Rogue Command (The Kalahari Series)

by A J Marshall

  “Thirty seconds of fuel remaining . . . no delay . . . no delay. Mike! Put it down!” Alex could barely contain his emotion.

  “Clear on this side! Down! Down!” blurted Aldrin. “Eighty feet, radio altimeter reads seventy feet . . . sixty . . . fifty . . . forty . . .”

  “Fifteen seconds of fuel remaining . . . On the ground! Put it on the ground, Mike! Do it now!” Alex gripped his head in his hands and leaned back hard in his seat.

  Dust and debris rose from the ground. It swirled and churned as a dense, yellow-coloured cloud that completely obliterated the astronaut’s view through his narrow window. That’s enough, Mike Matheson thought, as he closed the two thrust levers in his right hand simultaneously. As a result the Lander dropped like a brick. Moments later, there was a loud crash and then a precarious swaying movement and then there was stillness. Inside the module, subdued computer noises and the hum of avionics robbed the silence of its comforting effect and green lights skipped along the astronaut’s instrument panels. Mike Matheson looked across at his colleague; he nodded and then shrugged almost imperceptibly. He gave a brief half-smile to his friend as a thank you and then gestured as if to say: lucky! Thereafter the two men sat rigid for several seconds.

  On the bridge of the Hera nobody moved or dared to speak. Seconds seemed like minutes.

  “Talk to me guys . . . Situation report please?” Alex’s cool demeanour fooled nobody. Sideways, he shared an anxious glance with Duval.

  Despite his totally professional disposition, there was a nervous hesitation in Mike Matheson’s delivery as he said: “The Osprey has landed. We are safely down, Hera . . . All systems are green.”

  Back on the Hera, Joe Ansbacher, who was closely monitoring data on his life support display, watched with great relief as Matheson’s heart rate indication dropped from a peak of 190, to a more normal 109. Drake’s was a little higher but of no immediate concern. Meanwhile, Commander Duval’s shoulders visibly dropped and Carol Boardman stopped gripping the seat of her chair.

  “We’re going to set to,” continued Matheson, a minute or two later and speaking over the open frequency. He seemed more relaxed. “Clock starts now, four hours maximum. For the record, we seem to be in a relatively cool area; outside probes are indicating an average of two hundred and thirty degrees Celsius. But we flew through a much hotter zone. Maybe that’s why the lava state was unpredictable, not fully solidified. We are setting suit-conditioning to ninety-one per cent, which gives us some additional flex. Precise location is . . . cross-coordinate two, two, five. We’re on the edge of the North West landing sector. Crystal site is five hundred metres south-east. I’ll transmit a sitrep in twenty minutes. Put the coffee on up there . . . Matheson out!”

  Duval breathed a huge sigh of relief. That was the cue for everyone else on the bridge to follow suit. Alex forced a smile.

  Rose broke the ensuing silence. “Commander, I need you to look at this. Now please. There’s no mistake. I’ve switched to the standby radar scanner and I’m still getting the same contact reading. We have a blip – directly astern at three thousand metres. Whatever it is – and it’s relatively small – it is coming this way at ten metres per second and reducing.”

  Duval heard the resolve in her voice. As impossible as it seemed, Rose was reporting an intruder. A strange chill descended over the bridge – intruders usually meant trouble. Duval quickly stepped over to Rose’s circular display and Alex followed him. Rose pointed to the tiny blip on the screen. Duval waited for the track of the scanner to sweep the object again. He stared almost unbelieving as the next pass enhanced the object’s elongated saucer-like shape. With another sweep the blip moved inexorably toward them. Duval’s eyes narrowed. He turned and nodded at Alex. “Confirmed at one thousand metres,” he said, bluntly. “Whatever it is, we should be able to see it any moment now.” He looked back at the screen and then up at Rose. “We are not expecting any replenishment vessels from Earth are we . . . anybody? Am I missing something here?”

  None of the bridge crew responded. Some shook their heads. Alex shrugged – he was totally at a loss.

  Duval paused thoughtfully. His mouth twitched. “Okay. Press the button. Go to manoeuvre alert status and security state three, just in case the Federation has planned a docking that we are not party to as yet. Close all pressure bulkheads,” he ordered, and then he glanced over to his engineering officer. “I suppose it’s vaguely possible; we’ve been out of radio contact with everybody for several days now.”

  “I can see it, Commander,” interrupted Joe, pointing into the blackness with his finger. “It’s just fired a short retro burst. Looks to be manoeuvring to the left now, establishing a parallel course – coming up the right-hand side of the gantries. Now, there, another . . . See it?” Joe pointed again.

  Duval and Rose stepped over to the rear viewing area. Carol Boardman joined them. “Yes, I see it,” Duval replied. He watched warily as the small craft came slowly towards them. A few minutes later and with all on the bridge staring in amazement, it drew up alongside them. The vessel was painted black, making it difficult to see against the backdrop of space. It was surprisingly close too – not more than 200 metres away. The front of the craft was then illuminated momentarily as two short retro bursts reduced its velocity to a walking pace and then the effect of a third stopped the vessel in its tracks. There was an eerie silence. The vessel seemingly hovered there in the darkness: ominous, unexpected.

  “Call it, Rose! Make it identify itself,” ordered Duval.

  “I’ve been trying for the last ten minutes, sir, using the pre-recorded identification message – all our assigned space frequencies, and also on the space distress frequency. Nothing. No response at all.”

  Alex stepped up beside Rose. “It’s like an interplanetary probe, but I don’t recognise the model and there are no apparent markings,” he reported. “It’s got an ion drive motor though. See the main thrust nozzle?”

  Duval nodded in response. He looked concerned. “I think I can see something written on that rear stabiliser, near the discharge port. Viktor . . . put a light on it. Rose, take an image, process and put it on the main screen – magnified by five.”

  “Yes, Commander.” Rose promptly returned to her console. “You’ve got it, Commander,” she said, a few moments later.

  Duval focused on the picture. “There, look, you see it – markings, in red, lines of characters. Viktor, you recognise any of that?”

  “It’s not Russian, if that’s what you mean, or any of the Slavic languages. We don’t use characters like that. I’d say that it’s Chinese, maybe Japanese . . . Korean even? I’m no expert.”

  “Chinese!” Duval thought on that possibility for a moment. “Rose, get David Chung up here, quickly. He might be able to help with this. I know he has a Masters from the Beijing Aeronautics Institute.”

  “Yes, will do . . . right away.”

  Alex was perplexed. He spent several minutes leaning over the large horizontal monitor that was an integral part of the central display. He ran his finger over an adjacent control wheel adjusting the magnification factor and studied the subsequent image. “Commander,” he said after a while and with an air of apprehension, “I’ve got something. Take a look at this.”

  Duval was over to the console in an instant. He stood next to Alex and, leaning over, scrutinised the image. In a troubled way, like a nervous twitch, Alex’s fingertip repeatedly tapped the screen in the forward area of the spaceship.

  “Look, there, a figure in the cockpit area. I can make out a head and shoulders through the side window. It’s dark, but I’ve enhanced as much as possible.” Alex increased the magnification until the image blurred and then backed off slightly.

  Duval followed Alex’s prompt and zoomed in on the side observation window. It resembled a seagoing vessel’s porthole – circular, with a thick metal rim and ring of undulating rivet heads. Duval peered through it and into the vessel’s cockpit. “Can you improve the quality of t
he image any more, Alex?” he asked.

  “There, what about that . . . ? It’s the best I can do,” Alex replied, pressing a few keys and manipulating the thumbwheel on his panel.

  “It’s a robot! That, Alex, is a robot. There’s no mistaking it.” Duval looked menacingly over his shoulder and out into space in the direction of the vessel.

  “It looks horrible,” commented Carol.

  “I don’t like it either,” agreed Duval. He studied the image again and looked up at Alex, his brow furrowed. “I think it’s a Humatron. I attended some lectures on that model a few years ago. It remains a banned system – suffered behavioural problems from its inception. I saw an example too, in the Smithsonian Museum in Washington DC. That ‘X’ shaped head . . . it’s unique. I don’t think I’m wrong here. They were designed for operations on extended space flights for one thing, but the Spaceport One disaster back in the second decade put paid to all that.” At that moment David Chung arrived. He was a slim oriental man in his thirties and one of three specialist propulsion engineers aboard the Hera. Duval beckoned him over. “David, can you read this?” he asked, pointing to the magnified image of the vessel on the screen.

  David Chung looked surprised. “It is Mandarin!”

  Duval glanced momentarily at Victor. “What’s it say?”

  “Um, well, it’s been a while, Commander.” Chung paused and took his time with each character as the top line in particular was worn and almost obliterated. “Engineering jargon really?” he answered. “It seems to just be installation details and safety precautions for a particular plutonium isotope. Maybe it’s the fuel source. There are some special handling precautions as well. The bottom line is a place – presumably the manufacturer’s address.”

  “Who . . . who’s the manufacturer?”

  “Um, doesn’t actually say their name, I’m afraid, just the place . . . the address: the Huang Hai Industrial State.”

  Duval spontaneously shook his head. “Do you know of it?”

  “Yes. That region was once part of north-eastern China . . . Liaoning Province. But it was given autonomy about thirty years ago. My family are from a town on the coast in the same province, to the south of Dandong. The area is entirely urbanised. The Huang Hai Industrial district itself comprises an island in the West Korean Bay and also about twenty square kilometres of the mainland. Back home, on a good day, you could see it across the water, and if not the island, then the smog that hung over it.” David Chung grimaced at the thought of the pollution. “The region pays a large land rent and taxes to the central government in return for complete autonomy. Most of the world’s leading industrial companies have facilities there. It’s always been a hothouse of innovation and scientific progress because research is unfettered by governmental restrictions. No authority, no censorship, so over the years nobody has had any real idea of what’s been going on. Only rarely is information released and many people, including some prominent scientists, have just disappeared behind the security curtain. Take it from me – people in China just don’t go there unless they have a really good reason. And you don’t look it up on the World Net either – or you might get somebody knocking on your door in the middle of the night. Really, it is not a nice place, and the most polluted in that part of Asia too.” Chung shrugged. “The area has been in steep decline for the last few years, Commander; the late forties was the watershed, when oil and gas became very expensive and reserves began to dry up. Three years ago, when I was finishing my postgraduate studies in Beijing, the Chinese government all but cut off the region’s remaining energy supply, diverting more to the people. But it made very little difference to the most powerful industrial companies, as they had their own suppliers. There was talk of pressurised contracts; threats to government officials; corruption; bribes; prioritised raw material deliverers – including food! The biggest companies in the zone became predators of the small. With their own docks and refineries they survived.”

  “Is there anything else, David?” quizzed Duval. He was growing noticeably edgy. “More specifically, that may be of concern to us.”

  David Chung rubbed his chin suspiciously. “The concept of such an industrial region had already become very unpopular in certain quarters and the government was considering its options. Despite their massive tax revenues, the country was losing face because of illegal activities and a blatant disregard of international laws by industrial giants like Tongsei and Spheron. There was a lot of talk about it, and not just at home, but in the cyber-press too. I remember it clearly. When Tongsei Heavy Industries was the pride of Chinese Corporate success their headquarters was the largest building in Shanghai. When I left China to join the Asian Space and Science Agency that building was being closed.”

  “Did any of these companies build spacecraft?” interjected Carol Boardman. “I’m not a big one on international espionage.”

  “Tongsei built the mineral barge Colossus, Carol,” replied Duval. “Nobody else had the financial ability. They got their money back and a lot more besides by exploiting the Moon’s resources. It was a monopoly for years, certainly until the lunar independence. When we left there was an international investigation underway. As David said, extortion, bribery . . . you name it. Spheron are into high-tech engineering, biomechanics, genetics, pharmaceuticals and lots besides. There was a concerted effort to break up these corporations, but they’re shadowy organisations, nothing could be proved. They were said to have ties with a couple of other disgraced conglomerates.”

  David Chung nodded in agreement. Duval turned and gave him his full attention. “By those markings, David, could this vessel be Tongsei built? And if so, what the hell are they doing building this type of interplanetary craft? This is no replenishment job. I don’t like it. I don’t like it at all!”

  “There is a conundrum here, Commander,” said Chung. “That type of thrust nozzle clearly indicates the use of an ion drive propulsion system, but clearly it has a relatively small capacity: one capable of maintaining momentum in space, but one, in my view, unable to achieve the initial acceleration – at least to a practical speed. And see those flanges towards the rear and the splayed receptacle structure? I would say that this craft is just the tip of a much larger craft. Either a booster stage or another larger section of the craft detached on its way here. And by the absence of any burn marks or scoring, I would say that it was another section with life support – the hot end was further back again. And one other thing, Commander, ion thrusters do not use plutonium as a fuel; invariably its xenon or bismuth gas.” Chung’s expression turned stony. “Plutonium . . . it makes no sense.” He shook his head.

  “Ideas! Speculate!”

  Chung took another look at the image of the vessel on the screen. He looked up slowly and repositioned his spectacles. “If I was to make an educated guess I would say that the vessel has a nuclear power cell. Why? Essentially, it’s a tube, black and functional. The flight deck is more a cockpit, barely illuminated and certainly not suitable for long-range missions by humans – so no life support required. I heard you mention a robot as I came in, again, minimum power demands. But there is not a single solar panel to be seen. Deutronium batteries would produce enough power and for an extended period, but not for a flight to Jupiter, it’s too far. I would say that a compact plutonium power cell would fit the bill.”

  Alex interrupted. “The construction of a nuclear reactor, regardless of size, was banned back in 2016. Not even the ISSF or NASA is exempt. Contravening Section Six of the New Geneva Convention carries hefty penalties.”

  David looked at Alex in a way as if to say: get real. “Compact power cells are completely insulated,” he explained, “and so they are almost undetectable. I would say that this vessel was probably built outside the jurisdiction of the ISSF, somewhere where the engineers were confident that there would be no inspections. Otherwise they would not have painted the radiation hazard icon and the handling instructions for their own people.”

  Duval nodd
ed. “Okay, I buy that – an illegally manufactured power cell to get an automated vessel this far. But what about the real question . . . Why is it here?” He looked back at Alex and Chung.

  Alex walked over to the viewing portal and squinted through the blackness at the object holding station off the starboard bow, perhaps no more than 100 metres away. The cockpit glimmered red like a distant star. “A ship like that represents quite an investment,” he reasoned. “Engineering, technology . . . propulsion? Not even the ISSF is spending that much on pure research – not these days – and anyway we would have heard about it. If the Tongsei or Spheron conglomerates built it, or if they both had a hand in it, then clearly they would want to see a return.”

  Duval stepped up next to Alex and looked over his silent bridge. “The Epsilon Rio Corporation designed and manufactured the Humatron series – that much I know.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “And if it’s here to spy on us, it hasn’t started out too well, has it?”

  Matheson’s suit-conditioning system was operating at 100 per cent, but it wasn’t enough to keep his body temperature within normal limits. Sweat ran down his face. After only an hour on the surface his hydration level had fallen to 92 per cent and he had almost exhausted his fluid pouch. Aldrin Drake fared little better. But work was progressing. They had located a small surface deposit and had exposed the strange mineral by chipping off a thin layer of caked-on, ash-like sulphur material, and were busy setting a small hydraulically operated expansion cylinder that would allow them to break off several small pieces. A briefcase-like U-Semini containment system lay open next to their feet. The deposit, a crystal form that was opaque in some areas and oddly translucent in others, seemed to glow from within, producing a hazy white light.

  Had they time to notice they would have found their surroundings both alien and sublime. Their movement made shallow ‘treaded’ footprints in the frost-like covering of yellow and white flaky pyroclastic material and from time to time a flurry of fine ash drifted down on them from toxic clouds above. The material filled the marks on the ground like fresh, soft, falling snow. The incongruity wasn’t lost on either of them as sticky deposits built up on their backpacks and on top of their helmets as a persistent layer that needed to be brushed off periodically. Occasionally the visibility was good, and far to the west two towering conical volcanoes belched smoke and debris while the surface shimmered with heat.