Magwave (The Rorschach Explorer Missions Book 2)

by K Patrick Donoghue

  We’re doomed. There’s no way out. The BLUMOs have control of the ship. Each second that passes, they take us farther from Earth and closer to lethal radiation and more UMOs. There’s no way to stop it from happening. We can’t break away from their grip. We can’t fight them. We can’t fool them. We might as well curl up and suck our thumbs.

  Morgan wiped sweat from his forehead. “Fuck that.”

  He beat back the feeling. No way. Not today. Not ever. There’s always a chance, however small. There’s always something we can try, however outlandish. Put one foot in front of the other and keep going. Don’t give in. Don’t give up. You’re freaking Skywalker. They’re depending on you. Get your shit together and get us out of this mess.

  Morgan finished opening the door and entered the airlock. More thoughts pummeled the feeling. One step at a time. Build on small victories. String them together into something bigger, something tangible for the crew to latch on to and boost their confidence. Start with the VLF antenna, Skywalker. That’s your way out, whether it works or not.

  As he began to crank the handle of the door leading from the airlock into the cargo bay, Morgan realized Dante and Amato’s antenna workaround idea was a godsend. It gave the crew something to do, something to accomplish. It would take their minds off the pulsing blue orb and the tug of hopelessness trying to rip them apart. It would bring them back together.

  That’s our only chance. We have to stay together. First step, get Shilling back in line.

  With both ends of the airlock open, Morgan passed into the pressurized cargo bay. One docking platform still held Recon-3; Shilling was lashed to the other. He looked like a mummy, for Kiera and Ajay had used a combination of wire cables and duct tape to strap him down.

  Shilling glared up at him. “Well, well. If it isn’t the legend himself. Did they wake you to do the honors? What’s it going to be? Shoot me out into space? Sacrifice me to the BLUMOs? Another injection, this time lethal?”

  Morgan slid a pair of wire cutters from his flight suit pocket and held them up for Shilling to see. “Nah, just gonna snip a couple of fingers off.”

  Shilling rolled his eyes. “Ha ha.”

  Morgan smiled and rapped the wire cutters against the scientist’s forehead. “Got a question for you, Bob. How old are you? Forty-four or forty-five?”

  The blow was forceful enough to make Shilling wince. “I’m forty-two. Why?”

  Morgan leaned close to Shilling’s face and pressed the wire cutters into the scientist’s ribs. “That gives you twenty-three years on me, Bob. But I swear to God Almighty, if you ever lay your hands on another member of this crew, I’ll whup your ass.”

  Shilling groaned as Morgan twisted the wire cutters into his rib cage.

  “And another thing,” Morgan continued. “Until I say otherwise, you are prohibited from stepping foot onto the flight deck or entering the engine control room without my permission. Failure to comply will result in confinement to your quarters for the duration of the mission. Are we clear on all that?”

  He maintained pressure on the wire cutters as he waited for Shilling’s response. But the red-faced scientist merely glowered at him and said nothing.

  Morgan pushed the wire cutters deeper still. “The appropriate response is ‘Aye, aye, Colonel,’ or ‘Yes, sir.’ I’ll even accept a ‘Roger that.’ Take your pick.”

  “All right, all right,” cried the writhing Shilling.

  “That wasn’t one of your choices, Bob.”

  Wild-eyed, Shilling growled, “Fuck you!”

  Morgan twisted the wire cutters again. “I can do this all day, my man.”

  “Stop! You’re going to break my ribs!”

  “You have the power to make it stop, Bob. Just say the words.”

  In between gasps, Shilling nodded and said, “Aye, aye.”

  Morgan released pressure on the wire cutters and stepped back to wipe the sweat coating his forehead. “I’m glad we had this little chat, Bob. I feel better already. Now, let’s get you back on your feet.”

  As soon as he had cut away the tape and wires holding Shilling to the platform, Shilling began to float upward. Morgan pushed him back down and handed him the GEFF smartwatch Kiera had removed when they tied him up.

  Shilling activated the device and stood, his fists clenched at his sides.

  Morgan smiled as he slid the wire cutters back in his pocket. “Got something to say, Bob?”

  Shilling’s face twitched. He raised his fist and pounded the platform. “We had one chance, one, to get away, and those gutless cowards blew it!”

  “Now, come on, Bob. You don’t know that.”

  “Don’t I? Are the BLUMOs still out there?”

  “Yep. As a matter of fact, we’re completely surrounded. Looks like the colony has grown in size a hundredfold. It appears more are on the way.”

  “Then we’re screwed!”

  Morgan placed his hand on Shilling’s shoulder. “Look, I understand why you tried to make a run for it. I do. Under the circumstances, I would have been tempted to do the same thing. But be real. It might’ve worked, but it also might have backfired. We might be in the same spot we’re in now, or it might have been worse. Point is, we are where we are, and the only thing we can do now is concentrate on making the best of it.”

  Shilling stepped back. “Have we aborted the mission? Are we headed back to Earth?”

  “No and no. At present, we’re back on our original course to Call—”

  “Are you loony?”

  “Hold on, Bob, I wasn’t finished.”

  “Damn it, Paul! Don’t you get it? We’re not going to make it to Callisto. We have to turn around and try to go home. It’s the only rational option.”

  Morgan’s hand twitched. Oh, how he wanted to wallop the bastard. But there was a lot of work to be done, and Shilling’s help was needed.

  “Listen,” he said. “A lot’s happened since Ajay put you to sleep. Even if I wanted to abort and head home, we can’t until we shake the BLUMOs. Right now, I have no idea how to do that. And every extra second I spend trying to get you back on track, we fly farther away from Earth, making it less and less likely that we can make it back. So I need you to nut up and—”

  A quaking blow hammered into Rorschach from behind, sending Morgan and Shilling tumbling over the docking platform. Kiera’s voice spilled from the intercom and echoed around the cavernous bay. “Colonel Morgan, need you on the flight deck! Please hurry! Oh, God, please hurry!”

  The two men exchanged a brief glance and then ran to the airlock.

  “Close and lock both doors,” Morgan said to Shilling. “Then get your ass to the lab.”

  Morgan braced for the worst. The tremor in Kiera’s voice had signaled more than panic — it sounded closer to terror. At any second, he expected the ship to blow apart or electric discharges to begin slicing through the corridor. And up ahead, he could see flashes of white, almost like strobe lights, through the open flight deck door.

  Rorschach lurched forward, and Morgan stumbled and fell. The ship bucked from side to side several times as the autopilot thrusters fought to maintain the vessel’s orientation. Morgan was about to yell a command to disable the autopilot when the bucking stopped.

  By the time he was up and running again, the ship had begun to spin, and he was sent off his feet, tumbling like a shoe in a dryer. He raked his hands against the rotating walls and snagged a handhold. As the spin increased, Morgan began to feel his body pinning against the wall. He toggled off his GEFF magnets and snaked along the wall of the spinning corridor.

  At the door to the flight deck, he gripped the door frame. It was difficult to make sense of the twirling scene that met his eyes. The flashes outside the ship were so intense, he could only squint for a second or two at a time, and what little he could make out between the splotches dotting his vision was surreal. Through the cockpit windows, amid a pulsing sea of blue, an intense battle raged. A battle in which Rorschach was only a bystander. />
  Another jolt aft of the ship sent Morgan flying forward. He sailed right over the commander’s seat and crashed into the windows. Pressed against the glass, he looked down to see Kiera strapped in, shielding her eyes with her forearm.

  “Punch the engines!” he shouted.

  “I can’t see!” she yelled back.

  Ajay’s voice sounded from the co-pilot’s station. “Roger dodger!”

  The sudden acceleration sent Morgan flying aft, and his leg clipped a headrest and sent him twirling. But just before he spun back into the corridor, a hand gripped his arm, arresting his spin.

  A voice beside him called out, “Full power, Ajay! Keep feeding ’em!”

  Morgan snapped his head toward the voice. Standing in the doorway, one hand clenching its frame, the other one holding him in place, was none other than Major Julia Carillo, bloodstained patient-garments and all.

  Several more aft blows buffeted the ship.

  Carillo called out, “Don’t let the bumps bother you! They’re trying to help!” She nodded toward the windows. “That’s what they’ve been hunting!”

  As Rorschach veered to the right, Morgan took a glimpse at the battle. Thousands upon thousands of lightning bolts leapt from a swarm of BLUMOs. But it wasn’t clear what their target was. All Morgan could see were brilliant flashes of white obscured by an oscillating pink cloud.

  He grabbed hold of the door frame. “What the hell is that?”

  “I don’t know,” Carillo answered, releasing him. “But she doesn’t like it.”

  “She?”

  Crooking her thumb, Carillo pointed behind her. A spinning ball of sparkling blue hovered behind her head. In its center was a throbbing white light.

  Mission Control

  A3rospace Industries Command and Control Center

  Mayaguana Island, The Bahamas

  Amato and Pritchard entered Mission Control through the back door and walked right into the tumult. Some groups of controllers leaned over consoles and engaged in heated debates; others remained at their stations, examining data on their computers or talking with colleagues on their headsets. At the back of the room, several physicists were congregated around a whiteboard filled with equations and diagrams while one of them passionately argued a point. Another group worked their phones to discuss the crisis with peers at NASA, U.S. Space Command and the European Space Agency.

  “Do you see Dante?” Amato asked Pritchard. The mission director wasn’t at his station, nor could Amato spot him among the personnel scattered around the room.

  “No.” Pritchard pointed at a group of staff engaged in a heated debate at a console two rows in front of Dante’s station. “He was with the INCO team when I left to get you.”

  Just then, Dante’s head appeared above the control stations at the front of the room. Amato pointed. “There he is. Come on.”

  As they approached Dante, he saw them coming and led them to a quiet spot beneath the control center’s wall of display monitors.

  “Rorschach’s gone,” he said.

  “What do you mean, Rorschach’s gone?” Amato demanded.

  “We can’t find it. About two hours ago they downlinked a file to us, but it was corrupted. We sent back a message asking them to resend. That was an hour ago, and they haven’t responded. A half hour ago, we started pinging all their antennas. No handshakes. No nothing.”

  “Could it be radio interference?” Amato asked.

  “I sure hope so. If it’s not, they’ve either lost power, or…”

  “Let’s not go there. Keep trying.”

  Flight deck — the Rorschach Explorer

  Flying through the asteroid belt

  “I can’t see! I’m blind!” Kiera screamed.

  The sharp cries shook Morgan from his stupor. He pushed away from Carillo and the spinning cluster of blue-white UMOs.

  “Don’t be afraid, Paul. She wants to help,” Carillo said.

  Another jolt hit aft of Rorschach, but this time Morgan held his grip on the door frame. Over Kiera’s screams, he asked Carillo, “You can communicate with them?”

  She nodded.

  “Then tell them to stop ramming us. Tell them to stop the spin.”

  Ajay finally turned to see the bloodied astronaut — and the UMOs hovering by her head. “Oh my God! Major! BLUMOs! Right behind you!”

  The panic in his voice only fueled Kiera’s hysteria. She flailed her arms as if trying to swat away the space bees. “Help me! I can’t see them! Where are they? Keep them off me!”

  Morgan pushed off and corralled her in his arms. “It’s all right, Kiera. Everything’s okay. I got ya.”

  Kiera fought against his hold, smacking his face with her closed fists.

  Ajay’s shouts weren’t helping matters. “Get away, Major! Quick! Before it zaps you!”

  Carillo was now facing the hovering BLUMOs, and the white light at the center of the blue tennis-ball-sized cluster was emitting a stream of pulses bright enough to light up the flight deck.

  Down the corridor, Morgan saw Shilling emerge from the lab, only to come to an abrupt halt when he saw the glowing cluster. But his shock lasted for only a second before he resumed pushing toward the flight deck, yelling to Carillo, “Get down, get down!”

  He launched himself toward her, apparently intending to tackle her to the floor. But he never got close. With a crackling hiss, the BLUMOs fired a bolt of electricity.

  “No!” Carillo shouted.

  “Dr. Shilling!” Ajay cried out.

  The bolt hit Shilling’s outstretched hand. Tendrils leapt off the main discharge and spread across his magnetized flight suit. A guttural bark sounded from his open mouth, and his pupils rolled back behind his eyelids. His body spasmed, and he fell to the magnetized floor, where the last of the discharge-tendrils leapt to the metallic walls and shot down the corridor.

  The clash of shouts and sounds sent Kiera into a frenzy. She clawed at Morgan’s face and neck while screaming in terror.

  Morgan shouted at Carillo. “Tell it to leave, Julia! Tell it to get the fuck off our ship!”

  Carillo closed her eyes. The white light inside the ball of BLUMOs began to pulse again. She shook her head from side to side. The blue lights around the periphery picked up the pace of their spin. She fell to her knees and clasped her hands together.

  Finally, the cluster spiraled around her head, shot to the rear of the ship, and disappeared from view.

  Lost Palms Oasis Trailhead

  Joshua Tree National Park

  Twentynine Palms, California

  Zane Hunter was positively giddy. The night sky was perfectly clear, the temperature a pleasant seventy degrees. Overhead, Saturn neared its upper culmination, with Jupiter early in its descent. As he finished setting up his telescope, his girlfriend, Shelly Barnes, snuck up from behind and wrapped her arms around him.

  “Do you think we’ll be able to see them?” she asked.

  “See what?”

  “The Rorschach Explorer fleet.”

  Zane laughed. “No way. But we’ll definitely be able to see Jupiter and Callisto.”

  She perked up at that. “What about Saturn? Will we be able to see its rings?”

  “Ask and ye shall receive.” Zane carefully panned the telescope to the left and adjusted the altitude. When Saturn and its crystal-clear rings were centered in the viewfinder, he backed away and bowed to her. “Milady.”

  “Thank you, noble sir.” She bowed in return and leaned over to peer at the planet.

  Zane stepped back, observed Shelly’s shapely backside, then raised his gaze to the twinkling planet up above.

  The sudden flash was so bright it seemed to envelop the whole of Saturn. It lasted for nearly two seconds.

  Zane staggered back. “Whoa!”

  Shelly pulled away from the telescope with a hand over her eye. “Ow!”

  Zane rushed to her side. “Are you okay, babe?”

  “My eye’s killing me. What happened?”

&nb
sp; “I don’t know. There was, like, a huge burst of light. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  September 4-5, 2019

  Across North America, millions of people had witnessed the sudden flash of light in the night sky. The Internet was abuzz. Had a huge meteor struck Saturn? Did one of its moons explode? Was this the aftermath of an intergalactic supernova?

  Though the flash had appeared on the rising side of Saturn, far away from Jupiter and Callisto, there was also plenty of speculation that this was evidence of a fresh UMO attack on the Rorschach Explorer. This rumor gained steam when news outlets reported leaks out of NASA and A3I indicating Mission Control had lost contact with the vessel.

  The news reached an exhausted Helen Brock shortly after one a.m., four hours after the event, when she was roused from sleep by a barrage of calls from project teams at Goddard and JPL. She was informed that the flash had been composed mostly of visible and ultraviolet light, but that observatories had detected traces of radio, infrared, X-ray and gamma rays in the flash’s invisible afterglow.

  By three a.m., a consortium of observatories had calculated the epicenter of the flash: an empty sector of space between the orbits of Saturn’s two outermost moons, Iapetus and Titan.

  And at 4:36 a.m. Eastern, all hell broke loose. Millions of people looking skyward, from the western longitudes of the Americas to the islands of east Asia, saw a celestial fireworks show unlike any in recorded history. Six more flashes sparked the night sky so close to Saturn they seemed to swallow the ringed planet.

  Among the observers were Anlon, Pebbles and Jennifer aboard Sol Seaker, out on the waters of the Koro Sea near Fiji. As spectacular as the flashes were, the three friends couldn’t help but avert their eyes to lonely Jupiter to the right of Saturn. From their perspective on this late summer night, the two planets looked like neighbors. In reality, Saturn was a billion kilometers from Jupiter, but it was hard to look at the flashes and not think of Rorschach and the crew’s desperate plight.

  CHAPTER 12: MIND’S EYE