by M. D. Cooper
Walter said,
Erin groaned. She couldn’t allow this to happen. There had to be twenty to thirty people aboard the Holgate, all blissfully unaware that an entire moon was bearing down on them.
Why aren’t they picking up our orbital drift on scan? We’re a freaking moon!
The Holgate wouldn’t stand a chance in a collision. On her screen, the dot that represented the cargo ship edged closer and closer to the sphere that was Laconia.
Gah, they just keep moving toward us…
Suddenly, the solution sprang into Erin’s mind.
At the same time, Walter said,
“On it,” the deputy engineer replied.
Altering the trajectory of an entire moon to avoid a spaceship was no simple task, but they’d shifted the moon into the Holgate’s vector, so they could just shift it further and get out of the way.
“Ma’am,” said Linch, “we have a problem. The coordinates are in, but it requires a detonation at a location that’s already completely excavated—there’s a fault running through it that we were planning to repair. If we fire off explosions where they’re needed to push us out of the Holgate’s path, we risk breaking through the crust.”
“Worst-case?” Erin asked.
“We set off a chain reaction, and Laconia shatters.”
“Shit!” swore Erin. “OK. Let me see.”
She studied an image of the moon’s topography, mentally running projections of the planned explosion’s force and the vector shifts. They needed to brace the exterior surface.
“MacCarthy, put those columns back right where they were. With a little luck, they’ll keep us in one piece.”
Just.
Erin replied.
She could hardly believe it. Laconia’s new path after the revised detonations would shift the moon into the Resolution’s inbound vector.
In all the space surrounding them, either one spaceship or another would be in their way.
“Drones have secured the devices, ma’am,” Linch said.
Walter said,
Erin replied. “Set them off, Linch.”
The engineer replied, “But the drones aren’t—”
“Now!”
Losing a few drones was insignificant compared to the greater dangers.
Seconds later, a blast at the eightieth latitude tore rock free from the interior of the moon. The explosion was only ten kilometers away, and the force of it shook the control room’s deck.
Out in the hollowed core, debris spun out into the void, chunks of rock smashing into the viewing platform’s shields.
Erin gritted her teeth. The shields were designed to hold atmosphere and handle light impacts; if a large enough chunk hit them, it could disrupt the field.
They should have enough warning to get to EV suits.
A ninety-meter slab of granite flew by, just a few meters from the platform, and Erin sucked in a breath while keeping an eye on the structural readouts, begging the stars to do her a favor and keep the rock together.
Behind her, no one else spoke, either—though she heard MacCarthy or Linch gasp a few times as well. Erin’s gaze was glued to the real-time image of the moon and the nearby ships.
The moon had picked up a wobble from the blast, just as she’d hoped. It wasn’t much, and the timing had to be just right, but so long as the Holgate held her course, the cargo freighter would slip a few hundred meters past the moon’s northern hemisphere.
So long as Laconia held together.
Erin held her breath, waiting for the crack of the moon’s fault line to spread wider.
As they spoke, the models on the vidscreens showed that the time for the explosions’ forces to dissipate had elapsed. The fault still held.
“We did it!” yelled Linch. “We’ve changed course. We’re going to miss the Holgate, and the Resolution’s moving out of our way.”
The updating scan readout echoed Linch’s words. They were no longer on a collision course. The massive sphere of Laconia was going to pass between the two tiny ships.
“Oohwee,” Erin exclaimed. “That was like a game of billiards.”
“A game that we won,” MacCarthy said. “I’ll move the a-gravs to ease us back into the right orbit.”
“Wait until after we repair the fault,” said Erin. “Those columns could be the only things keeping us in one piece.”
“Good point.”
“Ma’am,” said Linch. “The Holgate is hailing us.”
“She is? Better late than never.” Erin drew in a calming breath as the captain’s image appeared in her mind. She finally recalled his name: Dunworthy.
Silence.
“We’ve lost the Holgate, ma’am,” said Linch.
“I thought so.”
Erin pulled up a stool and sat down, resting her elbows on the railing. Laconia’s vast interior was nearly cleared of detritus once more. It hung, shadowy and empty in front of her. They would need to go very easy on the last few detonations. She made a mental note to quarter their size; it would take longer to finish the excavation, but they had time to spare.
Maybe I can convince Tanis to let me use an MDC for the final finesse work. Better that than cracking this thing in half.
“Are you hungry, ma’am?” Linch asked. “I thought I’d make us all some sandwiches. It’s going to take a
while to repair that fault.”
“No, I’m OK. But could you bring me a cream soda?”
“Cream soda. OK.”
Erin supressed a groan and played dumb for her AI, hoping he’d see that her mind was too occupied with nearly dying and showing their hand to the Transcend.
As she rambled, Linch appeared at her side and handed her a cream soda.
His suspicious response wormed its way under her skin. Erin knew she should leave the conversation there, but his ‘hmm’ was too irritating to ignore.
Walter’s mention of Murry’s skills in matching personalities did not engender much trust. He’d paired her with Walter, after all.
“Commencing fault repair,” MacCarthy announced while Erin sipped her drink, trying to think of a response.
Which wouldn’t be for a long time.
She knew her AI meant well, but she had more important tasks on hand than finding a romantic partner.
“A data packet arrived for you a short while ago, ma’am,” Linch said. “Sorry, the emergency put it out of my mind.”
Linch’s timing made Erin wonder if her AI had just prompted the man to pass the packet along.
“Thanks. I’ll check it out.” She opened the packet and listened to the audio message.
Hi Erin. I got your latest report. Thanks for that. You’re doing a great job. Please pass on my commendations to your team.
Looks like you’re currently ahead of schedule, so I have a favor to ask. Tony’s having some trouble with the engineers here on Carthage… He’s gotten too mixed up in the local politics and personalities, and has lost sight of the fact that we don’t have long to get this colony built. I’ve shifted him to Athens, which is still important, but less critical.
What I need from you is to get essential transportation and public facilities in place on Carthage. You were instrumental in navigating that sort of thing back on Victoria and Tara. Folks have established some fiefdoms here already, so you’re going to have to navigate those while getting things back on-target.
I don’t want to put a hold on bringing the remainder of the Intrepid’s colonists out of stasis, but unless something is done, we’re going to have a real bottleneck on our hands. I’d get it in hand myself, but I’m running ragged, and have a tour of Gammas I and II coming up.
I need to leave the problem in the hands of someone I know I can trust. With Gamma III nearly complete, I believe you can have MacCarthy finish things up while you redirect your attentions. Please arrange for transport to Carthage within the week.
A chuckle came from Walter as the message ended.
Erin had a very strong suspicion she’d just been set up.
CARTHAGE
STELLAR DATE: 11.22.8935 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Landfall, Knossos Island
REGION: Carthage, 3rd Planet in the New Canaan System
Isa Chen took a deep breath before pressing her hand against the security panel outside her client’s door. As she waited for him to answer, three children burst out of a room down the corridor and raced past her, shrieking excitedly.
A man stuck his head out after them and called, “Anathea, Charlie, Keren. Come back here now.”
The two little boys and girl squealed and ran faster. Within a few seconds, they had disappeared around a corner and were gone. The man rolled his eyes and came out into the corridor.
As he reached Isa, he said, “A few thousand years in stasis gives you a lot of energy to burn off, apparently.”
She smiled in sympathy as he went after his mischievous children, then she pressed her client’s door panel again, growing somewhat irritated. Visiting clients for face-to-face consults was one of her least favorite parts of the job. It was rarely necessary—usually, the colonists were fine with searching the options on their own and finding themselves a niche in the fledgling Carthaginian economy. Most of the adults had experience and were very skilled in their chosen professions—they wouldn’t have been accepted onto the Intrepid project if they weren’t—and most knew exactly what they wanted to do. As soon as they were out of stasis, they quickly slotted into new jobs or started up businesses.
But there were always those few from each new batch of colonists who needed extra help. Many of them were ship’s crew who did not expect to find themselves joining the colony mission. The ones Isa had been assigned also all seemed to have personality traits that made them difficult to place in a role—they were indecisive or capricious, or they had the type of worldview that made them find fault with everything. Isa called them ‘the complainers’. More than half of her clients who requested personal consults were complainers. The worst of them always seemed to be Victorians, like her.
It made sense. Hard-to-please people would have been screened out from the original applicants on Sol. They tended to make life difficult for everyone else, and that wasn’t desirable on a new colony. But the Victorians who decided they wanted to join the Intrepid as the ship continued her journey hadn’t been so strictly vetted. This allowed some whiners to slip through, and it was her job to deal with them.
Isa sighed. She was so tired of their bellyaching. Maybe I need a new job.
As she lifted her hand to the security panel for a third time, the door opened. A tall, young man with messy hair and a few days’ worth of stubble said, “Sorry. I was asleep.”
“Mr. Hart? I’m from Placement Services. Isa Chen.”
“Yes. Thanks for coming. Come in.”
Isa followed him into the small apartment. The temporary accommodations for people newly out of stasis were all the same: simple and functional. They differed only in the number of rooms, according to the size of the family. Hart’s apartment was a studio, which meant he was single.
He turned the windows from opaque to transparent, allowing sunlight to flood in and reveal an untidy living room. Isa’s client pushed aside clothes and cushions on the sofa and invited her to sit down.
“These apartments are so cramped, don’t you think?�
� Hart said. “Nowhere to put anything.”
So she had a complainer on her hands. Great. “They’re all right,” Isa replied. “They’re only supposed to be a stopgap until you move into your new place, which you’ll do once you decide what you want to do. OK if I use your holo?”
“Sure. Can I get you a drink?”
“I’m OK, thanks.” Isa planned on making the visit as short as possible.
Hart started up the holo embedded in his living room table and began to make himself some coffee. Isa accessed her files, and brought up an image of Carthage, which slowly rotated above the tabletop.
The archipelago of large and small islands that ran in a wide belt around the middle of the globe was lush and green. Isa had already visited many of its islands. The landscapes were packed with interesting topographical features like gullies, cliffs, plains, and wetlands. The holo displayed oceans and seas that were cobalt at their deepest points, and turquoise and aquamarine where the water was shallower at the coasts.
Carthage was a beautiful world, and Isa was glad she’d chosen it as her home. The FGT had done an amazing job transforming the planet into a place anyone would be happy to inhabit—everyone except those few clients of hers who sometimes seemed impossible to satisfy.
Isa eyed Hart as he sat down opposite her on the other side of Carthage’s spinning globe. The moving continents and waters semi-obscured his features.
“I saw in your file that you have a background in security,” she said. “There are plenty of opportunities available in that area right now. Did you read the listings? Nearly every active government project must have a security element.”
Hart leaned back in his seat. “I did read the listings, but nothing appealed. In fact, I’m thinking of moving away from security. I feel like doing something more…organic. I worked ore processing at Sirius, then after we escaped, I helped with the terraforming of Victoria. But it was all indoor work. I’ve been either underground or inside manufacturing plants for most of my life. It seems like coming to Carthage is a chance to change track, make a new start. Do you know what I mean?”
