April 4: A Different Perspective

by Mackey Chandler

"We have environmental conditioning in our hold. We have four couches we install for passengers when we need 'em. Why not just leave them back there?"

  "You have the couches installed?"

  "No, but I can hold down my acceleration on the way back. We actually have a bunch of small box freight we didn't have time to offload, but they can lay on top of it in their suits and pull the net over them. It won't be that uncomfortable."

  "Do it."

  "Turn around, I'm going to switch bottles on you," they heard their man tell the fellow.

  "Anybody else in there?" he asked. "This boy has lieutenant's bars," he informed his ship.

  "Captain Jacobs, my CO. I shot him in the back of the head when he was at the board," he said, voice cracking. "He was going to set off the charges to blow the satellite. I didn't see any point in it."

  "Neither would I," his captor agreed, searching him carefully. He was a huge man, with a blonde beard and mustache, visible in his big faceplate. Even being in a hard suit didn't hide how big he was. Just the distance from arm joint to arm joint said how wide his shoulder were. He tossed a few belt tools in the airlock after the air bottle. "Here's the drill. You have no maneuvering pack. I'm a beam dog, call me Al and used to moving and jumping loose, or with equipment bigger than you. Cross your ankles and fold your arms across your chest and I'll handle you like a piece of construction material and take you to the freight module. You'll wait in there with my buddy, while I take pix and grab anything interesting in your sat here. Just so you understand, if it's booby-trapped inside, my friend will punch a small slit in your sleeve and shove you back out the hatch. You'll get to see how long you can pinch it off before you can't stay awake, or cramp up beyond holding it. Understand?"

  "No traps," the man promised. "If I thought like that, I'd have just let him blow it."

  "Makes sense," the rigger agreed. "But if you could count on people making sense life would be a lot simpler. Get set like I told you."

  The man crossed his ankles and arms, floating free now, but Al grabbed him by the waist at the rear. He used the lock opening to brace and slowly turned him to face their ship which was just a specular glare of sun off the front ports, too far away to see a shape.

  "You're going to jump that far?" the man asked voice unsteady.

  "Hey, I do this for a living. I've got a butt pack on, but I'd jump unpowered and hit it if I had the time. I'd be embarrassed to need it. We won't take an hour to ease across today though, I'll push us a little with the pack. You never do much EV I take it?"

  "We rig a line across for transfer. I've never been out of contact."

  Al just snorted in disgust at that. He pushed the lieutenant away from him and pulled him back twice. "Seventy-five kilo?"

  "Uh, the suit is twenty-two kilo and I was about fifty-six two weeks ago, but I lose weight in zero G, yes that sounds about right. You can really tell that from a shove?"

  "After three years of pushing crap around all day? Yeah, I can shake a box of rivets and tell you how many left, within a half dozen. They favor little guys like you?" he asked. "No offense intended, it just surprised me how light you are. They have to build a custom suit for me and it's a pain in the butt sometimes."

  "Very much so. They pick the smaller guys everything else being equal and even give us different PT requirements so the guys don't do a lot of lifting and work out so much that they bulk up."

  "Here we go," Al warned him and pushed off smoothly.

  * * *

  "If you will examine your rental agreements, contracts for services and standards for Mitsubishi 3, you will find that nowhere does it define what orbital elements M3 will keep, what attitude it will assume, or what rotational acceleration it will impart at your deck level. It does guarantee air mix and pressure over a fairly broad range and potable water, waste water removal and some sort of food service, though no menu or caloric guarantee. The only really fussy standard for which they assume responsibility, is that they will supply clean, well regulated power, such as is needed by most modern electronic devices, at standard voltage and frequency. and they only guarantee ninety-five percent up time on that."

  The man gaped at him, like a goldfish, suddenly cast out on the floor.

  "Do you read your contracts?" Robert Lewis asked the man, disgusted. "Dear Lord, do you even read your credit card contracts, or your employment contracts?" The man's grim face told him he'd hit right on target with that question.

  "What exactly do you do here in LEO, that you can't do out by L2?"

  "My company grows crystals. It's proprietary. I can't say any more than that. I just don't want to live clear the other side of the moon!"

  "I can't imagine why, but all I can suggest is, quit." The man ignored that.

  "How long will it take to go home on leave?" the man asked. "I only get two weeks twice a year. If the travel time eats up all my leave, is it even worth trying to go home for two weeks? and can we even get fresh food and things, clear the far side of the moon?"

  "Perhaps you should have asked those things first, instead of a big emotional outburst and threatening me. I know a few men who would stop listening further when threatened and tell you to send a second, to talk to his man, at that point."

  The fellow blanched at that thought.

  "But to address your worries, the conventional style shuttles will add about a day of travel to land on Earth. Trouble is there aren't any really suitable for the trip right now, so somebody is going to have to build or modify a few, really quickly. What will happen, right away, is the few fast couriers in service will transport people to another station or habitat in LEO and you will take one of the regular shuttles down like always. The couriers are fast enough they will only take about six hours to drop you at say, New Las Vegas, or ISSII. It will be an added expense I grant you. Once you have lifted something to LEO that takes care of most of the energy cost to take it anywhere in space, short of Mars. It costs about fifteen percent more to take something to the moon, so taking something to lunar orbit, or one of the Lagrange points takes even less. Perhaps ten percent more. and while it is a dramatically different perspective, you are hardly off where the Sun or the Earth is a distant point of light. We will be making a halo orbit between the L2 point and the moon," he demonstrated with his hands, "so we will constantly be looking at the rear of the moon from an angle and the marble of the earth will be constantly visible in the distance, past the edge of the moon. Does that help address any of your concerns?"

  "A little," the man admitted, still unhappy. "I'm glad to hear we'll still be in sight of Earth. I suppose it won't be too bad, even though it seems it will be a little gloomy, always looking at the dark side of the moon."

  "The back side gets just as much sun as the near side," Robert assured him. Where do they find these idiots? he thought. "When this side is in shadow do you imagine the other side is not illuminated? Do you think they turn out the light? Where did you ever get the idea the far side was dark?" he asked, honestly baffled.

  "I, uh, I'm not sure. I just heard the phrase and it kind of stuck with me. That's good," he acknowledged, the look on his face saying he was finally figuring out what an idiot he'd been and was embarrassed. "It's not near as bad as I figured. Thanks for explaining," he said and left as quickly as he could find the door.

  Robert Lewis leaned back and rubbed his eyes, weary. He wondered how many more of those characters were still working their nerve up to come see him? He'd had one fellow already this morning who wanted to know why Mr. Muños would not call an Assembly and put moving to a vote. It was making for a long hard day, on top of damage assessments and reports to Mitsubishi. They at least, for a miracle, were not riding him or questioning his decision.

  * * *

  "I have one messy corpse, bagged up, the weapon," he'd almost said murder weapon, but hesitated at the last second, unsure. "I cut the station computer out. Didn't unplug it or even try to unbolt it. It's still sitting on a chunk of bulkhead. There are a few printed
manuals and a bunch of them on disk. I burned the lock off the lieutenant's locker and stuffed his personal gear in a bag for him. You want one of the projectiles this railgun throws?"

  "No, it's pretty mature tech. Any other weapons, besides the one just used?"

  "There's one strapped to the Captain's leg. I pulled its teeth and made sure the chamber was empty and left it in his holster. It's just standard issue. I don't see an arms locker. May I ask if we have leave to take personal prizes?"

  "I don't see what it would hurt," Lu allowed. "As long as it isn't an object of official interest. There is a long history of taking trophies from the battlefield, weapons of course, but coin or jewelry, if they were of high enough station to have them. It's all going to be vaporized anyway."

  "Thanks, I didn't think to check this guy for a wallet, but his locker had a full bottle of single malt Scotch, some chocolate bars and a couple kilo of Jamaica estate coffee. I'm going to lift those, since he has no further need of them. Nothing else looked worth taking. The food all looks to have military markings. I don't think any of us are that desperate."

  "Better keep that stuff in a pressure container," Lu advised. "Come on back and we'll put a missile in that puppy and go home."

  "Ah yes, pillage and burn. My Viking ancestors would be proud."

  The flare was tiny but intense from fifty kilometers away. A brief, bright, pearl of plasma expanded above the night filled crescent of the Earth and was gone.

  * * *

  "Jeff, President Wiggen called me on a sat phone and asked if we could help her get to Home. Is there any way your new shuttle could pick her up? She has her Head of Security with her too," April added.

  "Do you really owe her a lift to Home?" Jeff asked. "Is it worth risking our shuttle, that is a substantial fraction of our worth and provoking the Patriot Party that seems to be taking over?"

  "Is it part mine then?" April wondered. "Gunny asked me, but I never got around to asking."

  "It is, but consider that it affects Heather and I both."

  "I think it's worth doing," April said with conviction."There's no point in talking about provoking the Patriots, they hate our guts and want to kill us, no matter what we do. Wiggen has been more reasonable to deal with than anybody else was willing to be. Surely that's worth something. There's all kinds of chatter to indicate people are not accepting the coup graciously. They've had to impose curfews some places and some glory hound tried to push up to the CIA building with a main battle tank. Whatever they did melted it, about fifteen-hundred meters out. Seems like anything we could do to keep resistance going against the Patriot Party is smart," she insisted.

  Jeff sighed. "You have a rescue complex, you know?"

  "I can think of a lot worse things you could say about me."

  "When is she supposed to call back?"

  "She said about six hours. They need to move to a different place, with hills around them like they just called from and set up pointing at a French satellite that services the Caribbean."

  "Let me call Dave and see how close he is to having the Chariot back together and Jon to see if there is anything the militia can offer to do at all."

  * * *

  "How could you sleep not knowing what might happen?" Lindsy asked. His mother didn't ask anything, but was distant and cold. He hoped she stayed that way, instead of hot and vocal.

  "How does it help to be sleepy if something does happen?" Eric checked the com screen for news and messages. "Wow, we're going out past the moon. Have you read this? That's how most space nuts define deep space work, translunar. I guess we'll be part of a very exclusive club."

  That didn't seem to impress his sister or his mother and he ignored their silence and got the buckle release tool, to stretch the suit limbs back to full length and roll it up. He laid down and went through the reverse process of donning the suit.

  "Doesn't that have to be recertified, even if you didn't seal it up?" his sister asked.

  "Probably, but I need it. They said to keep it handy and take it with you if you go out. I bet at least half the people on Home rolled theirs out, ready to put on or actually put it on like me. How long do you think it will take them to go through and recertify, a thousand or two thousand suits? They're going to have to cut some slack on that standard. We did a pretty good job rolling up our sleeping mats when we went camping. I bet I can roll this back tight enough to slip in the carrier bag, so I can take it along to breakfast."

  "Will the cafeteria be open in an emergency?" his mom asked. Apparently she was still freaked out. It was getting tiresome.

  "I didn't see any closing notices on the M3 site, but I bet they have a com code. Why don't you call and ask?" Eric suggested.

  "You still got a smart mouth," his mom snipped.

  "That's just," he was at a loss for what to say for a few seconds. "It was a serious suggestion. Could I have said anything, that wouldn't made you unhappy?" he asked. He left without speaking again. He'd probably just get abuse, if he spoke at all.

  * * *

  Jeff was hoping Dave would tell him the shuttle's guts were spread out on the deck and it couldn't fly. Instead he assured him it would be closed back up in two hours and given another half hour to fuel and top off other systems, it could fly.

  It still didn't have a coffee maker, the first aid kit and the custom tool kit wasn't packed and installed. They couldn't actively fly it remotely yet, but Dave had three pilots rated for ground landings checked out on the simulator, eager to fly paid hours. Four couches were in and as a bonus they all had acceleration compensation, the basic instruments and the navigational radar. It didn't have a weapons load and the ladder for vertical access was a temporary affair you hung out the outer lock door. But it would land and it would fly.

  Dave explained he'd altered the pattern of ribs on the drive housing from a square grid to a honeycomb, also he'd added another two standard airlock size vacuum pumps, for evacuating the drive chamber after it shut down in atmosphere.

  "Dave, we want to do a run where we may need to do a really fast turnaround. Do you have any sort of spare pressure vessel there you can strap down in the hold and pipe into the line for the current vacuum tank? Just temporary for this mission."

  "I have a couple eighty liter tanks for another project and I'd be happy to loan you one. But with the new pumps I added it will be ready to lift again in about four minutes. You'd only improve it to maybe three minutes.'

  "Do it please. A minute might be the difference between lifting safely, or being a smoking crater in the pavement."

  Chapter 36

  "We have a shuttle now that can land anywhere there is a flat spot. A small parking lot by apartments or stores, or even a pasture. It doesn't need a runway or refueling. Try to pick someplace away from a big city, so there isn't a big police response and we'll meet you and pick you up. The militia talked it over and doesn't want to be identified with you, or any other Earth politician. But they will offer surveillance services. Jeff is going to create a diversion that should help. Is there some place you have in mind we can meet?" April asked. Jeff was leaning in from the side to be on camera.

  "Anybody looking for us, is going to be looking for us going away from DC," Mel theorized. "I will double back into Virginia. There's a truck stop I know, here are the coordinates," he said, marked a location on a map and named a time. "Are either of you going to be on the shuttle?"

  "No, neither of us are rated for ground landings. Our ship fabricator has several guys qualified. Once you stop there, don't look in the sky or toward the east, there's going to be a big flash. Enough to dazzle you."

  "You aren't going to bombard DC to cover us lifting are you? I wouldn't want to be responsible for that," Wiggen said quickly. "I can't trade myself for all those innocent people."

  "Not at all. I'm going to set one off out over the ocean, really high. They aren't configured for EMP either, so it should tie the response nets up trying to figure what the heck happened, but it won't so muc
h as break a window on the ground."

  "Alright, I just remember China," Wiggen said grimly.

  "Which was not anything I did with joy."

  She just gave an acknowledging nod.

  "I'll contact you when we are in place. This seems to be working well. We haven't seen any activity stirred up by our calls."

  "We'll be in contact with the shuttle coming in. Until tomorrow then," April said.

  "Tomorrow," Mel agreed and shut the phone down.

  "Let's move and observe this site," he said right away. "See if anything responds."

  * * *

  "Mr. Lewis, can you authorize the release of some water from stocks on M3?" Jeff asked. "People are viewing our move and the uncertainty in North America and they are reluctant to sell any volume of water. If they will, they are asking higher prices for it. I hate to throw away money, even if you authorized it. I also think if I refuse those prices and they see I didn't go elsewhere and pay high, it will encourage prices not to run away in a panic."

  "Sure, but don't your plasma drives use metal?"

  "They do, but you can use water as a thrust booster to stretch it. Fortunately I bought substantially all the calcium coming out of the Rock cheap for, uh, another project."

  "How about two tons, two thousand kilos? Is that enough to be of help?"

  Jeff looked at him goggle eyed, like he hadn't heard right. When he finally got self control he allowed that was indeed, useful. Robert managed to keep a straight face. "They are setting up a drive again on the Rock. They intend to bring it out with us, but they intend to park it at L1 for now. Assuming the Earthies don't see us leaving as an opportunity to steal it. Of course their experience with stealing your ship may be fresh enough in mind, that we get some benefit from it."

  "I'm glad to hear that. My family has an interest too and there are several things I really need supplied from the Rock. I probably have a notice about the move buried here somewhere, but I'm running behind on reading messages and everything else."

  "Me too, still, call if you need anything else," Robert offered, before he disconnected.