was then Charlie appeared.
Steven noticed him first. ‘Hey Charlie, thought you would have been in the Apollo 11?’
Charlie rubbed the back of his neck, ‘Nah! I was tired, fell asleep. When I woke up, we were out here. What’s going on?’
‘Didn’t you ask Babes?’
‘I have her switched off.’
‘You’ll have to teach me that one. We’re doing a test on a bomb Lewis invented with a new element.’
‘Way to go Lewis, adding to the destructive encyclopaedia of mankind, are we?’
‘Sure am Charlie.’ Lewis patted the arm of the chair beside him, ‘Come watch de show.’
Charlie sat down, ‘So what category does your new bomb come under Lewis – flash, bang or boom?’
‘Molecular dehesion Charlie.’
‘That has to be a new one! Well done Lewis, way to go, you invented a brand-new way for man to kill himself.’
Lewis laughed loudly. ‘Don know if it going to work yet Charlie, you just in time for the main event.’
Charlie sat back in the seat and Lewis carried on talking to Babes. He ordered her to zoom in and gave a small count down. When the countdown reached zero, nothing seemed to happen.
Lewis was frowning, ‘Did it go off Babes?’
‘Yes Lewis, the device detonated successfully.’
‘Oh! That wasn’t very impressive. Sorry everyone, I thought der would be a big flash.’
Charlie sat forward suddenly, ‘Way to go Lewis.’
Lewis turned to Charlie, ‘Sorry Charlie, you got up for nothing.’
‘It’s actually quite impressive. Molecular dehesion was it?’
Lewis thought he was being sarcastic until the look on Charlie’s face turned to one of horror.
‘Holy shit!’ He turned to Colonel Howe, ‘Put our shields up.’
‘What!’
‘Put our bloody shields up man!’ Charlie roared at him.
Howe instinctively hit a button. Charlie opened his mind and showed Babes exactly what he was seeing. The screen changed.
Steven was alarmed, ‘What’s going on Charlie?’
‘Babes will show you in a second. Basically, I was expecting a big flash and was watching in another spectrum to protect my eyes. I saw something happening on the asteroid and tried a few others to see if I could make out exactly what it was. Then I saw this.’
The screen changed and they saw a green wall racing towards them.
Steven got to his feet. ‘Analyse, what is that Babes?’
‘It is some form of pulse my heart. It will hit us in three seconds.’ The green wall raced towards them and then passed. ‘What a strange feeling. That tingled a little.’
‘You felt that?’
‘Yes my heart.’
A button on his chair began to flash. He sat down and touched it.
‘Yes Chief.’
‘What the hell was that?’
‘Some form of pulse, we haven’t analysed it properly yet.’
‘Aye well, it’s just popped a dozen fuses whatever the hell it was. We are going to be stuck here until I can replace them.’
‘Keep me informed will you.’
‘Yes sir.’
‘Babes I want a full diagnostic on all your systems.’
‘Yes my heart.’
He turned his attention to Lewis, ‘Lewis, I want a full report on your device and what you thought it was going to do. Gather as much information from Babes as you can. Colonel Howe, find out what penetrated our shields and why. When you have results, come up to the briefing room. Komoru and I will be there trying to make sense of this as well. Charlie, what are you doing just now?’
‘Is Cookie on board?’
‘No.’
‘Then I was just going to make a mess of his kitchen and head back to my pit.’
‘Can you take command while we’re involved in this investigation?’
‘Seriously!’
‘You are a full-fledged officer now Charlie, and a senior one as well. As such, you will be expected to take your turn on watch sooner or later.’
Charlie shrugged, ‘So what do I do, just sit there and no touch anything. Let you know if anything happens?’
‘Pretty much.’
‘God, it was so much easier being a grunt.’
The bridge laughed and it helped dispel the tension a little.
‘You will manage Charlie.’
‘Do I get to sit in your chair?’
‘Of course.’
‘Awesome. Catch you later.’
Steven and Komoru left the bridge and gathered together the scientists that were left on board.
An hour later Steven held a meeting in the briefing room. He played a video that showed the way the pulse had spread out from the epicentre. It looked like an expanding green ball. At thirty thousand miles from the epicentre it began to disintegrate and eventually vanished.
‘As you can see, the pulse radiated out from the bomb in a single continuous wave, that took the shape of a ball. When it hit us, it was still strong enough to do damage. By the time it had reached thirty thousand miles, the pulse had stretched and thinned so much it began to dissipate of its own accord. There is now no sign of the wave, no residual radiation of any kind, not even from the asteroid. The question is: what do we have here? What result has Lewis achieved, and can we use it or hide it from the rest of mankind? The first thing I would like to know is if we can protect ourselves from it. Colonel Howe.’
Howe nodded, ‘We can sir. I am going to begin by giving it a designation, we are call it a Molecular Dehesion Device, an MDD, and the pulse an MDP, just to make things easier. The Molecular Dehesion Pulse given off by the device has never been classified before. I have modulated the shields to protect us from it. If we had enough warning, the ship would have been able to modulate her own shields. Unfortunately for us, this pulse doesn’t even exist in her data banks, so she wouldn’t even have recognised it, or seen it, until it was too late. We could now be two feet away from an MDD and it would pose no threat. Without shields, within an area of a thousand miles of the epicentre, we would have been completely destroyed. Up to three thousand miles, we would have sustained so much damage we would never have survived. Up to seven thousand miles, severe damage to the point where survival may have been possible, and from there our survival chances would improve five percent for every thousand miles. At thirty thousand miles, we would have sustained the same kind of damage without shields as at ten thousand with shields. Outside that, minimal damage. The ship’s automated security systems have been upgraded to recognise an MDP.’ He nodded to Steven.
‘Thank you Colonel. Lewis, have you anything to add.’
‘First suh, I would like to apologise to everyone and de ship too. I did as much research on this material as I could. De aliens were testing it as a means of a possible energy source. Bout a half dozen races I know of tested it, but the plants they tested it in were all destroyed. Dey all say some form of molecular dehesion took place. There were big explosions. From what I can gather, de reports state that up to a few miles around de plant were destroyed by dis strange phenomena. However, dey said there we
re no radiation left by dis type of explosion. I thought that if I could make a device that could destroy asteroids, it would help defend de Earth from another asteroid attack.
‘Wit de Captain permission, I researched then designed a bomb around dis material. I never took into account the difference between doin de test within a planet’s atmosphere and in outer space. As far as I know, dis is de first time anyone has used dis material for a bomb. By de time most of the alien races out-der discovered dis metal, dey already had energy weapons. They were looking for something to boost their speed through space.
‘I have come to the conclusion that de massive explosions suffered by those people was because of the molecular dehesion of the equipment and materials within the plants dey were working in. I also have to conclude dat the aliens caused the explosions by accident. That might be why there was destruction in only a small area around the testing facilities. Whereas, I deliberately set the device off. The device was designed to maximise the yield. It obviously worked much better than I had envisioned.’
Dr Chapman had remained silent until now. He sat forward, ‘How much material did you use Lewis?’
‘The material I used was about the size of a pea.’
‘What did it do to the asteroid?’
‘I have no real idea suh. Charlie and Babes say it’s coming to pieces, but it still looks whole to me.’
The Doctor was shaking his head. He turned to Steven. ‘I still find it hard to believe that you are letting your soldiers run around conducting stupid and dangerous experiments Steven.’
Steven went to reply, but Lewis cut him off, ‘You may be a doctor suh, but you’re a doctor in a different field. I now have a Masters in Physics suh, which don make me a child, and don I never play.’
Steven could see Lewis was pissed off and decided to step in. ‘That’s enough Lewis, please.’
Lewis scowled for a moment longer then nodded at Steven.
‘The blame lies solely with me Tom. I gave Lewis permission but I didn’t check his figures. Even if I had, I doubt I would have been able to calculate exactly what happened here today.’
Komoru stepped in to defend Lewis too. ‘I too must bear some of that responsibility. I read the proposal, and checked Lewis’s figures, and I didn’t see the dangers. Steven and I both have doctorates in theoretical physics Tom. Lewis is certainly not to blame for this. If anyone bears responsibility, then it is me.’
Steven turned to Komoru, ‘You didn’t tell me you checked them over.’
‘Lewis showed them to me first, it was I who told him to pass them onto you.’
‘I should have checked them.’
‘You were very busy Steven; you can’t do everything by yourself. Even Babes couldn’t predict what happened, there is just too little data on this element.’
Tom gave a small grunt, ‘You have a point Komoru, if Babes didn’t calculate the danger, what chance would a mere Human have. You did crunch the numbers didn’t you Babes?’
‘Yes Tom. In fact I recommended a safe distance of five thousand miles. It was Lewis who doubled that. As Komoru said, our lack of data on this material was probably to blame for the incident. However, from the data I have collected during this test, we should now be able to predict more accurately the results from further tests and experimentation.’
‘Are we going there? Honestly?’ Tom was surprised.
There was a bit of silence around the table, eventually all eyes settled on Steven.
‘Honestly Tom, given our current situation, given that this weapon can utterly destroy an asteroid, I think we have to pursue it.’
‘But can it Steven? I saw the pictures of it. I don’t think it has been touched.’
‘Hell, let’s go see. Mr McGuire, are we ready to go?’
‘All fixed sir.’
Steven sent a message to Charlie and stood up. ‘Let’s go people.’
By the time they got to the bridge, the ship was only a few miles from the asteroid. Charlie made to get up.
Steven waved him down, ‘You’re doing a grand job Charlie. Any suggestions on how to deal with this situation.’
‘What situation?’
Steven gave him a look. ‘The asteroid.’
‘What asteroid? There is no asteroid out there. That’s just a pile of dust.’
‘How can you be sure of that?’
Charlie leaned forward towards Chapman, ‘Who the hell are you?’
‘I’m Doctor Chapman. You are?’
‘Another Doctor eh! Well, my name is Charlie.’
‘Do you have any rank? You’re certainly not in uniform.’
‘I have heaps of them, but I was off duty when I got dobbied for this little job.’
‘Dobbied! You mean grabbed in an emergency.’
‘Dobbied, grabbed, huckled, call it what you like Doc. I do have rank, I am a Captain in the Ambassador’s honour guard.’
‘Another soldier then.’
Charlie opened his mind and caught some of the Doctor’s thoughts.
‘I can see by the expression on your face you don’t like soldiers much.’
‘That’s untrue, I have nothing against soldiers.’
‘The first thing you will learn about me, Doctor, is that I can read body language very well, and you are lying through your back teeth. In fact, you probably think we are more of a hindrance to this mission than a help.’ Charlie smiled, ‘Oh, and making your body go ridged only reinforces what that body has already told me.’
Steven laughed, ‘Charlie, stop messing with Doctor Chapman.’
‘Aye okay, but he doesn’t like me.’
‘Charlie!’ Steven raised his voice a little. ‘What can you see?’
‘The asteroid has completely disintegrated. If there was any gravity oot here, it would be lying in a puddle.’
‘Okay, great.’
‘You’re going to take his word for it Steven?’ Dr Chapman interrupted.
‘You really want to get on my tits, don’t you?’ Charlie grimaced at the Doctor.
‘We can all see the asteroid Captain Charlie. It is solid.’
‘Captain Charlie, that’s a new one. The thing is, none of you can see it in the way I can. The ship’s report also backs me up. Or are you going to completely ignore that as well?’
Charlie had Chapman in a bind, and he knew it, so he changed tack. ‘So how can you see things that we can’t’
‘Because my eyes are artificial Doc. I can see in dozens of different spectrums. I also have the magnification of a microscope, as well as a big telescope. What I can see now is fine particles of dust.’ Charlie glanced at him. ‘I can see you have a hundred questions, but I’m not in the mood just now. Stevie, what do you want to do?’
‘Not sure.’
‘Want to see something cool.’
‘Why not?’
‘Babes, raise your shields and take us into the middle of that asteroid, stealth mode please.’
‘Yes Charlie.’
The decks shimmered and disappeared. The ship pushed her nose into the asteroid and it began to spill around the ship. They could see all of the different layers and colours.
Komoru smiled at Charlie, ‘Wow Charlie, this is pretty cool.’
Howe burst out laughing, ‘Tapper would love this; what a pity he is getting drunk in the Apollo 11.’
They hit a void in the middle of the asteroid then continued to push out of the other side. It took an hour. It also threw up some very interesting questions, especially about the void. It had been a spectacular show.
Charlie got up from Steven’s chair as he approached and Steven punched him on the shoulder. ‘Nice one Charlie, that was spectacular.’
‘I was only the driver, thank Lewis for the opportunity. Now are you getting back to work? I’m starving.’
Steven laughed, ‘On you go.’
Dr Chapman raised a hand as he passed.
‘No,’ Charlie stated flatly and walked off the bridge.
Steve
n and Komoru sat down. ‘Colonel Howe, I want you and Lewis to prepare a report on this weapon please: military applications, yields, effects, a full rundown of the data we have gathered, Komoru will help you prepare it all. It needs to be of the highest secrecy as well.’
‘How long do we have sir?’
‘Couple of days possibly. I also have a little input I would like to give. Lewis, do we have any more of this stuff?’
‘Enough to fill a standard size suitcase suh.’
Steven was thinking hard. ‘Can you make me one with a pinhead amount of material?’
‘Could try suh, that might not be enough for a reaction, I can crunch de numbers, see if it is viable.’
‘Yes please, but after the report Lewis.’
‘You have something in mind sir?’ Howe asked.
‘I do, I am curious about the previous explosions caused by this material. Why wasn’t there more damage on the planetary surfaces? Maybe the reports were falsified to make the incidents look less serious than they were.’
Lewis shook his head, ‘Too many reports sayin de same thing for that Captain. I think it could be because it was an accident, rather than an attempt to make a bomb.’
‘That’s what I want to find out Lewis. But we can’t explode one of these on Earth. I think we should return to the Black Planet. Find an Albany cruiser that isn’t too badly damaged, seal it, fill it full of air and explode a small one to see what happens.’
‘I think dat is a good idea Captain.’
‘Brilliant,’ Howe agreed. The Doctor was the only one shaking his head.
Chapter 12
A few weeks later they arrived at the Black Planet with full permission from the Earth Defence Force to carry out a number of tests there. It had taken a few days to find a suitable target for the bomb. Steven had eventually chosen two and sealed both ships and pumped them full of oxygen. It took time because the whole area was still highly radioactive. On one of the ships they were able to get the engines working. They waited until the ship had heated up and the engines had reached operational temperature. The two were separated by a mountain range and about a thousand miles.
