Morgan himself stayed with Carillo on the flight deck and prepared a more extensive update for Mission Control.
A little less than an hour later, a new alarm began to whine. This time, Morgan saw the swarm coming. A flashing blur of spinning blue lights was racing head-on toward Rorschach.
Carillo saw them too. “Oh, my God.”
“That does not look good,” Morgan said.
“What do we do?”
“There’s not much we can do.” Rorschach couldn’t outrun them, and the ship had no weapons.
“We could turn on the Shield engines,” she suggested. “See if they chase them like they did the Cargos.”
“No.” Morgan reached for the engine control panel and spoke into the intercom. “Hold on, people. They’re back. This is going to get wild.”
Carillo watched as Morgan activated Rorschach’s engines. “What are you doing?”
“Turn on all our lights. Landing, spotlights, everything we got,” he said. He switched the reaction control system to manual and used the thrusters to initiate a spin.
“I don’t understand,” Carillo said.
“No time to explain. Just do it.”
Carillo activated Rorschach’s external lights.
As the ship ramped up speed, Morgan fired the thrusters to spin the ship at a higher rate. “Activate the shortwave transmitter.”
“What? Why?”
“Turn it on and start talking to them,” Morgan said.
“Excuse me?”
“I don’t care what you say, just say something. Anything. Sing if you want, just do it now!”
Carillo chose not to sing. Instead she shouted expletive-filled warnings at the approaching swarm over the radio transmitter.
As Rorschach flew toward the spinning blue mass, Morgan increased the engine power to full throttle. The ship quaked from the combination of speed and spin. Carillo gripped her armrests and shut her eyes as impact neared.
CHAPTER 4: WATCH YOUR SIX
Set of Expedition to Callisto
World Network News
New York, New York
September 1, 2019
Dante’s abrupt departure from Expedition to Callisto did not go unnoticed by the show’s viewers. Within seconds of his walk-off, rumors began to circulate in social media groups dedicated to XTC. The show’s social media correspondent dutifully alerted the director to the spike in chatter.
The director was already scrambling. When Dante stepped away, he’d informed the director that he’d received an important call that couldn’t wait — but he’d given the impression that he would return when the call ended. Yet at the next commercial break, he was still missing from the set. The director’s assistants had been calling his cell number. No answer. They’d texted and emailed him. No replies. The director had even sent a cadre of staff to search for him in the network offices, and no one could locate him. Meanwhile phone calls, texts, emails and social media posts continued to besiege the network. Where is Dr. Fulton? Why did he leave? Is there a problem? What’s going on?
“I’ve never seen anything like this,” the director complained to Jenna Toffy.
“Something’s definitely up,” she said. “He looked shaken. I don’t think he’s coming back.”
“Okay, what do you want to do? How do you want to handle it?”
In their earpieces, a voice from the production booth said, “Back live in thirty seconds.”
Toffy adjusted the fit of her suit jacket while a makeup artist performed last-second touch-ups. “I’ll come up with something. But we should start working our A3I contacts now. As soon as we’re off-air, I’ll call Amato directly.”
“Sounds like a plan.”
When the show resumed, Toffy did her best to downplay Dante’s departure. “Welcome back to Expedition to Callisto. You may have noticed our special guest for tonight’s program, Dr. Dante Fulton, stepped away to attend to a matter during our last segment; a mission director’s work is never done. He asked me to extend his apologies and promised to join us for a future episode. For now, we’ll do our best to forge ahead without him. Next up, a prerecorded interview with Mission Specialist Ajay Joshi…”
Crew ready room — the Rorschach Explorer
Drifting at all-stop above the ecliptic in the asteroid belt
Shilling stalked around the crew ready room, his fists clenched at his sides, his eyes riveted on Morgan. “Are you insane? You could have killed us all!”
Morgan stood against the wall with his lumberjack-thick forearms folded across his chest. “I did what I thought was best, Bob. We were short on options.”
“This isn’t some damn video game!” Shilling ranted. “We don’t know anything about these foreign UMOs!”
“Not true, Bob,” said Carillo. She, Kiera and Ajay were seated at the briefing table. “We know they don’t behave like our colony. I for one am glad we didn’t just wait for them to attack again. It was a good call on Paul’s part.”
When the blue UMOs streamed toward Rorschach, Morgan had known the ship wasn’t capable of evading the creatures. He’d also known that playing dead hadn’t worked for the crew of Cetus Prime twenty-four years ago. A swarm of UMOs had ravaged Cetus’ engines, leaving her dead in space.
The only option that hadn’t been tried was to confront the electromagnetic beings head-on.
So Morgan had tried his best to simulate a competing swarm of UMOs. With Rorschach’s engines blazing the vacuum of space with a heavy ion trail, he spun the ship with all its lights on. And for an added touch, he had Carillo activate the radio transmitter to talk to the oncoming colony. That last bit was inspired by a discovery Ajay made last year. During a CubeSat encounter with UMOs in Earth orbit, Ajay picked up the sound of UMOs communicating with each other. The chirp-like sounds went back and forth, one high tone, the other low, creating the impression of a conversation. So Morgan had Carillo “talk” to the attacking swarm with the hope the radio chatter would reinforce the ruse of a competing swarm.
The actions certainly had an effect, for the pulsing of the blue UMOs waned as it neared Rorschach, and groups of the light-balls scattered from the main body. These actions led Morgan to believe the swarm was unsure of its prey — which presented him the opportunity for one last element of confusion.
As the collision neared, Morgan cut the power to the engines and fired the forward thrusters. And with that, the swarm scattered altogether. From the flight deck, the UMOs looked like the glittery trails of fading fireworks.
“It was a lucky call,” Shilling said.
“You’re right,” Morgan agreed. “It was lucky. In fact, I’m not sure it would work a second time. If they’re anything like our UMOs, I have a feeling they’re a little too smart to be fooled twice.”
“Then what are we going to do if they come back?” Ajay asked.
“I’m hoping we can avoid another confrontation.”
“How in blazes can we do that?” said Shilling. “We don’t know where they came from, where they went, what attracted them or why they attacked.”
“That’s your job to figure out, isn’t it?” Carillo said.
Shilling’s face reddened.
“I’m afraid it’s all our jobs at this point,” Morgan said. “Just cross our fingers that we put enough distance between us and the UMOs to buy us the time we need to figure out our next steps.”
After piercing through the dissipating swarm, Morgan had powered up the ship’s engines and used thruster controls to fly Rorschach up and away from the ecliptic, the plane around which most objects in the solar system orbit the Sun. When he judged they had traveled a safe distance, he cut the engines and used thrusters to arrest Rorschach’s momentum. With the spacecraft idled, it began to drift, orbiting the Sun just like the asteroids in the belt below. Though Morgan was not happy drifting away from their intended course, it seemed the better short-term alternative to using their thrusters or engines to maintain their heading and velocity. Until they had a handl
e on what had precipitated the attack, he didn’t want to risk the possibility of attracting the BLUMOs again by emitting a trail of electromagnetic radiation.
“Figure out our next steps?” Shilling said. “It’s obvious, isn’t it? Return to Earth.”
The mention of Earth stirred Ajay. “We’re going home? We’re not going to Callisto?”
Shilling buried his face into the palm of his hand and shook his head. “Wake up, Elroy. We have no Recons to scan for gamma rays. Our Cargos are gone. So is our UMO colony. And we don’t have enough Shields to protect us from Jupiter’s radiation. Even if the hostile UMOs don’t take another crack at us, continuing on to Callisto would be suicide.”
Ajay looked to Morgan with eyes that pleaded for a different answer.
Morgan said, “I’m sorry, Ajay. I don’t want to pull the plug, but I can’t argue with Bob’s assessment of the situation.”
“We’re just going to give up?” Ajay said, his anger rising. He snapped his fingers. “Just like that?”
Morgan nodded. “Nothing official’s come from Mayaguana yet, but I think it’s just a matter of time before they order us to scrub.”
Thus far, Kiera had said nothing. In fact she seemed lost in thought, just staring at her folded hands resting on the table. But now she looked up and said, “What if we could salvage some of the CubeSats and get the Cargos back?”
“Salvage them how?” Morgan asked. “They were destroyed.”
“We don’t know that. We lost comms with them. It’s possible one or more might be intact. Damaged, but intact.”
Carillo shook her head. “I don’t want to shoot you down, Kiera, but I tried multiple times to ping them…on all three of their bands.”
“I understand, but I’d still like to try,” Kiera said. “Your pings might have been blocked by interference from the UMOs.”
Carillo frowned, shrugged, then looked to Morgan. “I guess it won’t hurt to try.”
“Oh, please,” said Shilling. “What difference will it make?”
“It might make a huge difference,” Kiera said. “If we can link with enough of them, we might be able to bring them back to Rorschach, fix ’em up, and redeploy ’em.”
Shilling laughed. “And then what? You can’t be suggesting we continue the mission.”
“Why not?” Kiera asked.
Shilling threw up his hands. “You’re all insane.” He stormed out of the ready room.
Kiera shouted after him, “And you’re a pussy!”
Morgan’s rebuke was sharp and swift. “Cool it, Kiera!”
“I’m sorry, Colonel. I’m just tired of his BS. Now, do you want to try and save the mission or should we just sit here and wait for Mayaguana to scrub?”
Morgan glared at her. Kiera glared back.
“You’ve got two hours to work some magic, Dr. Walsh,” Morgan said. “Get a move on.”
The meeting ended.
Morgan returned to the flight deck and typed out a status update to send to Dante. He informed him of the second attack, the evasive actions he’d taken and their current situation. He acknowledged the likelihood of aborting the mission but appealed for Mission Control to wait until Kiera had taken another crack at reconnecting with the LOS CubeSats. He ended the message with a second appeal. As an aside, we could use some additional perspective re: new UMOs. Shilling rattled. Concerned about his state of mind and objectivity.
Jenna Toffy’s office
World Network News
New York, New York
September 2, 2019
By the following morning, Dante’s unexplained exit had exploded into a story big enough for the traditional news media to cover it. And the intensity of the coverage only ramped up when the public relations executive for A3rospace Industries stonewalled reporter requests for an official explanation.
Toffy, annoyed at Amato’s lack of response to her repeated requests for an off-the-record conversation, left him a blistering voice message.
“I covered Dante’s ass last night, and what did I get in return? I’ll tell you what I got. My ass left out in the cold! Look, you need to understand something, Augie — we’ve been very accommodating, kid gloves and all that. No tough questions, no pushbacks. But that’s going to end if you don’t cut me in on what’s going on. There’s a story here, and you can’t just shut me out. Everybody, and I mean everybody, is looking to you, to me, to us for answers. Going radio silent is…not…helping…matters! Now, I’m not one who normally threatens sources, but unless I hear from you by noon Eastern, I’m going full investigative reporter on the story. I’m not getting scooped on this!”
Her anger was fueled in part by leaks from “anonymous sources with intimate knowledge of the situation” that had crept out overnight — leaks fed to other media outlets. According to these leaks, Mission Control had lost communication with the Rorschach Explorer. The UMOs traveling with the fleet had attacked, wiping out most of the fleet and badly damaging Rorschach. Some rumors even claimed that some of the crew had been killed, that the mission had been aborted, that there was no hope of rescue for the survivors.
And no one at A3I would confirm or deny any of these rumors — not to Toffy, and not to any other reporter at WNN. That left Toffy, the show’s production staff and WNN executives as easy targets for angry Expedition to Callisto fans, snarky media competitors and holier-than-thou journalism critics.
At noon Eastern, Amato finally released a terse statement.
Despite the irresponsible rumors that have been reported as fact, we are in contact with the Rorschach Explorer, and all five of the crew are alive and well. There was an incident last night that caused damage to Rorschach and other probes in the fleet. We are still in the process of gathering information on that incident and we will release an update once our internal review is complete. Until that time, we will have no further comment. The Rorschach crew, mission team and I would like to thank those who’ve offered expressions of concern and support.
For Toffy, the statement was a dagger. Amato could have chosen to funnel the statement through her, but he never reached out. Instead he’d distributed the statement via A3I’s website, adding to the growing perception that WNN and Toffy were non-factors.
Like a shooting star fading into dark skies, so went the cozy relationship between Toffy, Amato and their counterparts.
Aboard the superyacht Sol Seaker
Port Denarau, Fiji
September 2, 2019
Pebbles McCarver sat in bed, her legs covered by the sheets. Television remote in hand, she muted the program and leaned toward the half-open bathroom door. “Hurry, Anlon. Antonio’s about to come on.”
“Buh ruh err,” came the muffled reply. Dr. Anlon Cully emerged from the bathroom in boxer shorts and a T-shirt with a toothbrush wedged in his mouth. He held up his index finger. “Un secun.”
“Okay, but you’re gonna miss Nigel’s opening.”
As Anlon disappeared back into the bathroom, Pebbles unmuted the TV. It was tuned to BCON. With its lighthouse beacon logo and ubiquitous tagline, BCONtroversial, the network offered an array of news and entertainment programs designed to stir controversy around any and all subjects. Cynical and snarky, their programming purported to cut through all the bullshit to provide viewers with the unvarnished truth. Sometimes they tacked left on the political spectrum, other times they leaned to the right. Of course, they exhibited their own biases that were clear to see, but their burgeoning audience didn’t seem to care.
Neither Pebbles nor Anlon were fans of the network, but their friend, Dr. Antonio Wallace, was scheduled to appear as a guest on In the Spotlight, a morning talk show dedicated to exposing incompetence and corruption wherever the show’s host, Nigel Ewing, sniffed it, and this morning his prodigious schnoz was pointed at Augustus Amato and the Rorschach Explorer’s mission to Callisto.
Sixteen hours ahead of New York’s time zone, Anlon emerged from the bathroom ready for bed and climbed under the sheets next to Pebbl
es. “What did I miss?”
“Same ol’ crap Ewing’s been shoveling for months. Augie’s a greed-mongering egomaniac with mothballs for brains…yada, yada. He just finished teasing this guy coming on now. Says the guy knows why Dante walked off XTC yesterday.”
She turned up the volume as Ewing began to interview his first guest, Dr. Richard Collins. At the bottom of the screen, a graphic informed the audience that Collins was the chairman of an organization called Concerned Scientists for Equal Access to Space.
“Dr. Collins, you’ve been a sharp critic of Augustus Amato ever since he announced his plan to send the Rorschach Explorer to Callisto,” Ewing said.
The red-bearded astrophysicist shown on the split screen furrowed his brow. “That’s right. I believed it was a foolhardy idea from the start. An idea driven by ego, not by science. Now it looks like I was right.”
“You’re referring to the rumors leaking out about last night.”
“Indeed I am. Something’s clearly amiss. Something serious. For all Amato’s openness until now, his sudden silence is telling. His ego won’t allow him to admit he was wrong.”
“Wrong about what?”
“Everything. Wrong about the mission, the crew, UMOs, everything. He should have listened to the concerns of our coalition, taken our point of view more seriously.”
“As I recall it, Dr. Collins, you and your colleagues preferred inclusion in Amato’s investigation of UMOs and the artifacts his probes photographed on Callisto.”
“Preferred is too mild a word, Nigel. These discoveries are simply too profound to have been exclusively entrusted to Amato and his collection of amateurs.”
“What a douche,” Pebbles said. “I hope Antonio crushes him.”
“I mean, really, who puts leadership of a mission of this import in the hands of a sixty-five-year-old retired astronaut?” Collins continued. “He’s been flipping burgers on Kauai for the past two years, for heaven’s sake. He doesn’t even look the part. He ought to be riding a longboard with a doobie hanging out of his mouth, not commanding a spaceship, though I guess we should be thankful he traded his ponytail for a crew cut.”
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