The Jovian Sweep (Asteroid Scrabble Book 1)

by Martin Bourne

  “Drone bay 15, at gold 2, yes Ma’am.”

  “Hmm. Don’t be late. You’re the pilot. We can’t go without you.”

  “Yes Ma’am.”

  Ruwewang favoured her with another searing look, then swept out. As soon as she was gone the podgy man was right up next to Josie, and was pumping her hand enthusiastically.

  “Illric Vadal, comms and assistant gunner aboard Snapdragon. That’s what we call our ‘Epee’ drone incidentally. Lieutenant Illric Vadal in full of course, but don’t worry about that. Glad to have you aboard Josie. Very glad. Lerato – that’s Lieutenant Commander Ruwewang – has been moping without a regular pilot. Won’t admit it of course, but she hates not being able to go out.”

  Josie shook her hand when he freed it to get back some feeling. The man either didn’t notice or didn’t care, and continued chatting away.

  “Well now, fancy a drink? Must be a big day for you, first active assignment and all that. I remember my first. It’s nowhere near as bad as it seems. Oh, I wouldn’t advise you to call Ruwewang by her first name just yet. Not until she’s gotten used to you. Splendid gunner you know. Good commander too. Just takes a little while to get used to her. Well here we are.”

  He arrived at a drinks machine, punched in two orders and used his perscomp to authorise two foaming mugs of something brown. He handed one to her.

  “Patience Malt – lovely stuff. Best thing they make, ha hah. Cheers!”

  Josie wasn’t a great fan of the brand. She found it too heavy, but it seemed churlish to refuse, so she took a sip. Vadal downed half his mug in one go.

  “Well now, you’re from the colonies I understand.”

  “Callisto asteroid sir.”

  “You don’t say, you don’t say. So you're close to home eh? I’ve never been to Callisto, not in fifteen years in the navy. Oh you can cut out the sir bit. Like I say we're pretty informal most of the time. Except for special occasions – medals, promotions, being hauled up in front of the captain on charges - that kind of thing. Ha hah.”

  Josie felt lost.

  "Weren't you with CM-1130 on Sapphire?" she asked.

  Vadal laughed. "Yes...last time we really were up before the captain. Lerato told Charest she was an idiot, which she is. That just about did it for that Depot Ship."

  Josie felt her jaw dropping.

  "Anyhoo," the man continued. "Just keep calm on the test flight this afternoon and you'll do fine. Lerato barks a lot but she doesn't bite very often."

  "Yes, I will...err I mean I won't. Worry that is."

  "That's the spirit." The man grinned and drained his mug. "Well, have to be going. See you at the flight deck later."

  "Yes sir...umm...Illric. Err, this test flight. What happens if it doesn’t, well, go very well?"

  The man turned and smiled. "Lerato will get rid of you. Pass you back to the second-string listing to be assigned somewhere else." He noticed her expression. "I wouldn't think it likely though. After all, she hand-picked you."

  *******************************

  Knowing an active officer had confidence in her was a massive tonic for Josie. She arrived early and her nerves were raring rather than jangling. When Vadal arrived and saw her already there he favoured her with a dazzling grin. Ruwewang just grunted.

  “Right,” said Ruwewang, slipping on her links. “Let’s see how good this combo is going to be.”

  Not quite the reaction Josie was expecting. Ruwewang was already linking in and so she hurried to complete her own connection. A few seconds of disorientation, and she was mentally connected to the Epee.

  She had been in Carousel training drones emulating an Epee class before, but the real thing had a different “feel”. It was hard to define the sensation, it was an accumulation of minute diversifications from “the norm”. The interaction with two different link warriors was different too. Vadal was quietly unobtrusive, with a tang of mischief. Ruwewang was bland and noncommittal as Josie went through the launch checks, but as soon as they were spaceborne she erupted into a fury of critical comments and acidic instructions. She pounced on the slightest hesitation or deviation from what she wanted.

  Josie tried to stay positive, avoiding errors as much as possible and correcting the ones she did make as efficiently as she could, but her confidence was steadily whittled down by the onslaught. After thirty minutes she was really struggling. Fifteen minutes later Ruwewang went silent. She didn’t even comment when a now exhausted Josie made a mistake far worse than any of her earlier slips. Was this the end? Had she blown it completely?

  Eventually Josie redocked the drone and completed the power down sequence. Ruwewang gave a curt instruction to unlink. A long second of disorientation, and she was back on the flight deck. Ruwewang unclipped the links on her arms, gave her a hard stare.

  “Okay. You’ll do. I’ll square it with personnel. Be here tomorrow same time.”

  And with that, she stood up and walked out. Josie sat there, open-mouthed. Vadal slapped her on the back.

  “There you go. Told you it’d be alright.”

  “I’m in? I did ok?”

  “Oh yes. The bark/bite thing remember. Take it from me, as someone who’s worked with her a while, Lerato rates you. Come on, I'll buy you a drink.”

  Chapter 23.

  Ganymede Ultima military base, Ganymede.

  Hoshi Ho was sitting in drone bay 12 on the main flight deck of Ganymede Ultima base. He was, at the same time, drifting 370 spatials from Ganymede.

  This was the wonder of linking. His body was on Ganymede, static, resting. His mind was actively linked in to a “Trailblazer” class scout war drone 370 spatials away. In both locations he was perfectly alone.

  This was of no consequence. Hoshi Ho positively preferred his own company. He had always been a loner. Even as a toddler, when others had sought out playmates, he had delighted in hiding away in some corner with made up games of cardboard spaceships and plastic heroes. To his classmates he had been an oddity and a geek. Someone always picked last in sports events. Someone who would in ordinary circumstances be a natural target for bullies, except that he was wiry, wily and extraordinarily strong.

  When he joined the navy he was equally an enigma to both his instructors and his fellow students. His exceptional skill at controlling drones soon became obvious, but at the same time he lacked the boastful self-confidence all too frequently found in the “natural” link warrior. He stood aloof from the horseplay and the raucous celebrations. He was quiet, modest, and spent most of his time on his bunk with a vidscroll – typically a technical manual.

  And just as when he had been at school, others had jeered. And again, when they realised that had no effect, eventually they shrugged their shoulders and left him to it. That suited Hoshi Ho just fine. He considered his supposed anti-social attitude proof that he was a self-sufficient individual, perfectly attuned to the rhythms of the universe.

  Belters were usually averse to an open sky, a product of life spent in sealed domes on spinning space stations. Hoshi Ho was an exception. The vast, inky depths of space held no terrors for him, and he positively preferred virtual life to the real thing. The navy’s psychiatrists had a field day with him. He didn’t care, and for all the official disapproval, no one could deny that his peculiar character traits were very useful in his chosen career.

  The ‘Trailblazer’ reconnaissance drone was officially rated at three warriors, but they were only needed when every function needed to be operated, an uncommon occurrence. Once the scout drone was in position and passively searching for contacts, there was not much need to move, and no need at all to shoot or deploy countermeasures. Reconnaissance patrols were long and tedious, and unless something serious turned up, could easily be handled by a single link warrior. Having only one person linked in meant that the others could rest, and that made the squadron sharper and more effective.

  Hoshi Ho was ambivalent about the arrangement. The logic was sound, but it still came over as an excuse to
be lazy to him. You could study all the manuals you liked and pass all the exams going, but nothing beat real time experience. Like most things in life, operating link drones was something you got better at with practice. Still, at least this way there was no one to argue with him. He could run the patrol the way that he wanted. He could be alone doing what he loved best and with the person he understood best, namely himself. For Hoshi Ho, a long-range reconnaissance patrol was as good as life got.

  The “Trailblazer” class drone was officially identified as serial number JT-5671003, current callsign “Flashlight 6”. But Lieutenant Hoshi Ho had one chink in his armour of reason and rationality. Like most link warriors he believed, quite implicitly, that the war drones he controlled so expertly had a life of their very own. To the commanders and bean counters on Ganymede JT-5671003 was indistinguishable from JT-5671002 and interchangeable with JT-5671004, but Hoshi knew differently. There were minute differences in the way that “his” drone moved, responded and felt. Hoshi was positive he could tell the difference almost immediately. JT-5671003 was an individual, as much, or even more so, than any Human. JT-5671003 was a thoroughly awful name, so Hoshi called “her” Canteloupe instead.

  At the moment Canteloupe’s drives were inactive and her power emissions were at the lowest possible settings. Her passive detectors were on top line, listening carefully for even the faintest whisper of artificial electromagnetics. Hoshi occasionally fine-tuned the sensors to keep up with the erratic flow of natural radiation. The whimsical solar wind blew lesser or greater amounts of radioactive particles to and fro on a random basis. It was a constant struggle to screen it out.

  Apart from that, he had little to do but take in the majesty of the heavens. Being linked with Canteloupe enabled him to see the universe through the filter of the reconnaissance drone’s sensors. It wasn’t the same as seeing with the naked eye, but that was just fine for Hoshi. It wasn’t worse; and it wasn’t better. It was just different - and different was good.

  An unexpected blast of electronic chatter, some freak of the untamed solar wind, or more likely a product of the furious storms on Jupiter, suddenly suffused Canteloupe’s passive detection grid. Carefully he retuned the main scanner, while directing some of the secondary analysers to check the phenomena out. Fast rotating Jupiter threw out a great deal of random radio interference, but he had been stationed out here for a long time. He knew how to deal with the big planet’s tantrums.

  As the main scanner clicked back into optimal, he checked it against its last good sweep, the one just before Jupiter had thrown am electrical spanner into the works. Something registered on the forward sensors. A small object, about twenty-five spatials out. It was very faint at that range of course, but Canteloupe, good old girl, had registered it. He swung some of his passive sensor arrays onto it. It was probably debris, or a small meteor. There were tens of millions of such fragments in the middle solar system. Still, he had to make sure.

  He returned to his stargazing. Objectively, space was almost empty, and yet in many ways it was full of the most amazing objects. The Human race had been looking at it for centuries now, one way or another, and still they hadn’t mapped out more than a fraction of even their own solar system. It made you think just how small and insignificant an individual Human Being was. That was a cure for hubris if ever there was one. He glanced mentally back to the suspect object, and saw just what he had been looking for.

  The object had shifted from its projected course.

  It was a slight movement. Very slight indeed – most warriors wouldn’t have noticed it. Indeed, if it hadn’t been tagged he would probably have missed it himself. That little shift settled it. The only way any object in space could naturally change course or speed was if some external force affected it. The main external force was gravity, but there were no large gravitational sources near the object, not close enough to have a significant effect anyway. That meant some artificial force must have affected the object, some creation of Human ingenuity, and that in turn meant the object was probably artificial itself.

  Carefully Hoshi directed even more of the passive sensor net onto his suspect contact. He considered activating some of his active sensors, but rejected the idea almost immediately. Active sensors would give him far more information, but if the object were a hostile drone it stood a very good chance of picking up the powerful pulses. That would give away his presence, and possibly even his position. At the moment the contact, whatever it was, gave no indication of having seen him yet. That was a state of affairs he wished to maintain for as long as possible. Besides, the object was still a long way off. Even Canteloupe’s powerful active sensors wouldn’t have gleaned much at this range.

  With the patience borne of many long reconnaissance patrols Hoshi continued to check around for anything else unusual, while keeping one eye on his suspect contact as it drew closer and closer. Periodically he strained his passive sensors to pick up even the slightest snippet of extra information. The object, whatever it was, had a very low albedo. That was consistent with drone camouflage, but it was also a common feature of many of the small moonlets that drifted around the Belts. It proved little.

  And yet the object had changed course. What else could it be but a drone? A satellite? A lifeboat? He was mulling the possibilities when his passive sensors spiked with a sudden white noise of radiation, far too focussed to be natural. He quickly got a bearing. It was from the direction of the unknown object. As unexpectedly as it appeared, the spike vanished.

  Quickly he checked the characteristics of the energy surge against the warbook. He knew the contact was small, and he suspected that it was self-propelled. Now it was emitting radiation. More than likely those pulses represented a sensor sweep, operating in short bursts to minimise the chances of detection. That kind of irregular sensor sweep was standard operating procedure for both Triangle and Virtue scout drones operating in hostile territory. That was a thought! He quickly cancelled the automatic random active sensor sweep he had set up for Canteloupe. Good job too! It had been timed for activation in less than two minutes.

  He was sure now this was some kind of drone. In fact it was just about the firmest contact he had ever had. It was possible it was a friendly, a Virtue drone returning from a sweep, or even one that had gotten lost. There had been no mention of friendly drones operating in this search grid at the briefing this morning, but maybe it was from another base. Ganymede flight ops might not know of it, or maybe they had not been as thorough in coordinating with another flight operation centre as they should have been. In fact, there was more chance of something like that happening now, what with all the extra Depot Ships in system.

  It was still unlikely. For a start off, the position and course of the object were not ones he would have expected for a Virtue drone. And it would have taken some pretty inept handling, or a major malfunction, for a friendly drone to get lost. Even the local defence forces were not that bad. It was almost certainly a Trig drone - or one from a neutral power up to no good. He patched in the communications links, triggered an alarm, and commenced a data download. That would get them panicking back at Ganymede!

  So now base knew, but they didn’t know much. His duty was to find out more, and to do that he needed to get in closer. If possible he would like to slip by this interloper. That meant activating the engines, and that meant risking detection. There wasn’t much of an alternative though. If it kept on coming on this course, it would be so close that one of those random sensor sweeps would be certain to pick him up. He had to get round its flank somehow. Quickly he began to plot a course.

  A request to link in appeared. That hadn’t taken long! Base must think he needed help. Of course it was standard operating procedure to bring drone crews up to strength on making a contact, but he had no time for that now. He needed to concentrate on setting up this course around the contact. He sent a pause response to hold them for a while. No one would link in now. It wasn't advisable for a new mind to enter unannounced in
to the drone’s virtual reality.

  There were three points of danger in the manoeuvre he planned. Firstly the enemy drone’s passive sensors might pick up the sudden burst of ions when Canteloupe’s engine fired. Then a sharp-eyed sensor operator linked to it might notice that one of the flecks of debris in space was moving. That probably wouldn’t be enough to give Canteloupe away, but it might be enough for a flag to be raised. The third risk would be firing the engine to bring Canteloupe to a stop. Not only was that a risk in itself, if Canteloupe had already been flagged as a moving object, the fact that she had suddenly stopped would be a total giveaway.

  He waited, patiently. Another incoming link notification appeared. He sent another pause response. He knew he couldn’t put it off much longer, but he needed to carry out this one manoeuvre. Then he would accept help.

  He needed to wait until the next radar sweep from the target. There was no way of knowing when it would happen, and all the time the object was drawing closer. The closer it got, the more chance that the random sweep would pick him up.

  Then suddenly he saw it - the glimmer of active radar pulses. This was his chance. He waited until the emissions ceased, and then boosted Canteloupe’s engines. One good, hard, fast burst, and then off. Canteloupe spiralled away. Hoshi watched the target as closely as he could. No reaction. At least, there was none that he could see. So far, so good.

  Carefully he readied the engines for another burst. The longer he left it, the further Canteloupe would move, and the more he would be working around the target’s flank. Unfortunately, the longer he left it the greater the chance that the enemy drone would do another random active sweep. It all took a cool head, a steady nerve and no little luck.

  Yet another request for an additional link came in. They were getting worried out there. He forced himself to wait five heartbeats, and then activated reverse thrust. Canteloupe jerked, slowed and then stopped. Two seconds later the target’s active sensors flared on again. That had been close! He waited again. The seconds crawled by. No change in the target’s aspect or emissions. It looked like he had gotten away with it.