Table of Contents
Title Page
COME IN, COLLINS
Imminent Shock
Rude Awakening
De-Canning
Roundup
Chrysalis
Refugees
Reality Bites
The End of the Beginning
The Big Cold Dark
Some Folk Just Need Killin'
...With Kindness
Temperature, and Heat
Heat & Resistance
Reflections
Reengagement
Raison d'être
Biology
The Law of the Pencil
Discovery
Someone Set Up Us Da Bomb
Burroughs
Everyone Needs a Hand
Deliverance
Trenching and Retrenchment
Overstayed Welcome
The Tank
Gone in a Flash
Arrival: Delayed
Credits
Want more?
Excerpt: TEARS OF SELENE
Dedications
Acknowledgements
About the Author
COME IN, COLLINS:
A Riddled Space Novel
by Bill Patterson
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
COME IN, COLLINS
Copyright © 2017 by Bill Patterson
All rights reserved.
Cover design © 2017 Christian Bentulan
All rights reserved.
Imminent Shock
UNSOC Lunar Colony Michael Collins, June 17 2082, 1000 EDT
Jeng Wo Lee, Commander of United Nations Space Operations Command's Lunar Colony Michael Collins, stared at the videophone in amazement. The connection to UNSOC Space Station Roger B. Chaffee and its commander, Lisa Daniels died suddenly moments ago.
“Comms, what's going on?” he asked. “Chaffee's offline.”
“Don't know, sir,” said the controller. “Got a lot of circuits acting strange—almost like an electrical surge. Working on it, sir.”
Lee's monitor blinked about twenty seconds later, showing Commander Daniels, her face registering shock.
“Main viewer. Rebroadcast to UNSOC. Full record,” Daniels ordered her technician.
“What happened, Lisa? You cut off midsentence,” said Lee.
A loud voice erupted from the Lee's speaker. “Commander Jeng. McCrary from the surface.”
“This is Jeng. Go, McCrary.”
“Earth has brightened at least two magnitudes.” McCrary sounded calm and unruffled.
“Collins, this is Chaffee, Daniels here. There's been some kind of event on the Moon. Radiation meters are off-scale high. All sensors aimed at you have burned out.” Lisa, like all commanders in high stress situations, reflexively relayed calmness.
“Copy, Chaffee,” said Commander Jeng. “Can you give us any range data?” A window popped up on Lee's monitor: data from the Chaffee.
“Data on the sideband. Ejecta is obscuring the origin location. Collins, the event is roughly five thousand kilometers from you. A large shock wave is propagating from the event site. Estimate about twelve minutes until you're hit.” On Lee's monitor, ranging circles overlaid the position of the Collins.
Commander Jeng hit the General Quarters alarm. “Emergency. Skintights and helmets. Moonquake in ten minutes. Patching through McCrary.”
“McCrary from the surface. The Earth has lit up from the reflected Moonlight. Chaffee reports visible shock fronts headed our way. Prepare for massive Moonquakes. Get in the ShelterCans as soon as possible. A man in a Can will live for at least a week, maybe longer.”
Lee, sticking his legs into the spare set of skintights he kept in his office, blessed the day he required ShelterCans installed before using them for LOX transport to the Chaffee. They made excellent emergency shelters and were placed throughout the Collins.
***
“Think Control's going to rat us out?” asked Travis Nadler, as he hit the cycle button on the airlock at the end of the southwest arm of Moonbase Collins.
“Naw,” said Bubba Cranston, as he shuffled into the decontamination chamber with Travis. He pulled the outer hatch closed, spun the locking handle, and triggered the cleaning cycle.
Air at high pressure washed over their spacesuits and was sucked into the grid beneath their feet, pulling with it the ubiquitous lunar dust. Lunar dust was a major lung hazard, was well as a danger to the electrical equipment of the base.
The blast ended and they walked out of the chamber into the inner airlock, where regular station air filled the final chamber before the station proper.
“They rat us out, then they can't take the shortcut, either,” said Bubba, after lifting off his spacesuit helmet. He waved Travis through the inner hatch. “Going the long way will cost them another twenty minutes, plus getting zapped in decontamination when they take the Main Entrance.
“I wonder when they're going to move the changeout room closer to the airlock,” said Travis, as he clumped along in the heavy exterior suit.
“When it starts getting occupied,” said Bubba. “We're at half occupancy, no reason to keep spacesuits so far away from where everyone's at.”
The air filled with the raucous alarm of the General Quarters alarm. “Emergency. Skintights and helmets. Moonquake in ten minutes. Patching through McCrary,” announced the calm, authoritative voice of Commander Lee.
Bubba and Travis looked all around them. “Safety bunker here!” said Travis, hauling open the hatch. They dashed inside and dogged down the hatch.
“Gotta take off the backpacks to get in the ShelterCans,” said Bubba. He lifted off Travis's unit, then turned to let Travis remove his. “Better secure them,” he said, strapping them to a workbench. “Don't want them flying around.” They stood in their spacesuits, helmets in hand.
Travis took one long look around the safety bunker, and held out his fist to Bubba.
“Been a real trip up here. Glad to have served with you.”
Bubba's grin startled him. “Y'all worry too much. We'll get through this. I like workin' with y'all, too. Git in the Can, man, or McCrary'll tunnel down here jest to chew you out.”
Travis smiled and put his helmet on. He helped Bubba climb into his ShelterCan, closing the door on the little one-man rescue capsule, then raced over to climb into his own. As he clamped the lid shut around him, he had the unpleasant thought that these ShelterCans might well be their caskets.
“LOX, radio, power, check. Batteries full. Spill valve set to auto. Bubba, you on?”
The suit radio in the standard Moondog suit had a couple of circuits—one was extremely low power for work part communications, and the second was a more powerful, longer range variant, designed for communications with Moonbase Collins and a distant work party. Travis had the radio on the low power setting.
“Yeah. How are you doing?”
“Fine. A little close, but they trained that out of us.” Travis smiled then, all alone in his enclosure. Back on Earth, they were required to remain inside a ShelterCan trainer for seventy-two hours. Only those who survived the experience, known as 'Graveyard', were allowed to progress through UN Ground School training.
“Might be a little more than three days this time, you know,” said Bubba. “LOX should last us at least a week.”
“How much longer before it hits?”
“Two minutes, maybe less,” said Bubba.
The long range radio channel interrupted them.
“This is McCrary. The debris p
lume is like a great sparkling curtain rising from the south. It has spread from one source and now extends from horizon to horizon.”
McCrary paused, as if he was listening to a reply.
“Please relay this to everyone,” said McCrary. “One hundred and twenty-four years ago, on Christmas Eve, three men rounded the Moon for the first time and reported back to Earth. As it was the dawn of spaceflight, they read from Genesis. I fear this is the end of spaceflight, so I will read from Revelations.
“I looked when He broke the sixth seal, and there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth made of hair, and the whole moon became like blood; and the stars of the sky fell to the earth, as a fig tree casts its unripe figs when shaken by a great wind.
“The sky was split apart like a scroll when it is rolled up, and every mountain and island were moved out of their places.
“Then the kings of the earth and the great men and the commanders and the rich and the strong and every slave and free man hid themselves in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains.”
McCrary was silent for a second or two.
“And now, our Moon is red, and we go to hide in our caves. Let this be our final transmission: From the crew of the Lunar Colony Michael Collins, we close with good night, good luck, and God bless all of you, all of you on the good Earth. I bid you farewell.”
Silence reigned for a second or two.
“Who knew the Chief was so flowery?” Bubba kept the emotion out of his voice with an effort. After all, he had his image as the unflappable Southerner to maintain.
“Hear those thumps? McCrary left his radio on,” said Travis. “That's the debris hitting the surface.”
“The Works are going to get shotgunned,” said Bubba. “All that work.”
The impacts, transmitted through the radio, increased rapidly to a continuous surf-roar which suddenly cut off.
“Oh, crap,” said Travis, his voice rising slightly. “Chief get it?”
“I don't know,” said Bubba. “Maybe it was—”
Whatever the cause Bubba had thought of was lost in a sudden roar. The ground snatched sideways, then began a savage sawing motion beneath the two Moondogs. The ShelterCans toppled over, moving slowly under the influence of the weaker Lunar gravity. The only sensation Travis felt was a slow-motion lean to one side. He braced inside the hollow cylinder as it seemed to pause in midair, unconnected to the violence taking place around it.
The ShelterCan struck the floor of the safety bunker and bounced between the walls, ceiling, and floor of the small chamber, occasionally careening against Bubba's ShelterCan and two empty ShelterCans in the chamber. The motion seemed to take forever, but actually lasted less than ten minutes.
Now I know how popcorn feels, Travis thought, shortly before a particularly savage collision knocked him unconscious.
Rude Awakening
UNSOC Lunar Colony Michael Collins, 17 2082, 1100 EDT
Travis awoke to pain. Pain was everywhere. He felt like he had gone for twenty rounds with the Collins champion, 'Pugs' Stalwart. He cautiously wiggled all of his extremities while his eyes automatically scanned the heads-up display in his helmet, the only source of light in his small, cramped world. His suit, miraculously, appeared to be unharmed. Everything seemed to be in order. The ShelterCan felt bent, somehow. A hard edge jabbed him under his left ribs. His kidney absorbed the rest of whatever force had bent the aluminum shell of the Can inward. His hand reached for the handle of the ShelterCan just as an aftershock twitched the once solid Lunar surface beneath him.
“Bubba?” he called. He looked at his display. The radio was in working order. Increasing the volume produced the expected hiss in his ears. He listened intently. Was that a groan, however faint?
He rattled the handle. The door to his ShelterCan refused to budge. Of course not. All that banging and bending around must have wedged it shut. He resisted the urge to panic and thought long and hard about his options.
Another tremor raced through the ground. Travis waited out the interruption. How was he going to get out? He looked at the displays once more. He had been unconscious for about an hour. Well, if anyone had a slow leak in their suit, they were probably dead by now.
Another aftershock battered him, inducing a slow rolling of the ShelterCan across the floor. It met up with another ShelterCan with a tink of aluminum.
“Travis?” he heard.
“Bubba!” The relief he felt at the simple contact surprised and warmed him. Travis disliked Bubba's cornpone accent and Southern ways when he first met him. Now, though, after working with him for a year and a half, he respected the brilliant mind behind the façade.
“I'm guessing you can't get out, either,” Travis said.
“Nope. I'm starting to wonder if anyone can.”
“These Cans. They saved us, thanks to McCrary. But they'll probably be our caskets, too.”
Bubba chuckled. “Naw. We'll get out. Betcha forgot—what was that last job we were on? Just now, I mean.”
Travis tried to think. The ground continued its uneasy shifting beneath them. “Works, right? We were doing a tank installation job.”
“Yeah. I know you forgot to put away your tools, too. You never do. Horst is always on your ass about it. So, what’s in those cargo pockets of yours?”
Travis thought. “Wrench. But there's no room in here, no leverage.”
“Stop it. Just the inventory. Don't tell me why something won't work. Just tell me what you've got.”
Travis patted his pockets, but the lumps were difficult to discern. Spacesuit gloves are not known for their sensitivity.
“Uh. Zero-gee power head. I seem to remember a half-charge on it. Standard attachments—flat-blade, Phillips, hex-head, hey! There's a cutting wheel on it. What's this?”
Bubba kept quiet as Travis continued his inventory. His mind was as sharp as ever, motivated by the increasing coldness in his left leg. He could no longer feel his left foot, and feared that there was a small leak in his suit down there. He also knew how Travis would react to him revealing that, which was why he kept him busy with the inventory.
“What was that? Tell me again.”
“You OK over there? Any injuries?” asked Travis.
“Fine,” said Bubba. Trav forgot to ask, betcha he's upset. “I just missed that last item on your inventory.”
“Micro welder. Tank is about three-quarters full, as I recall. I felt it, not that I could really feel anything, and didn't feel any ruptures on it. Plus, it seems to mass what it should.”
“OK, go on.” Bubba tried to ignore the growing pain in his leg from the appalling cold. Travis wrapped up the inventory quickly.
“Got it. You in the same orientation? I somehow ended up turned one-eighty in the Can, facing the back.”
“Seem to be. The hatch release is right in front of me.”
Bubba thought. “Good. Now, do exactly what I tell you.”
Travis bridled. “Come on, I can figure it out,” he groused.
“This is not the time, Travis,” said Bubba, his accent missing for once. “We have one chance to do this right. I have no tools in this Can. You're the only one who can break out of yours, and only because you never put your tools away. Who got the DogBone Award this month?”
“You did,” said Travis grudgingly.
The DogBone Award was something instituted by McCrary to reward one of his engineering staff who had the best solution to a problem. Bubba was one of the usual winners.
“OK, then. Look, the cutting head can't get you out of there all by itself, and it can't be recharged, I bet. The micro welder can't do the job, either, and I think we'll need both of those tools just to get out of this bunker.”
“OK, what to do?”
It took about twenty minutes of careful manipulation by both the cutter, welder, wrench, and other tools, but Travis eventually stood up from his supine ShelterCan in the pitch-black safety bunker.
“Light's off,” he
said. There was no answer. “Bubba?” He thought a moment, then turned up his radio. The hiss still there. “Something must be wacky on Bubba's end,” he muttered as he knelt and rapped on the surface of a ShelterCan. There was no response. He continued until he got an answering knock.
“Figures it would be the last one,” he groused. He put his helmet in contact with the surface of the ShelterCan. “Can you hear me?” From far away, a thin voice answered.
“Yeah! Now, how does my hatch look?”
Travis turned on his helmet beacon, dazzling eyes used to two hours of complete darkness. “Uh. Wait a minute, will ya?”
“'K.”
Travis smiled. “You're lying on your back, aren't you?”
“So?”
“And you're facing up, right? And you said you were turned around inside there? I'm looking at the back of your ShelterCan.”
He looked around, then carefully rolled the ShelterCan halfway around. The hatch popped, and the first thing he saw of Bubba was his butt wriggling out of the shell. Bubba got out and stood carefully on one foot, hiding his frozen foot from Travis. Bubba flicked his beacon on. The room was a complete wreck in the actinic light of the LED beacons.
“DogBone, my ass,” said Travis.
“All right,” said Bubba. “We'll keep this between us, and I buy you a case of JD when we get back to Earth. Deal?”
Travis smiled. Bubba would deliver. And he had the ultimate takedown: Bubba needed rescue from a turtled ShelterCan. “Deal.” They fist-bumped, then turned to survey the utter chaos around them.
De-Canning
UNSOC Lunar Colony Michael Collins, June 17 2082, 1350 EDT
For McCrary, the situation was far more dire. He was alone on the surface, and he had only himself to rely on. He prided himself on his self-reliance, so he wasn't upset. As the Chief Engineer assigned to the Collins after the death of the previous Chief Engineer, he was determined to reduce casualties to zero. That included himself.
When he saw the rising curtain of debris from the impact site, he knew immediately that he, personally, was in serious trouble. There was not enough time to cycle back into the colony underneath its three meter deep blanket of regolith. Fortunately, he was in one of the caves near the colony, and the mountainside were quite sturdy.
Come In, Collins Page 1
