Chapter 3
“The Rockpile”
Aboard the Galileo
Sixty Kilometers from 23998 Hicks-Newman
May 15, 2049
0030 hours (ship time)
Johnny Winger wedged himself into the cupola on the Hab deck, squeezing in between Sheila Reaves and Turbo Fatah, to get an early glimpse of the approaching asteroid. Galileo’s final approach had just begun and Mendez and Kamler were up on the Command deck, gently nudging the ship through her final maneuvers.
Winger used a small power scope, while comments and quips filled the air around him.
“Looks like a potato with cancer…looks like a cashew with a fungus…looks like the chewed-up carcass of a dead sewer rat…”
In truth, 23998 Hicks-Newman looked like all these things and more. Officially, it was called an elongated, biconic, multi-lobed cylinder, a battered reddish-black rock pile of a body that had somehow undergone a twist along its longitudinal axis, as if it were a stuffed sock. The strain of that massive ancient torque, perhaps an impact of some type eons ago, was plainly evident in the striations that marked its dusty boulder-strewn surface.
For the next several hours, Mendez and Kamler maneuvered Galileo closer and closer to the asteroid, seeking a stable station-keeping position a few dozen kilometers above its surface. The asteroid was some six kilometers in its longest dimension and a little over two kilometers in girth. Massive gouges and chasms pocked a surface that had been battered by millions of years of impacts.
“Look…that must be Loki,” Reaves muttered, scrunched inside the cupola next to Winger. “Jeez, it’s a wonder that impact didn’t split the rock pile in two.” Reaves directed Winger to sight his scope along the sunward side of the asteroid, where a large, nearly circular crater dominated the landscape. “See those straight lines?”
“One of the polar impulse arrays,” he nodded. “And, there, just above the crater—“
“Odin’s Fissure, my guidebook says. This little burg has really been through a meat grinder, Skipper. Why the hell would anybody ever want this place?”
“Because of what she’s made of, Sheila…carbon and nitrogen and lots of organics…that’s what makes it look red.”
Presently, Mendez’s voice came over the intercom. ”Galileo now parked at Stable One, folks. We’re ten kilometers over the Chasm of Asgard. I’m getting ready to fire the anchor lines in about ten minutes. Everybody stay tucked in nice and warm until we’re fully winched down.”
The plan was to anchor the ship with ten-kilometer long cable, buried as deeply in the rubbly bedrock as the penetrator rockets could achieve. Once that had been done, Galileo’s own cable motors would retract the cable bit by bit, and winch the entire ship, very carefully, down to within a few hundred meters above the surface. The tricky part was matching the eight-hour rotation rate of the asteroid, for 23998 Hicks-Newman was not only rotating once in that time period, she was also nutating, ‘wobbling’ like a child’s top about her longest axis. Calculations had shown that if the anchoring and winching process could be accomplished in less than an hour, the asteroid’s rotation would not exert undue strain on the anchor lines or the structure of Galileo. Or so the engineers at Phobos Station had assured him.
The last thing Mendez wanted was to have his seventy-five thousand ton ship slung off into space like a slingshot.
After a brief countdown, the anchoring lines were fired out from Galileo’s forward tubes. The rockets flared briefly and then disappeared, pulling a faint spiderweb of lines behind them. Five minutes later, the penetrators struck home and buried themselves into the surface of the asteroid. The ghostly outline of the cables tightened as the ship’s cable motors slowly retracted.
“Ready to winch down,” Mendez announced. “Everybody stay put until I give the word.”
The entire process took several hours. Like a huge insect extending her tentacles, Galileo reeled herself into closer proximity to the asteroid. When the operation was done, the ship was tethered to the surface of 23998 Hicks-Newman, separated by only three hundred meters distance.
The rubbly blasted landscape of the asteroid completely filled all vid screens and portholes.
Winger unstrapped himself from his bunk just as Al Glance swung by the tiny compartment.
“Incoming message from Gateway, Lieutenant. It’s probably Nygren with his reply and recommendations.”
“I’ll take it here…get Klimuk up here too. UNISPACE is supposed to have details on Hicks for us put together a plan.”
The three of them watched the vid carefully as Greg Nygren and two other unknown engineers went over some last minute ideas.
“The consensus here—“ the blond engineer was saying, “is that your disassembly efforts be concentrated in two main areas.” Nygren referred to an animated graphic of the asteroid as he explained. “Site One should be at the lower end of this canyon here, called Odin’s Fissure. The geos think this was some kind of outgassing several billion years ago and the fracture is thought to extend quite deep, maybe as much as a quarter of Hicks’ depth. ANAD operations there should be able, in time, to split off about a third of the asteroid at this fissure. But stay at least a kilometer away from the north polar impulse array. You’ve got to leave enough materials around for the impulse engines to operate.”
“Nice of him to let us know that,” Glance observed sourly.
The report went on. “Site Two,” Nygren explained, “is along a line from the crater Thor through the Chasm of Asgard, about midway between the sunward and anti-sunward poles. The geos call this area The Saddle, ‘cause that’s what it looks like. The reasoning is pretty much the same. Concentrated ANAD operations along this seam should in time split off this entire end of Hicks.”
Nygren looked up hopefully at the camera. “In theory, if all goes as planned, your efforts should result in three separate pieces of Hicks-Newman. Each piece will still have impulse motor arrays that can be used to maneuver and divert away from the current trajectory. Given the reduced mass of each piece, UNISPACE calculates that diverting them even this deep in the Sun’s gravity well won’t be a problem. We’ve run the scenarios and sims and it always comes up doable, Lieutenant Winger. These are our official recommendations. Good luck and get back to me with any questions. “ Nygren’s face darkened. “I don’t have to remind you that time is running out…as I send this, Hicks is less than twenty –six days to Earth intercept. So, good luck again, I guess. Gateway, out.”
Winger continued staring at the graphic of the separated asteroid for a few moments. It was only an animation. Yet somehow the troopers from1st Nano had to make it a reality. “Muster the Detachment in the crew’s mess, Al. I’ll let Mendez and Kamler know what we’re planning.”
“What about ANAD?” Glance asked. He’d already loaded the bug Wei Ming had given him. Now….
“I’ll tell him. He needs to be at the briefing too.”
The entire Detachment assembled in the crew’s mess on Galileo’s Hab deck.
“Okay…listen up, troops. This is it. We’re making our first trip down to the surface. Sergeant Glance and I just went over a briefing report sent up from Gateway on details of the operation. I’ve posted it on the crewnet. Basically, there will be three teams on the surface. Alpha Team will consist of me, Detrick, Spivey and Reaves. Bravo team is Klimuk, Fatah, Barnes and Simonet. Charlie Team is Glance, Calderon, Hiroshi and Singh.”
Sheila Reaves nodded toward the phosphorescent mist that hovered in the background. “What about ANAD, Skipper? Can we trust our embeds at all?”
“To answer your question, yes. We need all hands for this mission to be a success. I don’t have to remind you we’re twenty-six days from Earth intercept. As you’ll see in your briefing materials, UNISPACE has concocted a plan for us to use our ANADs to split this rock pile into three pieces, along some of the fissures you can already see. But we have to be careful to leave enough s
urface material around for the impulse engines to work. The thinking is that when Hicks is split three ways, her impulse engines can maneuver the pieces away from the Earth, even when we’re this close.”
Turbo Fatah was already looking through pages of the briefing on his eyepiece viewer. “We going down there in our tin cans, Skipper?”
Winger knew the suits weren’t particularly popular, especially since the whole Detachment had gone through the respirocyte procedure before embarking for Phobos several months ago. But it couldn’t be helped.
“Full hypersuits are mandatory. Your suit boost systems have been modified to give you all full three-axis stability and maneuvering…you’re going to need it. Hicks-Newman’s got almost no gravity. Watch your boost at all times…you could send yourself to escape velocity with no problem and nobody would ever know it. I know you’ve all had the respirocyte procedure but out here, you need protection from solar particle flux and other nasty stuff.”
Mighty Mite Barnes made a face at the prospect. “How long do think this will take, Lieutenant?”
Winger shook his head. “Unknown, Mite. If we use our embedded ANADs, in shifts, we can go around the clock. The operation sites were chosen by UNISPACE because there are deep fissures there, so the swarms won’t have as much material to disassemble. But nobody really knows what’ll happen if this slagheap is broken apart into thirds. We’ll have to do so soundings every day and see how close we are. Just from a standpoint of basic physics, I know we’ll have to watch Hicks’ rotation rate. When the splits come, there will almost certainly be a rapid increase in the rate…angular momentum tells us that. We’ll have to manage the breakup of this burg carefully, so nobody gets hurt.”
Turbo Fatah spoke up. “I hope our embeds are up to the job. I don’t know about anyone else, but mine gets a little balky sometimes.”
“I know we haven’t exactly simmed this scenario,” Winger admitted. That was an understatement…how the hell do you simulate disassembling an asteroid while it’s speeding toward a big smash-up with Earth? “I want everyone to do a full config status check on their embedded ANADs. You should have loaded and be able to call up Config Seven-Seven…that’s the special config that Turbo and Vic and I developed a few weeks ago. “
“Optimized for rapid disassembly and disposal,” said Fatah, with a certain gleam of pride in his eyes. “Pulled an all-nighter hacking out that masterpiece, we did.”
“Yeah,” said Lucy Hiroshi, “Turbo’s real proud of his handiwork…as long as it doesn’t bite him in the ass. He gets a little sensitive when you don’t pet his little baby and get all gaga over it.”
“Be that as it may…”Winger checked the time. “It’s 0920 now. I want everybody buttoned up in your tin cans and all gear loaded up for the first drop by 1100 hours. Check your embeds carefully. Cycle the launch and capture. Check the config lists, acoustics, propulsors, effectors, everything. This has got to work right, folks…we won’t get a second chance. Now, here are the assignments—“
He ported the drop site assignments to the crewnet. Alpha team would work the area around Odin’s Fissure, a deep chasm cut into the asteroid near the sunward pole. Bravo Team would drop into an area around the anti-sunward pole, a few hundred yards from the craters Freja and Heldof, working on that end of the asteroid. The last team, Charlie Team, would work the huge Chasm of Asgard and the crater Thor, right in the saddle-shaped middle of the asteroid. If all went as planned, ANAD disassembly would enable Hicks-Newman to be split into three parts and each part would retain an array of impulse engines. At that point, UNISPACE engineers could maneuver the asteroid segments away from Earth impact.
The briefing went on for a few more minutes, as Winger answered what questions he could. Finally, he announced: “I don’t have to tell you what’s at stake here. We can’t screw up. If you’ve got a question about something, ask. No free-lancing down there and no hot-dogging. We only have one shot at this.”
Vic Klimuk asked the question that was on everybody’s mind. “Skipper, what if we can’t split the asteroid like UNISPACE says? What then?”
Winger knew there really wasn’t a Plan B. “We keep digging. We keep disassembling. It’s the only chance Earth has. Anything else?”
There was an uneasy silence about the mess compartment.
“Okay, troopers…get suited up and ready to drop. Alpha Team, you’re up first.”
The Detachment left the mess area and scrambled aft along the central tunnel to the Service deck. The hypersuit racks and airlocks were there. Al Glance saw Winger moving aft to the Service deck. He watched carefully, hoping, praying that the malware he had loaded into the ANAD master on the flight out would do its job. Then he made his way after the Lieutenant to finish fitting out for the drop.
The rest of the Detachment was already on hand. All three teams hovered around Galileo’s crew airlock in full hypersuits and weapons kits.
“Decided to join the party, huh Skipper?” said Lucy Hiroshi. She and the rest of Charlie Team would make the first drop. They had the hardest assignment…the massive, steep-walled gorge directly below the ship’s bow called the Chasm of Asgard. Lucy and Taj Singh would be the first humans to set foot on 23998 Hicks-Newman.
Winger ignored the jibe. “Just taking care of a few matters.” He found all eyes regarding him carefully. “What--?”
“So where’s ANAD?”
Winger patted his shoulder where the port and capsule implant could barely be felt through the laminate armor of the hypersuit. “Does it show that much? Let’s just say we have a new understanding. Charlie Team, ready for lockout procedure?”
Al Glance would honcho the drop and oversee Charlie Team at the Chasm site.
“All copacetic, Lieutenant. We’re itching to get digging.”
“Very well. Into the airlock with you.”
Lieutenant Mendez cycled the airlock, while the last two members of Charlie, Glance and Calderon, waited their turn like impatient polar bears.
“Opening depress valves now,” Mendez announced. Inside the lock, the rush of the last wisps of air made a faint wind as they escaped into space. “Outer hatch enabled…coming open…now.”
From Galileo’s altitude of three hundred meters, the drop to the surface would take about ten minutes, on light suit boost using shoulder thrusters and foot jets to get the fall started. Hicks-Newman had only a minute gravity field; a true free fall would have taken days to reach the ground from where the ship was anchored.
“Charlie One away,” Mendez announced. “That’s one small step for two nanotroopers—“
Everyone craned forward to catch a glimpse of the falling nanotroopers through adjacent portholes.
Against the backdrop of Hicks’ gray and ocher surface, Hiroshi and Singh were soon lost to view…two tiny white dots descending as if on a rope toward the pockmarked desolation of the boulder fields surrounding the Chasm. The gaping fissure was mostly in shadow at the moment. Hicks’ eight-hour rotation would bring the gorge into full sun in less than two hours.
“Looks like an open mouth,” Sheila Reaves muttered. She swallowed hard at the prospect facing all of them.
“Yeah, with teeth,” someone added.
“Okay, Bravo Team…into the lock.”
Mighty Mite Barnes and Nicole Simonet squeezed into the airlock and were quickly cycled through. As they descended toward Bravo’s site at the anti-sunward pole and Freja crater, Vic Klimuk and Turbo Fatah entered the lock behind them and soon joined the drop.
Only the barest puff from the hypersuit’s thrusters was needed to start down, initiating a controlled free fall.
Fatah marveled at the ride down. “It’s like I’m in the ocean, just drifting down toward the bottom.” He peered down at the surface, slowly growing in his helmet visor as he drifted steadily toward a rugged field of boulders and craters, aiming the toe of his left boot at the white dots scrambling like ants along the
surface. Barnes and Simonet, he realized, already down and setting up their gear. “It feels just like I’m floating—“
“Yeah? Well don’t get all dreamy on me,” Klimuk’s voice crackled over the headset. The IC1 was somewhere above him, having cycled through the airlock after Fatah. “Just make sure you hit the target…we’ve got a stiff crosswind up here.”
Klimuk’s little joke made Fatah suddenly more aware of his own course; he saw that he was indeed drifting toward the right, toward the Saddle at the equator of the little asteroid.
“Correcting now,” he announced. With a delicate twist of the control stick at his right hand, the suit’s jets puffed cold nitrogen gas and soon nudged him back onto the proper descent path.
Soon enough, Alpha Team began its own drop from the ship. Spivey and Reaves went out first, followed by Detrick and Johnny Winger. The ANAD master came along in Winger’s shoulder capsule.
“All teams away,” Mendez announced. Kamler was up on Galileo’s command deck, making sure the asteroid’s rotation didn’t put undue strain on her anchoring lines. Like a fly caught in a rolling ball of string, the ship was being slowly tugged around in a tight fifteen-kilometer wide circle by Hicks’ rotation. Mendez safed the lock systems and then headed forward up the central tunnel, to join Kamler at the ship control station.
By the time the pilots had joined up, Winger had completed his drop. His boots thudded gently into the dust and rubble of the surface.
“Alpha Team on the ground at Odin’s Fissure,” he announced. He could see by the deep black shadows cast on the canyon’s far wall that the drop had been accurate; Spivey and Reaves were already kangaroo hopping toward the gaping cut in the ground. Distances are deceiving on this little slagheap of a world, he told himself. The horizon seemed closer than it really was. Already, the others were white blobs stirring up a rooster tail of dust as they made their way toward the fissure.
“All teams, comm check. Bravo Team, what’s your status?”
Vic Klimuk’s voice crackled over the crewnet. “Bravo Team down in one piece. We’re passing by Freja Crater now…man, that’s one big hole. ETA at the dig site in under ten minutes.”
Winger acknowledged. “Very well. Charlie Team, where are you guys?”
Al Glance’s voice came back like he was standing right next to him. “We’re already at the Chasm, Lieutenant. Setting up our grid now and triangulating cut vectors. We’re ready to launch on your command.”
Mighty Mite Barnes chimed in. “Just what I joined the Corps for…digging ditches.”
“Give us ten minutes,” Winger advised. He bounded off after Detrick, Spivey and Reaves.
Maneuvering at the surface of Hicks-Newman was an exercise in managing momentum and your own inertia. Gravity at the surface was so minute that you could literally walk off the asteroid on foot if you weren’t careful. Winger soon found that with judicious use of his suit boost to keep him on course, he could bound forward twenty to thirty meters in a single leap. He made the edge of Odin’s Fissure in four minutes.
Sheila Reaves peered over the loose rubbly edge of the great canyon. Experimentally, she kicked some loose rocks down the side walls. The rocks tumbled into the shadows in slow motion and were soon lost to view.
“How deep is it?” she wondered.
Winger consulted a graphic on his eyepiece viewer. “The book says about a thousand meters at the deepest point.”
Ray Spivey did some quick mental arithmetic. “That’s about one-fifth the diameter of the asteroid. I’ll get started setting up the dig site grid.” He took a series of hacks off Galileo’s signal and soon outlined the perimeter of the dig site with a small laser system that projected a virtual 3-D grid over the top of the canyon. Odin’s Fissure was soon draped in an electronic spider web of lines, the deep red of the grid lines like a ghostly crown to the ocher and gray tones of the rock and rubble. “That’s where we dig, Skipper. Coordinates confirmed from Galileo.”
Winger eyeballed the width of the huge fissure. “Must be nearly a hundred meters to the other side.”
Kip Detrick checked. “Galileo says a hundred and twenty two, to be exact.”
“Don’t think I can leap that in a single bound…not without my jets. Let’s get our ANADs primed and ready for launch. Spivey, Reaves, you two boost to the other side…carefully, one each to the far corners of the grid. Kip and I will work this side. And take it easy, will you? Don’t get cocky down here. This place can still kill you in a heartbeat.”
“On my way, Skipper,” announced Reaves. The DPS tech lit off her foot jets and leaped like a bulky cliff diver right over the chasm. Spivey followed right on her heals, a ‘rainbow’ of electrostatically charged dust arcing over and down into the shadowy canyon after him. The two troopers landed on the far bank and worked their way into position at each corner of the grid.
“My ANAD’s primed and ready in all respects, Lieutenant,” he told them.
“We’re ready to bust loose, too,” Reaves added.
“Launch ANAD.”
Winger felt the familiar sting of his shoulder port snapping open and the slug of high-pressure air discharging into space. For the next few minutes, he busied himself pecking out commands on his wristpad, signaling the ANAD swarm to maneuver toward and down into the great Fissure.
“Selecting auto-maneuver…config seven-seven is loaded and confirmed…now the coordinates…ANAD, you’ve got your orders.”