Dead Men Flying

by Bill Patterson

  “Are those cheers?” asked Mike when Roger finished.

  “Damn—I guess so!”

  ***

  It was, more than anything else, a relief from the endless, frustrating months of searching for an answer to their dilemma. Everyone in the awake crew threw themselves into the mission with a will.

  “We're going to have packages racing in as fast as they can get them onto the platform,” advised Benjamin. “We've got to slow them to a stop, unload them, then throw the slug forward as fast as we can.”

  Ragesh shook his head. “Wait, I don't get it. In the past, we've only done a catch operation, and in the last few catches before the Collins went silent, we didn't even do that.”

  Benjamin looked at Mike Standish, who shrugged.

  “I'd say it's simple, except it isn't. We launched from Earth orbit deliberately under the required velocity, anticipating that we would be catching packages all the way in to Mars. That worked, until The Event shut down the Flinger. Look, we're actually flying ahead of Mars, leading it like throwing a football to a crossing receiver. There's a velocity we need to attain to make sure that we get to where Mars is going to be in three months. If we're too slow, then we won't be ahead of Mars enough, and we either plow into the planet or drill into the atmosphere. Both are ungood.” He paused to take a sip of water.

  “The original mission parameters had us crossing in front of the planet. Orbital mechanics would then rob us of a lot of our velocity, while our retrofire would warp us into a capture orbit around the planet. Now, though, we have to slow down, allow Mars to get ahead, and cross behind the planet. Do it right, and we get to steal a bit of Mars' orbital speed and get flung towards our target in the Asteroid Belt. Clear?”

  Ragesh nodded. “Got it. But...wait a second...every package that we catch means we get more momentum, we go faster. How do we slow down?”

  Benjamin smiled. “Now you see the problem. We have to catch the packages—we need the stuff the Moon is sending us. But doing so pushes us faster. Each package is getting thrown at us incredibly fast in order to reach us before we get to Mars. That makes the problem even worse. Except,” Benjamin rubbed his hands with glee, “each one of them is also festooned with MoonCans acting as retrorockets. The packages will be slowed down quite a bit as they get close to us. When they hit the Mitt, they're going to be going almost highway speeds back home. We grab the packages, drag them into the engine sections of the array, and strip them. The MoonCans will be docked on the iron ring.”

  “Wait, you can't possibly be thinking of using them for thrust,” said Commander Standish. “We're breaking the array and reconnecting the ships two weeks from Mars.”

  Benjamin laughed. “No, we're only going to chain them there to keep them from floating all over, screwing us up.”

  “Okay,” said Ragesh, “so we strip off the MoonCans, unload the supplies, then what? Packages are nearly one hundred percent used. You mentioned something about a slug.”

  “Yes. Each one of the packages will have a momentum slug with it. We're going to load that slug into the Mitt, and fire it forward as fast as we can. We're going to get the reverse effect of catching a package, swaying along the direction of travel, but the mass dampers don't care which way they are used. Forward, backward, it's all the same to them.”

  “Ah!” said Ragesh. “I see it now. All we have to do is avoid shooting our own incoming packages, and everything will be fine.”

  “You've got it backwards, Ragesh. We're not shooting them backwards, that will push us forward faster, when we're really trying to slow down. No, we have to fire them forward. Two good things about that: we can punch them out of the Mitt as fast as humanly possible and not worry about them, and as long as we miss Mars, we're fine.”

  Commander Standish cleared his throat. “Is school over? I've got some calcs I want to go over with Benjamin.”

  Ragesh nodded his thanks and went back to reviewing the control panel in front of him.

  ***

  “Isn't this packed in a little close?” Harel said into his helmet radio. “I don't want to become radioactive fog just yet.”

  Odd snorting sounds came over the radio.

  “Come on, Duane, I asked you a legit question.”

  “Sorry, Harel. That just struck me as really funny. This stuff is thorium. It's radioactive, but just barely. More important, it can't blow up. It's like wet wood. We have to dry it out in a running reactor before we have to pay any attention to it.”

  “You sure? I don't want to grow a second head here, or have my balls fall off.”

  “Would I lie to you? I'm pushing on the other end of this pallet, you know.”

  Harel grumbled, but kept silent. “What do we need so much for? I thought we had all the thorium we needed.”

  Duane gave the pallet a final push, then walked around the load, engaging the deck locks to hold the cargo in place. “We did—for the original mission. We're going out into the asteroid belt, buddy. You know what that means?”

  “Freefall. My nuts keep trying to crawl inside me.”

  “That, too. No, my main man, we're going into the dark. And dark means no solar panel power. Which means cold water showers, warm beer, and toilets that you have to hand-pump to move the crap to hydroponics.”

  “Da hell! When were they going to tell us this?”

  Duane grabbed the top of the load and gave it a good shake. It didn't move. Satisfied, he moved from the cargo bay to the airlock to move another pallet of the gray, dense, heavy metal. “Come on. They don't need to tell us. All this thorium is needed to keep the lights on and the toilets flowing. I was just messing with you, dude.”

  “Bastard. Just for that, no hot meal for you. I'm declaring a hydroponics emergency and you'll have to eat iron rations.”

  “Bull. You can't do that for one man. Besides, you know who's cooking tonight? Acevedo. It's gonna be awesome.”

  “All right, you're reprieved. This still seems like a crapload of thorium. Are we really going to need all of this?”

  Duane smiled a secret smile. “Oh, yeah. We'll need it. We’ll need it all.”

  ***

  Jeff lifted the cover of the crucible. The KREEP material from the latest shipment was melting quite nicely. “I am so glad we're still under gravity. I can't imagine trying to pull a crystal under freefall conditions.”

  “Really, boss? It's not that hard. Lock the lid down, create a hole in the lid the size of the crystal you want. Put the seed in there, mount the crucible in a frame, then do a slow pull. You can do one horizontal, vertical, any direction you want in freefall. Hell, we could make a crystal the size of your torso and twice as tall as you are. All we have to do is make the right size crucible.” Mickey was giving him a hand in the lab while another crewman was manning the board.

  Jeff shuddered. “I can't imagine a crystal that size. Damn thing would be a weapon. Earth would freak.”

  “How else are we going to eliminate the debris threat? Blow them up? That just makes more debris. No, the answer is to vaporize them, and the secret to that is in that crystal that you're pulling out of that clay pot.”

  “They did send us a lot of KREEP minerals,” said Jeff. “I guess it's just so damned obvious that I never made the connection.”

  Mickey snorted. “We all miss what's right in front of us. Don't worry about it, I won't say anything.”

  Jeff set the automatic controls for the crystal pulling apparatus. “Yeah, well. It takes more than a crystal, you've got to make mirrors.”

  “Aluminum.”

  “And then there are the flash lamps,” Jeff said. He looked at Mickey, who said nothing. “Yeah I thought not. There has to be other ways of pumping up a laser crystal.”

  “Search me, Boss.”

  “Well, that's for the future. Maybe the Collins can tell us. The melt is complete, and the pull is starting. There's nothing to do here but sit and monitor it. That's too boring for you, and a waste for me. I'll just poke my head in
here every once in a while and see how things are progressing. You're free to go.”

  “Yeah, I better get back to the board. We're getting ready to do the slug ejection, and I bet Earth is going to have something to say about that.”

  “Good luck, Mickey. A pleasure working with you.”

  “Same here, Jeff. Catch ya around.”

  ***

  “Five, four, three, two, one, thrust!” The array was shoved backwards in reaction to the Mitt firing the slug out at a truly impressive speed.

  “Integrating. Looks like we lost a total of seven meters per second. We're going to have to do that about thirty times or so in order to move across the disk of Mars. It's going to be close, sir, but I think we'll make it.” Benjamin's eyes never left the screen showing the changing trajectory of the Mars Expedition.

  “We've been getting occasional radar pulses from the Earth/Moon system. I can't tell which body they're coming from, since the Moon is near conjunction with the Earth for the next couple of days.”

  Commander Smithson frowned. “Are we getting painted right now?”

  “Yes, sir. They've been scanning us before and after the slug firing.”

  “Well, we'll find out in about three minutes, give or take,” said Commander Smithson. “If you need to take a leak, better go do it now. We're in for a hard time if it's the Earth.”

  ***

  “Good firing, Burroughs,” said McCrary. “I didn't think you'd get that much of a change in velocity, and you're to be commended.”

  “We blew so much energy through the Mitt that the wires went beyond their thermal limits. Superconductivity has been lost, and won't be back for at least an hour,” said Benjamin Zabor. “Good thing we don't have to use the Mitt for any packages, we wouldn't be able to stop them.”

  The radio was silent for several seconds past the round-trip time. Finally, McCrary's voice returned. “You might want to save that kind of energy output for serious corrections. You don't want to risk arcing or other physical damage to the Mitt's wiring.”

  “Understood. Is that your radar that's painting us?” Mickey was curious. “I can't tell between you and Earth right now, so close to conjunction.”

  “We're ranging you, we have to make sure we know your position at all times so that we can place the packages as close to you as possible.” McCrary seemed a little put out explaining what was, to him, an obvious precaution. “Besides, why would the Earth want to radar you?”

  “That was our first slug throw. They might see us off-course, but not be sure why. I just thought they'd have us under radar observation regardless,” Roger replied.

  “Wait, you didn't tell JPL what we're doing, did you?” asked McCrary.

  “Of course not. They'll lose their minds as it is,” said Smithson. “No reason to subject the crew to a lot of empty threats.”

  “Good move,” said McCrary. “Well, give us a list of your slug firings so we can keep tweaking the flight plans of each fling, including the packages already in the pipeline.”

  “Will do. We'll let you know when Earth starts screaming. Smithson, listening, out.”

  Mutiny

  Mars Expedition, Enroute to Mars, March 25 2083, 1423 GMT

  It didn't take long, however, for the Earth to detect the course change in the Mars Expedition array.

  “Mars Expedition, this is JPL. We have Mrs. vanDeHoog on the line from New York. She wishes to talk with Commanders Smithson and Standish.”

  Ragesh was ready. The Expedition was expecting this, and Ragesh and Mickey had worked out a procedure. Ragesh cross-connected the radio and photophone, and keyed his microphone.

  “Radioman Puna to JPL. I have alerted both commanders. Please note the speed-of-light delay for Mrs. vanDeHoog. Puna, listening, out.”

  He hit the intercom switch. “Commanders Smithson and Standish, JPL on the line. They've got Mrs. vanDeHoog as well. Please respond.” He also hit the buzzers in each commander's quarters and in the common bathrooms. That ought to get them. He double-checked the photophone connection—it was sending to the Moon, but any replies were not going down the line to JPL.

  “Weird thing, when New York calls us, damn near at Mars, and we transfer them to the Moon. Second and a half, if they just tied them in direct, but minutes long this way. Oh, well.”

  Commander Standish's line from his quarters lit. Puna transferred control from his board to the Commander's quarters. He would have loved to listen in, but he restrained himself. It wasn't right. If the Commander was getting reamed, which everyone expected, Puna didn't want to hear it. Besides, if the Commander wanted anyone else to hear, he'd either have taken the call on the Command Deck, or he would have tied in the Bradbury's intercom system. He did neither, so he wanted it private, and Puna respected that. He made sure that the lines were tied in correctly, listened just long enough to ensure the two parties were communicating, then cut away.

  That didn't mean he couldn't gossip with the crew, though.

  ***

  “What is the meaning of this?” asked Mrs. vanDeHoog in a strict no-nonsense tone. “Why have you deviated from your course?”

  “Mars is death, ma'am. Whether we're doing the science or homesteading, we know that we will die without ever seeing Earth again. It's just a matter of timescale. If we continued the mission, we'd be dead from Lunar debris strikes as soon as we got back to Earth orbit. If we homestead, we know that Earth will never be able to rescue us before we die. We even looked at hybrid missions, where we land and manufacture shields from Martian soil. Nothing worked. Then we had an idea.” Standish let go of the transmit button and waited.

  “Return to the Mission objectives. We've noted a significant number of items being launched from the area around the Collins. Are they assisting you in this illegal maneuver?”

  “We have asked them for logistical support, and they have been able to assist, yes, ma'am. I am one of the Commanders of this Expedition, and Commander Smithson and I have both come to the conclusion that only by abandoning the original mission will we be able to return to Earth alive.”

  Commander Smithson clicked into the circuit. “This is Commander Smithson. I agree with everything Commander Standish has said. I, in my authority as Commander of the Mars Expedition, have ordered this course change. We are headed to the Asteroid Belt, ma'am, to fashion a better suit of armor than any we could have possibly made from Martian resources. When we arrive back at Earth, you will see just how good our armor is.”

  The line was silent so long that Standish activated the intercom to have Ragesh check to ensure the carrier wave was still being received. He switched his microphone over to Intercom to confer with Smithson.

  “What's going on down there?”

  “Your guess is as good as mine. Personally, I bet they're burning up the lines to the Moon. I just hope they don't hear our conversation playing in the background.”

  Standish looked at the clock and counted backwards. “Collins knows that we're getting the third degree up here, so I betcha they've got this whole thing on record. Brinkley runs a tight ship—guaranteed one of the controllers is monitoring us and another is on the Earth circuit.”

  “I'm so used to being short-handed up here that I forget how many people he's got on the Moon,” said Smithson.

  “Return to the original Mission,” ordered Mrs. vanDeHoog. “Any deviation violates your oath as an officer in the UN Astronaut Corps. If you do make it back here, you will expect no mercy from UNSOC, but will be stripped of rank, imprisoned, and never go into space again.”

  Smithson gripped the arms of the chair. How limited this chair-bound bureaucrat was. Her threats meant nothing. 'If you make it back'-ha! I'll be dead, along with the entire Expedition. Stripped of rank was also meaningless, for the dead have no rank. The same held for imprisonment and being grounded.

  “With respect, Director-General, I must decline. The safety of the Expedition is at stake. We have spent months war-gaming our situation, and this is the only ch
ance we have. Your sanctions are meaningless—the dead have no rank, cannot be imprisoned, and spirits fly forever.”

  “Then we will withdraw our support.”

  “Like Subby did to Lisa Daniels? You’re going to shut down JPL? No, I don't think you will be that foolish. From here, we can blanket the Earth with our radio, and anyone will be able to listen to our side of the story. And before you even try, we can easily boost our transmission power and put in a more directional and efficient antenna, so that even regular people on FM radios will be able to hear us. Do you want to be run out of town, too?”

  Smithson heard Standish laughing on the intercom. “What?” asked Roger.

  “I was just imagining Hoogy running down Second Avenue being chased by the mob. Ever meet the dear old lady? She has to be in her early sixties, and I'm not talking kilograms. She's got to be one hundred and ten kilos, and the most powerful muscle she's got is the one working her jaws.”

  “Tell me how you really feel, Mike.”

  “Oh, she's not too bad, really. But she's a full-on UN bureaucrat—soft, slothful, requiring no less than five-star dining. All of that Brie catches up with you. Sure, she's sharp as a tack in those high-level meetings, and you don't want to get on her bad side. But you called her bluff beautifully, Roger. There's literally nothing they can do to us up here, other than withhold information. The moment they do, we can retaliate.”

  “Yeah, but that's kind of an empty threat, too. After all, we don't really want to explain our new mission to the average Earthman, even if it's the only way for us to live, and for everyone to get space back.”

  “Commander Smithson! You will follow my orders, or I will have Commander Standish relieve you of command until you return to Earth, whereupon you will be tried in a Court of Admiralty. Do you understand?”

  “I do, Director-General. I must respectfully decline.”