“I’ll take that,” said YiJay, her shock and awe instantly overcome by the cold calculation of her duty.
Handing her the small container, Harrison and Marshall set to work on the rest of the crates, organizing their contents on the cave floor. Coils of wire, long poles, tripod leg stands, containers of electrical equipment, and Utility Tablets were arranged into groups like the pieces of some complicated puzzle.
As the men worked, YiJay opened the hard-shelled black box Harrison had handed her and smiled. Inside, like oily gray pearls, were ten rows of small glass spheres. Affixed to the back of each apparatus was a three-pronged filament that caught the reflection of light and twinkled like golden sparks.
“There should be another box like this, and a third one that’s blue,” she said, her hand outstretched and expectant.
Rummaging, Marshall produced the two containers and placed them on the ground by her knee.
“Okay,” she breathed, nimbly checking the contents of each box. “Ralph, you will install a patch on the generator to power the Eyes. Harrison, you will hand me what I ask for when I ask for it.”
With a salute, Marshall got to his feet, gathered his equipment then turned and walked back down the tunnel to where the generator was stationed.
Easing himself closer to YiJay, Harrison used a fingertip to open the lid of the black box housing the gray spheres.
“Be very careful,” she warned.
“How do they work?”
Removing a flat motherboard from the blue box by her knee, YiJay quickly slid it into the open backside of a Utility Tablet.
“They do many things, but most importantly for this application, they fire light bullets.”
Perplexed, Harrison turned to face the Korean.
“Light bullets? I thought they were just another kind of eyes for Braun.”
Helmeted head dipping quickly, YiJay continued to work as she spoke.
“Oh they are, but these Eyes are my own special design. Aside from normal scanning functions, they are also capable of recording light movements at one trillion frames per second. By firing bullets of light into the room, they will be able to record the way the light interacts with every surface it touches. Because they’re filming at a trillion frames per second, the images returned will be presented in more detail than we could probably comprehend.”
“When you say, ‘they,’ you really mean Braun, don’t you?” said Harrison, a tinge of suspicion in his voice.
“Yes, yes of course,” shrugged the Korean.
“Whose idea was this, YiJay? Yours or Braun’s?”
Paused in mid-action, YiJay thought for a moment then resumed what she had been doing.
“I suppose it was his idea to use the Eyes in here, but I developed them. Also, I agree that they are probably the best way to detect the presence of a hidden doorway, or passage. Don’t you?”
Closing the radio channel between himself and YiJay, Harrison spoke into his helmet.
“What are you playing at, Braun? Couldn’t we just use IMCs? Why do you need to see the chamber at one trillion frames per second?”
“I am sure you already know,” responded the AI. Then, “I suggest you reopen radio contact with YiJay. She is talking to you as we speak.”
Quickly reopening the channel, Harrison caught the tail end of YiJay’s last transmission.
“Sorry. What?” he said, his mind churning over Braun’s cryptic answer.
“I said, hand me the first section of that pole,” repeated YiJay, her finger pointing to a bundle of aluminum rods.
Passing her the pole, Harrison watched as she plugged several of the small gray pearls into tiny ports which dimpled the outside of the rod. When she had finished with that section, she connected it to another length and repeated the process until she had one continuous rod, more than three meters in length. Fixing the completed rod to a tripod, she positioned it carefully before the twin statues then set about repeating the assembly with the remainder of the parts.
When they were done, the chamber was decorated with four tall poles that stood like dew-flecked chaffs of wheat. Spooling out the power cords, Marshall plugged in each tripoded pole then stepped aside as YiJay configured the transformers to prevent any spikes or surges.
“Okay,” she said at length, stepping away from the last pole. “They should be ready to go. Hand me that Utility Tablet.”
Scooping the hard-shelled Tablet off the ground, Harrison placed it lightly in YiJay’s hands. With pecking fingers, she tapped at the glassy surface, initiating a start up sequence.
“We good?” asked Marshall.
Nodding, the Korean AI specialist leaned back and addressed the open air.
“Everything is ready when you are, Braun.”
“Thank you,” replied the AI.
Slowly turning to leave, YiJay lingered for a second then spoke again.
“Good-bye.”
There was a brief pause before Braun responded.
“Do not worry. I will still be with you.”
“Oh, Braun,” said YiJay knowingly. “You will be here. We might enjoy what seems like the company of your conversation tonight at the Base, but you and I both know that you will really be here.”
“I could never fool you. Could I, YiJay?”
“No, you never could.”
Frowning behind the tint of his visor, Harrison pursed his lips.
You might not know your boy as well as you think, YiJay, he said to himself. You might be just as oblivious as the rest of us.
Spacewalker—63 days in orbit
Fully suited and strapped snuggly into the copilot's chair of Lander 2, Julian Thomas relished the feeling of stillness that came with being buckled down. Beside him, Lieutenant Joseph Aguilar was running through a Preflight Egress with Captain Tatyana Vodevski who was on the bridge of Braun. Her commanding and somewhat-bossy voice echoed loudly inside his helmet, forcing Julian to turn down the volume and wonder just what it was the young pilot saw in her at all. Though they tried to hide it, there was clearly a romance taking place between the two, and for the life of it, Julian couldn’t wrap his mind around the concept.
I guess celibacy makes us do insane things, he thought with a crooked smile. Then, remembering that he himself had married and divorced a woman not unlike the captain, he grinned even wider.
His options are limited. What was your excuse?!
Taking out his Tablet, Julian selected a music file titled, ‘Jean Marie,’ and hit ‘play.’ Complex and beautiful, the music lulled him into a calming daze that was only broken when Captain Vodevski spoke above the melodies in his helmet speakers.
“Alright, that’s everything,” she said curtly. “Be safe and come back fully intact.”
“Even me?” asked Julian in a mocking tone.
Taking the dead radio silence as a signal that the captain was not in a joking mood, Julian paused his music and sighed as Aguilar initiated the disconnect sequence and took up the flight controls.
“Don’t worry, Captain,” radioed the young Mexican-American pilot. “We should be back onboard within two hours.”
Hearing a series of low clanks, Julian pictured in his mind the electromagnetic chassis hook as it pulled away from the hard shell of the Lander’s underside, effectively cutting it loose from the rest of Braun.
“We’re clear,” reported Aguilar. “I’m taking her out.”
Automatically, the Lander’s cockpit window guard began to open, and the two men watched the metal shutters part to reveal the vast starry blackness of space.
Easing the throttle, Aguilar gave the little craft a shot of fuel, propelling it quickly away from the underbelly of the mighty Braun. Once clear of the mother ship, the young pilot winked at Julian then jerked the controls, sending the Lander into a perilous barrel roll. Howling with laughter, the two men executed three more rolls before finally bringing the Lander around to face Braun.
Though the volume was turned down to nearly zero, Julian could
just make out the hot iron of Captain Vodevski’s voice as she berated them for their unscheduled aerial fun.
“She’s pissed,” he said to Aguilar, shooting him a devilish look.
“Yeah,” replied the pilot. “I thought she might be, so I muted her in my helmet. What’s she saying?”
Julian shook his head and laughed again. “My Russian is pretty rusty but you don’t want to know.”
Bringing the Lander into a tight vertical orbit around the giant ship, Aguilar applied delicate thruster bursts until the small craft matched the speed and trajectory of Braun. Hanging perfectly above the mother ship like a tiny moon, the Lander rolled to one side until its exit hatch was facing the white hull below.
Silently, the profile of Mars filled the cockpit window like the God of War himself, come to watch the dangerous mission ahead.
“You ready?” asked Aguilar, casting a worried look at his friend.
Julian gave the young pilot a deadpan stare then cracked a wide smile.
“Garçon, I have been spacewalking for longer than you’ve been chasing tail.”
Rolling his eyes dramatically, Aguilar flipped Julian the finger then spoke to the open air.
“Braun, I’m going to turn things over to you now.”
“Thank you, Lieutenant Aguilar,” responded the AI instantly. “I’m showing that both of your suits are fully sealed and functional. If it’s no trouble with you, I would now like to depressurize the cabin and open the hatch.”
“That’s the plan,” replied Aguilar, his eyes scanning over the many readouts and data charts that covered the dashboard.
Feeling the vibrations of the pump motors beneath his feet, Julian looked out the window at his beloved ship. White and clean, the immense vessel was the largest object to have ever been launched from Earth orbit. The slightly tapered nose and gently curving middle section gave Braun a truly whale-like appearance as it swam through its orbit around Mars.
Catching the glint from the distant sun, Julian shifted his gaze to the straight lines of small black domes that dotted the hull of Braun like barnacles. An application of his own design, the domes housed the delicate lenses of the Laser Defense System, an invention that had saved the crew once before. Counting back from the nose of the ship to just before the lip of the window, he guessed that Lander 2 must be hovering directly above the dome that was cracked.
Alerted to the problem the evening before by Braun, Julian had convinced the captain to let him go EVA to replace the damaged dome. Not only did he hate the idea of something on his ship being broken, but he also knew that without every laser in the defense network operational, their chances of surviving another meteor strike would dramatically lessen.
“I’m opening the hatch,” said Braun, pulling Julian back to the moment.
Rotating his seat one-hundred-eighty degrees, the Frenchman turned to face the exit hatch as it unlocked and swung silently outward on automated hinges. With only the sound of his own breathing in his ears, he watched a section of ceiling paneling retract to reveal a narrow cubby.
Unfolding from within the space like a freshly hatched insect, the segmented arm of a triple-barreled grappling turret dropped down in front of the open hatch and took aim at Braun. Resembling the body of a miniaturized anti-aircraft gun, the turret spun its barrels, cycling through its options for anchoring the Lander to the ship below. As the final barrel came around, the turret grew still, a small yellow balloon no bigger than a grapefruit protruding from the end.
“I have a lock,” Braun reported. “I will fire on your order.”
Exchanging looks, the two men nodded to each other.
“Fire,” said Aguilar
Without a sound, the grappling gun shot its yellow-tipped projectile at a handhold on the hull of Braun, three meters to the right of the cracked laser dome.
Filled with granulated silica sand, the balloon tip of the grappling hook could form around any shape with ease. Once contact was made, pumps would instantly suck the air out of the balloon, freezing the sand within around whatever object it had come into contact with. The process was called jamming transition and it effectively turned the loosely packed granulated silica into a solid.
In a demonstration three years before, Julian had seen a NASA tech fire this very same grappling hook at a quarter-sized target over 25 meters away and successfully establish a solid anchor.
“Contact,” announced Braun. “Proceed to the next phase when ready.”
Carefully releasing the safety belts that held him to his chair, Julian drifted up a little then pushed off and made his way to the open hatch.
Repositioning itself until it was back in its ceiling niche, the turret rotated until its cable spool was all that remained visible.
Taking a safety line from his belt, Julian clipped its metal carabineer over the taut anchor line and tested the connection. Satisfied, he braced himself in the open hatch and spoke to the emptiness of space.
“Okay, Joey. I’m going. Be ready to send down the payload when I ask.”
“Roger roger,” said Aguilar, his voice slipping into a pilot’s drawl.
With the cable grasped firmly in his gloved fists, Julian glanced around the Lander’s cabin, nodded to his friend, and then swung his weightless body out into space. Though he knew it was only his imagination, the blanket of endless black felt like a frozen ocean that locked the distant stars in a prison of ice, smothering their weak light until they succumbed to the cold and burnt out.
Moving hand-over-hand down the line towards the hull of Braun, he stole a timid glance at the face of Mars, pockmarked and scarred. As if aware of his natural menace, the God of War glared back at Julian, his twin moons little black silhouettes against his rusty deserts that were the color of dried blood.
Like ghosts, the moons Phobos and Deimos acted in accordance to their namesakes and elicited fear and dread.
Chest growing tight, Julian recalled his countless hours of training and experience then used those memories to slow his breathing.
“Okay, five meters,” he radioed.
“You’re looking really good, man,” assured Aguilar from the Lander.
Quickly closing the gap between himself and the surface of Braun, Julian used his arm muscles to ease his pace down, feeling his lower body push against him in an attempt to continue its forward momentum. Gripping the anchor line loosely, he allowed his legs to come around until he was descending feet first, the universe turning upside down as he rotated. With a gentle bump, his boots made contact with the ceramic surface of Braun, and a surprising rush of relief washing over him.
“I’ve made contact,” Julian said, allowing his mind to reorient itself to the shift in perspective.
Reaching out, he brought himself into a crouch and grabbed at the first handhold he saw. From a distance, the entire shell of Braun looked smooth and white, save for the laser domes. But when viewed from up close, the ship was dimpled by hundreds of half-sphere relief wells inlayed with sturdy iron handles. Anchored to one such handle, the yellow balloon of the grappling hook had formed snuggly around the handhold, filling the space of the well like a plunger.
With a second safety line taken from the rear of his belt, Julian clipped its carabineer to the next nearest handhold before disconnecting himself from the anchor cable that bound the Lander and the ship.
“Alright, send me down the payload,” he said, twisting his head to better see the Lander hanging in space above him.
Fixing a motor-powered trolley kit to the line, Aguilar added a large black duffel bag containing a silver power drill and a new laser dome then sent them rolling down to Julian.
As the trolley approached, Julian clicked his teeth and waited impatiently. He hated feeling out in the open without a task to distract his mind. Slowing as it neared, the electric trolley puttered to a complete stop two meters above his head.
“Fuck,” he spat angrily. “Goddamned NASA shop jocks! Why can’t anything built in America last?”
“Yeah, yeah,” grumbled Julian, blinking sweat from his eyes.
Letting go of the handhold, he brought his feet underneath himself then pressed them carefully down against the surface of the hull. One fist wrapped tightly around the anchor line, he fought the subtly powerful rush of forward momentum, caused by pushing his boots against the ship. Because Julian’s mass was so miniscule in comparison to Braun’s, any hard or uncontrolled movement he made against the latter would result in a sort of backfire, sending him flailing out into space.
“Okay, I’m standing,” he said. “I’m going to reach for the payload.”
Stretching one arm out, he got a gloved fingertip on the corner of the trolley and pulled it down, again working against the momentum that tried to propel him away from the ship. With nimble fingers, he unclipped the duffel sack from the trolley and slung its strap over his shoulder. Then letting go of the anchor line, he drifted down until he could grab a handhold, using the metal rung to bring the rest of his body in towards the hull.
Taking a moment to collect himself, the French engineer breathed in several cool lungfuls of air then began sliding along the hull towards the cracked laser dome.
Struck by a micro-meteor no bigger than a pebble and probably moving faster than a bullet, the dome had a long thin crack that dissected the glass into two halves. Knowing that the laser within wouldn’t be able to focus properly with the crack obstructing its view, Julian would have to replace the entire dome with a new and unblemished duplicate.
Taking the drill from its holster on the duffel sack, he set to unbolting the eighteen large-bore fasteners that attached the damaged dome to the hull of the ship. A magnetic socket head kept the bolts from drifting away, and after removing each one, he had to slip them into a mesh pocket on the duffle sack. Careful yet quick, he worked his way around the cracked dome until he was at the last fastener. Placing the head of the drill on the bolt, Julian applied pressure to the trigger and waited for the thing to come loose. It held. Trying again, he pulled the drill’s trigger harder and still nothing happened.
The Ruins of Mars: Waking Titan (The Ruins of Mars Trilogy) Page 4
