Project Sail

by Anthony DeCosmo

  Of course, he also realized that their decontamination procedure had slaughtered millions of microbial life forms that called the cave home. He hoped the owners of the cylinder did not take offense.

  Despite such realizations, he still felt this mission a waste of resources and time. Every minute they spent trying to unlock the mysteries of G-Moon was a minute that could have been spent at home, dealing with his polluted homeland, or the poverty of the southern hemisphere.

  Worse, coming to this place had put Ellen Kost’s life in danger.

  Hawthorne broke into Wren’s thoughts: “What about you, Leo? What do we need down here?”

  He turned to see the Commander and Professor Coffman standing by one of the many tables and counters erected inside the cave. They had covered the floor and a patchwork of power cables with a blue tarp and an airlock crafted from metal tubes and plastic sheets stood at the exit.

  “We need Ellen Kost down here and we can’t have that until you fix her chip.”

  Coffman waved his hand.

  “I know, yes, you and I will return to the ship within twenty-four hours to begin the software construction. I promise, Leo, we will do everything we can to fix her up.”

  Wren moved away from the wall to a portable computer, its screen made of composite glass and not a projection because field equipment could not afford such luxuries.

  This computer linked to a jack he had plugged into Probe 581 three hours ago. Using a program recommended by Leanne Warner, Wren searched the probe’s systems for any sign of an electronic incursion.

  Like Hawthorne, he doubted the probe’s sudden reactivation and its location were a coincidence. Coffman was too enthralled with the artifact to think of anything else but if the EA had hacked the probe, then perhaps Charles was working for a foreign power.

  He heard the professor tell Hawthorne, “Dr. King will come to the surface when Leo and I leave. I want her to take soil samples. The more we understand about the building blocks of G-Moon, the more we understand about the people who left the object behind.”

  The sound of water jets and forced air came from the corner where Bill Stein exited a six-foot-tall plastic stall that was the base’s commode.

  Coffman pounced, “Bill, we will need you to shuttle people and equipment between the ship and surface over the next few days.”

  Stein shut the door before the strong chemical smell could pervade the tight quarters.

  “I’m not complaining, but has something changed?”

  Coffman cocked his head and asked, “Weren’t you listening?”

  “I was spending a little alone time.”

  Wren’s debugging computer suddenly spewed lines of numbers and text. Coffman did not notice; he was too busy explaining his recent find to Stein.

  “The cylinder is emitting synchrotron radiation: electromagnetic radiation associated with charged particles being rapidly accelerated.”

  Wren jumped into the conversation: “It’s like there’s a particle accelerator in there. But check this out. The Commander suggested I look inside the probe for signs of corruption. I found something, inside the systems that control external lighting. A virus I think, just sitting in there doing nothing.”

  “And you know it’s an incursion?” Coffman asked. “Why mess with the probe’s lighting?”

  “Yes, it is an incursion and as for the lighting, I doubt it stays in that system. Man, this is sophisticated shit. It’s hiding in a part of the probe that isn’t considered critical, but when it wants to, I’ll bet it reaches into the main processing center and starts fucking around.”

  Hawthorne guessed, “And then pulls back and hides again where no one is going to look for it.”

  “Who would want to interfere with the probe?”

  Wren answered the professor, “Maybe you should ask Captain Charles.”

  42. Shock Wave

  Gravity nearly double that on Earth made getting around on Gliese 581g difficult for Carlson and Sheila Black. To compensate, they wore metal exoskeletons bolted to their pumpkin suits and controlled by their thinker chips.

  The exoskeletons supported their joints, spine, and neck while boosting leg and arm strength. In standard gravity, the contraption made a man stronger and faster, perfect for loading cargo or combat. On Gliese 581g, the gear theoretically allowed Carlson and Black to move normally, but after three days on the surface the human astronauts still struggled.

  Carlson marched toward that glowing horizon he admired, doing so in clumsy steps.

  A heads-up display on his helmet projected tracking information to help him hunt down an errant drone. Sheila Black followed with her eyes fixed on her wrist computer that relayed data from automated boring stations.

  “Lots of alkaline earth metals including magnesium, of course,” she said although he barely listened. “Plus I’m reading strontium, barium, looks like some nasty radium, and even beryllium. Wait a second, one of the little buggers picked up silicon.”

  “Not unusual,” Carlson responded absently.

  “No shit, except the purity level is through the roof. I am talking nine-nines here, like we use in semiconductors. Do you know the level of refinement that takes?”

  Carlson nearly tumbled over a cluster of rocks marking the start of a steep ridge because he was not paying attention to her or their surroundings.

  “The telemetry tells me the drone is another mile away, but its locator beacon says it is just up ahead. Must be a fault.”

  Matthew climbed the slope. Despite the exoskeleton, it felt as if his legs had become hundred-pound barbells in 581g’s intense gravity. Sheila Black hurried to his side and confronted his lack of attention.

  “I don’t like it when people don’t listen to me. Silicon, Matthew; highly refined silicon. That means the augers are finding leftovers of technology. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, whoever made that cylinder on G-Moon was here, too.”

  “Well, that is a possibility.”

  This time Black did not pay attention; she had not looked beyond the crest. Carlson raised his hand and directed her eyes forward.

  The drone’s conflicting positional data was the result of a steep cliff, over which it had fallen, coming to rest five thousand feet down where it presumably split into pieces.

  Black gasped, “Geely, am I seeing this?”

  The red sunrise permanently stuck on the horizon coated the land in a pale crimson hue, allowing the visitors to see what lay ahead. In front of the two astronauts stretched a massive hole that Carlson recognized as a strip mine, one mile deep and perhaps a thousand square miles long, although he could only guess its true size.

  Rockslides and avalanches had dulled the edges, but the miners had left behind their mark. Inside the quarry remained the tools of excavation. Two-hundred-foot tall machines built from sand-colored alloys stood in silence, cenotaphs to whatever alien workers had toiled to extract metallurgical treasures in the everlasting dawn.

  Perhaps the huge rectangle covered in wiry fibers was an alien bucket-wheel excavator; maybe the spheres mounted on hexagonal towers processed materials or directed the workforce. He did not know; only the results of their work gave meaning to their function.

  Hundreds of them in dozens of designs scattered about the unnatural valley having abandoned their purpose.

  This was no cryptic object like Coffman’s cylinder; the machines and the land they had ravaged were the work of an advanced alien race, one that—like man—mined their environment for the raw materials needed to power civilization.

  But what had happened to that civilization and why had they abandoned these massive mechanical beasts?

  Those questions could wait. For now, Carlson and Black stood and stared as the dwarf sun cast its rubicund shadow over all.

  ---

  Fisk waited impatiently for Coffman to reach the bridge.

  “Where have you been?”

  “Sorry, Wren would not let me leave Dr. Kost.”

  Fisk h
uffed and led the professor to Leanne Warner’s station where Matthew Carlson’s face filled a screen.

  “I told you we needed a satellite,” Carlson complained. “We would have spotted the gorge weeks ago, over.”

  Coffman consoled, “Easy, Matthew, start at the beginning. I hear you found something, over.”

  A two-second delay slowed the conversation and forced formal protocols.

  “We found a huge strip mine filled with machines. Sheila is setting up a total station to take precise measurements, I returned to the capsule to pick up more equipment. Can you send the observation drone to do a fly over?”

  Warner searched her traffic controls for the drone’s location.

  “Okay, I found it on the day side, southern pole. I just need the okay to change its course.”

  Fisk said, “Go ahead.”

  Warner ignored Fisk and looked to Coffman who nodded before sending to Carlson: “Roger your transmission, Matthew, we are getting you that drone. I cannot wait to see what you found! Over.”

  “Jesus Christ,” Warner chased away the celebration. “The drone is picking up an impact or eruption. Damn, look at this.”

  She waved her finger at a screen, changing it to show the day side of Gliese 581g at high altitude. The terrain there had spent eternity baking under the red dwarf, leaving a barren gray surface lined with cracks and craters.

  A brilliant flash became an explosion, ejecting scorched rock from the planet followed by a cloud of sparkling energy swelling out from ground zero.

  “I can’t even measure the power of that shock wave,” Warner warned.

  Coffman pointed at the display and caused a graph to pop up. He squinted and then said, “The energy is not dissipating.”

  The ring expanded like a ripple after a stone splash in a pond, but the ripple on Gliese 581g was a wave hundreds of meters high and thousands of kilometers wide.

  “Get them off the surface, Leanne. Get them up now.”

  She broadcast, “Pan-pan, pan-pan, capsule four ground team, clear safety checks, lift off immediately.”

  Carlson’s face returned to the screen.

  “SE 185, repeat please. Do you have that drone in position yet? Over”

  Coffman radioed, “Matthew, you must get airborne right now. You are in extreme danger!”

  “Here, I have something on the telescope,” Warner said and when a full picture of Gliese 581g displayed on the screen, she gasped.

  A great circle of shining fire moved out from the southern pole and climbed 581g, its momentum more than enough to envelop the entire world…

  …Carlson opened the capsule hatch and stepped into the plastic bubble attached to the ship.

  “Sheila, you need to hurry back!”

  “I’m on my way,” came her reply and he spotted her in the distance with the flames of Gliese flickering on the horizon like the Baily’s beads of a solar eclipse.

  “Coffman ordered an emergency lift off.”

  His thoughts raced in a dozen directions as he worked to unclasp the temporary airlock attached to the capsule.

  What were those machines and who had worked them? Why an emergency take off? Could this be a drill or a stupid prank? If they had only assigned him a real satellite instead of a worthless drone they might have spotted the dig weeks ago.

  He dragged the material away from the ship. As he turned to check her progress, he found the horizon had grown even more dramatic, except not because of the red dwarf.

  “Oh my God, Sheila, run. RUN!”

  He could no longer see that horizon he had so admired. A wall of plasma and debris blocked everything from view as it bore down on their position.

  She must have turned to look because he heard Sheila scream over the radio.

  Carlson opened the capsule door, went inside, and approached the pilot’s chair. When in range, he communicated with the control panel through his thinker, activating the emergency take off protocols.

  He glanced out the open hatch and saw Sheila twenty yards away and the storm climbing higher and higher.

  Carlson realized that if he closed the hatch and started the takeoff sequence, he could escape the danger, at the expense of leaving her behind. No one would blame him; waiting felt suicidal.

  Yet he decided to wait, maybe because of the memory of how he felt on that school trip to Tvashta Paterae. He had found that volcanic region fascinating while his classmates focused on the danger. It had been a rare moment when he felt superior to his peers, a moment that would make his mother proud. Or perhaps he waited because Sheila Black worked in engineering with Phipps, making her important to someone he cared about.

  Whatever the reason, he did wait, making a choice that made him feel powerful, controlling his fate in a way few men ever knew.

  She reached the capsule with her chest nearly bursting from labored breathing and her legs stumbling from the exoskeleton’s maximum boost.

  He pulled her inside, shutting the hatch in the next motion and then grabbing hold of a safety harness at the same time his thinker chip ordered the capsule to blast off. Even if they dodged the shock wave, the force of lift off might kill them since they had no time to buckle properly.

  One second later, the ship fired normal thrusters plus boosters at maximum burn, blowing away rock as it raced skyward atop a hellish fireball of pure power.

  But the energy wave engulfed the capsule, tearing it apart molecule by molecule into pieces no larger than grains of sand…

  …Leanne Warner stared at her screens, hoping to locate the pod as it cleared the disturbance, unable to accept the loss of two shipmates.

  Fisk paced the bridge tugging at his sleeves.

  “What was that? What could cause that?”

  Warner speculated, “Asteroid?”

  “No,” Coffman said as he crossed his arms and tapped a finger to his chin. “That looked like—”

  Warner’s sensors beeped, signaling a contact. She flashed a furtive smile, thinking contact meant Carlson and Black had survived. But no, this signal came from beyond Gliese 581g, and it was much larger.

  Coffman finished, “That looked like an A-H drive wash directed into the planet.”

  As the ring of destruction enveloped 581g, the culprit appeared, on course for G-Moon.

  Wearing blue steel and built around a thick spine, the European Alliance heavy cruiser projected strength, from missile tubes under each wing, to circular protrusions on its hammerhead bow that warned of high-powered lasers and radiation beams.

  Spheres marking diametric propulsion bulged from the top and the cruiser’s version of the Alcubierre—Haruto drive contorted space through concave slots on the front.

  The warship dwarfed SE 185, and not merely because it measured double the size. From a laser defense grid to kinetic impactors, from suicide drones to EMP projectors, the cruiser carried enough firepower to effortless swat aside the research ship.

  Fisk and Coffman gawked at the screens. Starr remained in his navigator’s seat mumbling about engines and escaping. Warner did not say a word, perhaps pondering her earlier doubt of Captain Charles’ guilt.

  The professor regained his composure and told Starr, “Contact the landing party on G-Moon and tell Commander Hawthorne the situation.”

  Starr acknowledged the order in what sounded like a mouse’s squeak.

  “Do we have any defenses?” Fisk asked a stupid question, so nobody answered.

  Yes, they carried launch tubes and nuclear warheads, but even if the cargo bay held a cache of modern missiles, they could not seriously threaten a ship purposed for war.

  Warner voiced what they all thought: “They are going to destroy us.”

  “The question is,” Coffman pondered, “how did they know to come here?”

  The EA cruiser swept over G-Moon’s northern pole and closed on SE 185, which flew in a geostationary orbit above the cylinder chamber.

  Fisk panicked, but his panic led to a good idea. While Starr relayed information to
the ground team about the destruction on 581g and the new arrival, Fisk told Leanne Warner to, “Bring Captain Charles to the bridge.”

  “What? He is working for them!” She protested. “You were the one who locked him in!”

  Coffman understood and translated Fisk’s intent: “If he is in control of this ship, the Alliance will not destroy us. I will access the computer and unlock his cabin.”

  Warner left the bridge, nearly stumbling in her haste.

  The cruiser swung around and settled into an orbit three hundred kilometers away.

  A minute later, Captain Donavan Charles returned to the bridge, a nasty grin on his face.

  “How did they know?” Fisk struggled to speak. “UVI was supposed to change the translation computer after you sent your first message. They shouldn’t have wanted to come here.”

  Charles said, “The situation has changed so I will ask the questions, Mr. Fisk. You should worry about the airlock. Where is Commander Hawthorne?”

  Fisk told him, “On the surface.”

  “Incoming transmission,” Coffman reacted to an indicator at the XO’s station. “Text only.”

  From the cruiser came simple instructions, scrolling across every screen on the bridge.

  DO NOT OBSTRUCT LANDINGS…DO NOT OBSTRUCT LANDINGS...

  …From the spine of the European Alliance’s warship detached a trio of thirty-meter-high black pods, followed by a military space plane with an oversized cargo bay. The quartet zipped away from the cruiser with little regard for angle of entry.

  As they plummeted into the atmosphere, the pods glowed red…

  …Hawthorne, King, and Stein followed Thomas through the plastic airlock and out to the field. The red sun finally started to rise above the horizon on G-Moon.

  The moments of the first daylight since their arrival should have brought excitement, but with news of unwelcomed visitors, thoughts turned from research to survival.

  Thomas scanned her wrist computer until the data she eyed provided an answer.

  “There!”

  Following her direction, Hawthorne looked into the bluish-gray sky that he should have found fascinating, but he could only think of what might be falling down on them.