Infiltration
by
James Bailey
* * * * *
PUBLISHED BY:
Infiltration
Copyright 2011 by James Bailey
[email protected] https://mywritingaspiration.blogspot.com/
*****
John ran his ship over the deep valley slowly scanning for ore. His ship's sensors struggling to make out the difficult terrain. Sighing to himself, John flew the ship even lower until the banks of the valley loomed along the sides of his vessel, giving him a sense of claustrophobia.
"Pull yourself together John." He said to himself, half amused that he could feel such a way when he had spent almost every day of the past year in this ship.
John had signed up with a prospecting company on a twelve month contract. The lure of outer space, adventure and the substantial pay check luring him in. John had not experienced too much adventure though in the past few months. Every day he went out on his ship on the hunt for a new mineral vein and then he would return to the base for a few drinks with his fellow prospectors before heading out again the next day to do it all over again. He didn't regret signing up however, he enjoyed his own company more than others and he had seen sights that few men had ever seen. Right now though, John was seeing little more than dimly lit rock leading down into an inky blackness.
This was the third time John had gone over this particular valley today, he would normally have given up after a couple of tries but he had a feeling there was something in this valley, he also knew that deep areas were notoriously hard to prospect. A bonus was awarded for every rich vein of ore found so John didn't mind triple checking, he planned on setting himself up for some years to come.
As John reached the end of the valley one of the mineral sensors began to go off on his dash. Bringing his ship to a hover over the spot John read through the sensor readout. He quickly realized it wasn't the vein of ore he had been hoping for. Nowhere near enough metal to even bother digging. However, there was something strange about this readout. The sensors were detecting steel and various alloys that had no business dwelling in the depths of a valley on a moon orbiting Jupiter.
"Base this is John. Hey guys I am getting a strange reading out here, has there been any recorded crashes or lost probes in this area." John asked, radioing back to base.
John heard a brief crackle of static then was glad to hear that Frank was running comms today. Frank and John had come to Callisto together and had made firm friends in the intervening months.
"Hey buddy just checking the logs now... Nope nothing on the register. Should be a completely dead area where you are John. Why do you ask?" Frank asked.
"Strange readings, could be a bug in the system. I'm going to head down and check it out." John said.
"Okay John just be careful, that's a narrow spot you are in."
"Don't worry I'll be careful." John said with a smile.
Slowly John lowered the ship down further into the valleys depths. The lights from around the ship illuminating the jagged edges and caves that marred the edges of the valley walls. John noticed what appeared to be scorch marks in some areas, something hot had obviously come down here at some point.
A twinge of excitement spurred John on, the thought of some alien vessel or such like began dominating his thoughts and his imagination ran wild.
I could be the talk of Earth! John thought to himself excitedly.
As John drew closer to the bottom of the valley and the source of the sensor readings he brought up one of the external cameras pointing in that direction on his display screen and focused some light in that direction. A shape slowly began to emerge from the darkness. A long angular vessel of some sort surrounded by scattered debris around it that had likely broken off as the ship crashed into the valley.
John's excitement grew as he drew nearer.
"Frank, you there? I got something my friend, something very big! Check out camera four." John exclaimed down the radio.
There was a short silence from Frank's end before he spoke back. "My god John what is it?" Frank said, almost as excited as John.
"I don't know but I am going to head in closer and take a look." John said.
John drew his ship up alongside the wreck so he could properly inspect the exterior.
With a twinge of disappointment John quickly realized the vessel could only have come from Earth. English writing ran alongside the outer hull and he could vaguely make out a half charred American flag painted next to a serial number. The ship appeared mostly intact, although the hull had obviously been breached as it came down the valley. Scrapes and gashes marked the metal skin of the vessel but the majority of it was in one piece.
"Well it's no alien ship Frank." John said with disappointment.
"Yeah I'm looking through your cameras at the moment. I am running those serial numbers through the computer now." Frank said. "Okay got it. Wait, this doesn't make any sense."
"What do you mean?" John asked as he slowly moved from one side of the derelict to the other.
"Well according to the computer this ship is an old exploration vessel from almost a hundred years ago." Frank said,
"It is? I don't remember hearing about any disasters on Callisto, or even near it for that matter." John said.
"Exactly, there haven't been. This vessel supposedly returned back home safe in 2048. The ship carried twelve astronauts in total, did a tour of Jupiter, landed on Callisto to take some readings then returned home. This is the ship that laid the foundations for all the future off world bases. I don't get it." Frank said.
"Must be some mistake. I am going to go outside and see what is in there if I can." Frank said.
"John be careful! You know you are supposed to wait for someone else before any external activity. Dave is only half an hour away, wait for him." Frank said.
"I ain't waiting when there's a mystery like this in front of me Frank, send Dave over but I am going in now. You can stay in touch with me through comms." John said as he brought the ship to a rest on a flat part of the valley floor nearby the derelict.
Frank sighed through the radio. "Fine just be careful. I am going to wake the Boss up." The 'Boss' was Harry Winkler, he had been running the base on Callisto for five years and many thought he would stay here till he died. John hadn't spoken to him much but he was well respected by all the crew and had always helped John out if he had an issue.
"Yeah he is going to want to see this too." John said, unbuckling his belt and making his way to the back of his ship to put on his suit.
A few minutes later John stood outside his ship, staring at the derelict fifty meters away from him. A small video camera was attached to his helmet so that Frank could see what he could.
"You picking me up okay Frank?" John asked.
"Yeah, coming through fine. Boss is on his way, took some time to convince him I wasn't joking. He was more surprised than we were, said there has been no record of anything like this on Callisto." Frank said.
The excitement had returned to John. "We might become celebrities after all!" John said jokingly.
Frank chuckled. "Don't count on it just yet buddy."
John plodded closer to the ship, bouncing along the floor with Callisto's lighter gravity. John glanced at the small pieces of wreckage that littered the ground as he walked. There was nothing that he saw worth picking up and inspecting, just charred pieces of metal and carbon fiber.
Approaching the hull John could make out the damage a little clearer. There were multiple hull breaches, large gashes torn into the metal skin of the ship. Nothing stood out as a reason for the crash, however. John walked a full circuit of the ship, making sure Frank had a good view from back at base.
"What do you think Frank?" John
asked.
Static crackled as he came through. "It is definitely the ship we were thinking of. Doesn't make sense but that's it." Frank said.
A new voice came through the radio that John recognized as the Boss. "John, Boss here. I don't know what is going on here but you may have just created the biggest space mystery yet boy. That ship landed, well it was reported to have landed safely, a hundred years ago. I studied their voyage myself before I came to Callisto."
"Howdy Boss, it's a mystery to me too just found it by chance while scouting the valley." John said.
"Well this is some find. Dave is on his way to your position, you scout what you can in the mean time. I am going to start composing a message for Earth at the long distance comms booth. I'll still be close by but Frank will keep running comms." Boss said.
"Okay Boss, I am going to try and head inside the ship and get an idea what happened." John said.
"Be careful John." Boss said.
Looking around the side of the ship John