MissionSRX: Ephemeral Solace

by Matthew D. White

  After the wings, Grant went through all of the systems that had been mounted to the fuselage. He repaired the wiring harnesses for the communications equipment, the radar receivers, life support, and weapon targeting among others. More hours slipped by.

  4

  Dusk was quickly approaching the Martian landscape and soon the expanse of Mars Alpha, the planet’s largest permanent settlement, would again be in shadow. The original station had been a heavy freighter once christened the Berlin that landed for the last time upon the plain before being decommissioned. The contents of the ship included a research contingent brought from Earth, but once a bare minimum of industry and workers arrived, most of the network of structures were built or quarried locally.

  Surface buildings had been brought from Earth as colonizing pods or constructed of solid rock slabs and concrete all internally lined to be airtight and insulated from the harsh environment outside. Beneath the landscape, a network of tunnels had been cut to allow the manufacture and mining of stone and minerals to take place with relative ease.

  Relative was the operative word. It had taken years for Mars Alpha to become self-sufficient and even that took the work of many colonists. More than six thousand currently called it home but most were growing weary of the experience. The end state was to have a base large enough to produce starships but many of the volunteers who had arrived would never live to see it through. A year earlier, Othello Harris narrowly avoided his own demise.

  The veteran miner slowly shuffled down the hall, leading to the resident’s dorms in a dull light that dimmed after sundown, after completion of another extended shift. His bright orange coveralls had been stained with rock and dirt but still provided decent protection from the elements. The long days had taken a toll but in the end they only served to make him stronger.

  Harris stood over 6’5 and had an exceptionally wide frame that made him look like someone better suited to wrestle bears than to be an astronaut. It was his constant determination that set him apart; that determination coupled with his extensive experience made him someone his small team of miners consistently looked up to. A badge consisting of a helmet and a pick signifying his profession were all that decorated the door to his room aside from a four digit number. Othello took a deep breath as he walked through. The worst part of the day was still waiting for him.

  His room was standard fare with some simple furniture and mementos of his old life back on Earth. Othello stripped off his suit and hung it in the corner before taking a seat in the chair beside his desk. He was covered in grime as always. Cleanliness was a concept Martian miners rarely experienced.

  Two metal bands encircled his thighs midway from his knees. Although Othello had done this three hundred times before, he was never ready for the feeling. He twisted each band a quarter turn until he heard them click and release the locks. Using all the gentleness he contained, he removed the two prosthetic extremities and placed them on their rack. The contacts he cleaned with a handheld brush and the rest he left alone.

  * * *

  The day had been like any other. Othello had been on the planet for six months and had been outstanding amongst his peers and supervisors. They had been drilling a deep shaft that would become an entrance to a new level of the base over a kilometer underground. The operation had been lauded a success as the team was three weeks ahead of schedule and enthusiasm was in the air.

  Their drilling platform had cut them a round hole eight meters in diameter with two-meter wide maintenance ledges at regular intervals. That day Othello was standing on the second ledge above when the drill tried to bite into a vein of hardened metal ore. The operator had not expected it, and the head of the carving bit caught soundly, twisting the platform and slamming it against the nearest wall.

  Othello watched as the operator was flung off the edge and into the crevice of a hole beside him.

  “Call the corpsman,” he told the man beside him as he climbed down to the platform to try and rescue the stranded worker. Stone and metal creaked as he approached the far edge of the drill and looked down into darkness waiting for his eyes to adjust. “Anders, are you alright?!” he shouted.

  No discernable sound came back.

  Switching on his lamp, Othello looked again and saw Anders’ still form a short distance below at the bottom of the drilling platform. He gathered his courage and climbed over the side and down into the crevice. The miner got a meter lower and dropped to the ground.

  The line of metal below him was polished like stainless steel and the drill bit had barely made a scratch. In the back of his mind Othello made a note to investigate it further later on. He checked Anders and found he was simply knocked out.

  “Get the winch down here!” he radioed to the other workers above.

  “We’re already on our way,” another man called back. “We’ve got one in place right above you. Stand clear.”

  Othello saw the cable descend from above and grabbed it when it came within reach. He attached it to his harness and clipped Anders to it as well. “Clear! Pull us up!” he shouted back to the rescue team.

  The slack left, and the pair was lifted into the air beside the mass of the jammed drill. Without warning, he felt the rope shudder and commotion from the rest of the team.

  “The rock’s splitting! Look out!” someone yelled.

  Bits of debris fell on Othello’s face before the platform supporting the winch split in two. He and Anders went into freefall and slammed into the stone once again. The ten meter drop kicked the wind out of his lungs and he gasped for breath. Likewise, the winch fell onto the top of the drill and dislodged the massive engine, rocking it back into position and slamming it down right on top of Othello and Anders. In the moment, Harris saw his life flash before his eyes while the metal platform dropped towards his face.

  The main cutter on the bit drove clean through Anders’ chest. Othello got off easy when a line of tines sliced straight across his legs. It was strange, he thought still to the present day. The shock made him instantly black out but he remembered no pain. Rather, Othello remembered sitting in the crevice beside his unconscious self while the rescue crew was deployed to patch him up and lift him away.

  The hallucination in Othello’s mind had been bathed in eerie green filtered light. It was burned in his memory far more vividly than the rest. At some level, he knew there was more to the world than what he could gather through his senses. The miner paused as his memory completed, his eyes opened and he found himself again looking down at the damned set of polished metal prosthetics. That image always brought Othello back to the present, sitting in a dirty aluminum wheel chair. He heard a shudder from above and ignored it, thinking it was the HVAC malfunctioning again. He could never be left in peace.

  5

  Grant awoke on the floor of the warehouse a few hours after crashing on the job. He was curled up beneath the port wing of his ship with hundreds of wire fragments spread on the ground all around him. The service carts were all opened and most of their contents were laid out about the floor as well.

  He shook his head to jog his memory on the last operation and soon remembered. He had repaired or replaced all of the wiring and conduits as well as assembled the major components. It had been slow going but now the SR-X was again flight worthy.

  Grant picked up the parts strewn around, replaced them in the toolboxes, and then climbed up the familiar access ladder to the cockpit. He stepped above the left bank of cannons to the glass canopy and slid into the pilot’s seat. The central screen of the console acknowledged his presence and lit up with a dim red border.

  Placing his hand on the panel, the ship came to life as it recognized him. “Welcome back, Commander,” the voice stated simply. Grant let a thin smile slip as he recognized the familiar voice. The screen switched to lines of code and the system began its diagnostics. The words “extensive modifications detected” flickered by and the computer continued by checking the ship’s signal integrity.

  The o
ther buttons and screens all blinked on and off again in sequence. Grant depressed and manipulated the various controls when prompted until the display went dark. A moment later the results loaded. “Scan Complete” lit up and showed two errors.

  “Fuel Cells Depleted” was first, followed by the slightly more intimidating “Weapon System Catastrophic Failure.” Grant twisted his face and considered his options. The cell charge was too low to power on the ship, so he exited the cockpit and walked back to the edge of the fuselage, sliding back down the ladder.

  The cells were behind some panels on each wing. Grant opened and pulled each of the depleted canisters in turn. They resembled fifty liter air compressor tanks, and due to their carbon fiber and stainless steel walls weighed only forty kilos empty. When full, they were closer to two hundred and required custom assemblies to load and transport.

  Service carts were common and several were spread out along the wall. The fuel cells were standard equipment on a dozen different ships, so Grant didn’t sweat getting them replaced. He tossed the empty pair on a cart and rolled them back to the hangar without obstruction. The base was still relatively busy but the warehouse had calmed down since Grant had last been out. The technician in maintenance didn’t ask any questions and parked two fully loaded cells on a forklift for the pilot’s use.

  Grant rolled back on the loader and replaced both tanks before tackling the weapons. He pulled access panels for each of the guns and found a grim sight: each system contained a similar stack of circuit boards covered with optical traces and discrete components. Surgery had been performed on them by roughly removing random pieces with what looked like pliers. One had taken a bullet. Another was cracked straight across the center. Others were completely missing and had their connectors mashed with a ball peen hammer.

  He sat to the side in silence to think for a few more minutes until the intercom called for some captain and shook Grant back to the present. He feared the next step would get interesting. Grant knew who he had to see, but getting to him might prove complex. Regardless, it had to be done, so he went back over to the intel office.

  Most of the engineers there appeared to not have left for the previous night either.

  “I’m sorry Mr. Grant; we don’t have any updates yet,” the first man to see him said.

  “That’s alright. I’m not here for that,” Grant said. “Can you find the location of a prior service employee?”

  “Maybe,” the engineer responded and went over to another screen. “We’ve got access to the service delivery database. Who do want to find?”

  “Dr. Douglas Jacobs. He was the director of Space Research until earlier this year. I need to find him.”

  “That shouldn’t be hard. Executives rarely disappear,” he responded while typing. “Quite the character, Dr. Jacobs. He visited the lab here a number of times.”

  It only took moments. “Found him. Space Corps gave him an older research facility for personal use. He doesn’t live too far away, all things considered,” he reported and wrote down the address. Handing over the note he continued, “It’s a few hundred klicks north of here. You might be able to requisition a truck to drive it.”

  Grant took the small square of paper from him and said, “I’m flying.”

  * * *

  One black case still remained unopened among the pile of others delivered by the lift. It had been labeled with only a patch from the Crimson Elite fighter squadron. There was only one thing missing from the assembly it could hold.

  Grant entered the warehouse one more time and hit the emergency release for the main access door on the far side of his ship. Sunlight poured in, and he pulled the last case out from the pile of discarded packing material. A blood red flight suit laid waiting inside.

  All of the damage sustained during Grant’s previous missions had been repaired. He quickly switched between his grimy old battle uniform into something a little more fitting. His name still remained stitched on the chest but his rank was cleanly sliced from his shoulders. At this point, he couldn’t have cared less about it.

  Beneath the uniform were the rest of his old supplies, everything down to the pair of Aquillian hatchets he had procured during his first battle. Grant didn’t expect them to have survived the turn of events, but it was a nice touch. Still razor sharp, he slid them in place on their holsters attached to his waist.

  Everything still fit as he remembered. Even Grant’s boots had been shined before being put into storage. He smiled briefly before pulling his helmet from a black neoprene bag with the squadron’s symbol embroidered on the top.

  The ship came to life once more as Grant took his position in the cockpit. He eased the twin throttles forward and brought the fighter to a hover before gliding out of the dull base and into the desert’s light.

  For a few moments, everything was as it had been years before. Flying above the desert in a nearly silent ship Grant nearly forgot about everything that had happened. The tan dust below was painted in perfect contrast to the deep blue above, beyond anything he had seen on any other world.

  Kilometers slipped by in mere seconds and whole mountains came and went in minutes. For the SR-X, it was barely above an idle but good enough for the maiden voyage and job at hand. Grant input the address he had been given into the ship’s navigator once he got under way and it gave him an accurate heading with a remaining range.

  6

  Jacobs’ compound was exactly as the intelligence officer had described. The facility was on the outskirts of the city and looked extremely clean even from the air. There was only one building but it had several small pods that branched out, including one beside a moderately sized landing platform.

  Grant brought his ship down and hit the kill switch. The engines rumbled to a halt and the canopy hissed open. He hopped down and made his way over to the service door on his right. He hit the buzzer, and Dr. Jacobs was there in seconds.

  “Jeff!” the doctor exclaimed and immediately moved to shake his hand. “I hardly expected to see you again, especially driving…that,” he added, looking over Grant’s shoulder at his ship. “Come in! Come in! I knew it had to be you on the radar!”

  “Thanks, DJ,” Grant replied.

  Jacobs was just as he remembered. Wearing a leather apron along with a collared shirt and khakis, he was the quintessential mad scientist. Somehow seeing him was oddly comforting.

  He followed Jacobs to a small conference room converted to a private office. A stack of cardboard boxes were still piled high along one wall and a huge wooden desk at the center was a mess of papers and textbooks.

  “Have a seat, please,” Jacobs said, gesturing, while taking a seat for his own at the same time.

  “This is incredible. How did you manage to find yourself here?” Grant asked.

  Jacobs hung his head briefly, and then shook it off. “Sad story with a happy ending, I suppose,” he answered. “I met with Admiral Heddings and General Raley soon after they returned from Sol Charlie. It took some pretty heavy debating but we all put our careers on the line for your life. Resignations for your life, so to speak.” His voice softened. “The offer from the Admiral and me was accepted. Raley’s was not since the power vacuum would have been catastrophic. I haven’t seen anything of them since.”

  Grant dropped his head to his hand. “I’m so sorry to have caused this. Why did you do it? Why didn’t you ask me first? It’s not what I would have wanted.”

  “Of course not, but we’re not here to point fingers. Besides, damage is done. We’ve just got to keep moving on.” Jacobs forced a grin. “But with each door that closes, another opens. When half of the SR-X project staff left with me, Space Corps caved and gave us the building and a budget. Even those bureaucrats realized it’s best to keep someone like me involved with something constructive.”

  “How’s that?” Grant asked.

  “The last thing they’d want is for me to be idle. I’m too valuable, not to mention dangerous, if I was left to my own devices.” Th
e doctor laughed. “Plus I may yet think up something useful for them. They’re willing to roll the dice!”

  Grant smiled. “Sir, you’re something else.”

  “Don’t forget it,” Jacobs answered, grinning.

  “Do you know about the crew? What happened to Chief Robins and the rest of the maintenance force?”

  “They got reassigned quick once you went down in flames,” Jacobs replied. “By the time their transport landed, they had orders to backfill other squadrons. I haven’t followed up on them since, but I guess I could have them tracked down if you need their assistance as well.”

  “No, no,” Grant said, shaking his head. “That shouldn’t be necessary; I just thought I’d ask since we were going down that route.”

  “Of course, don’t mention it. So now what brings you here today? From what I remember hearing it must have taken some effort to get up here.”

  “Actually, that’s what I needed to talk to you about,” Grant stated.

  Jacobs started nodding, a thin smile still crossing his face.

  “They completely dismantled my ship after it was recovered. I pieced it back together last night and got it flyable again.”

  “Was this damage from the crash?”

  “I don’t think so. I’d say it was fully repaired, and then demilitarized for storage. Every accessible wiring harness was cut and all of the fire control boards were beat to shit. I fixed the wires and refueled it, but I don’t have the parts or skills to fix the rest.”

  Jacobs leaned back, closing his eyes. “I swear, somehow the force is still full of nitwits I wouldn’t trust with a soldering iron. But,” he continued, sitting up, “You’re in luck. I think we’ve got everything on hand to get it fixed up. Remember, I didn’t stop once you took delivery of your ship. I made replacement, upgrade, and mod sets of most of the systems. The SR-X was one of my greatest projects. It’d be far from me to abandon it.”