This is the first short story I wrote in the series 'New World Rising'.
Red Flag
by John Peace
Mars Transfer Orbit
2031
Red Flag
by John Peace
Mars Transfer Orbit
2031
"What was that banging noise?"
murmured Don Luther, as if to himself. He was securing his feet in the floor
restraints so he could concentrate on the e-reader without floating across the
MTV lounge and colliding with one of the crew.
He thought that by this time he should have
been past the stage of novice astronaut's nerves, but if anything his anxieties
were getting close to blocking off his normal thought processes at times. Even by
glancing at the wall of the spacecraft he could set himself thinking of a
training session they'd had on the subject of vibration fatigue analysis, and then
he'd remember the higher than expected shaking they'd received during the
atmospheric ascent phase of the launch, at about that moment the engineers
called 'Max Q'. Even now, a voice whispered, those microscopic cracks are
surely spreading, and beyond that wall is a thirsty vacuum.
Or it could start as he drew another
breath, and he would survey in his mind's eye the innards of the carbon dioxide
scrubbers, the fans, the humidifier, the microorganism and particulate filters,
the partial pressure monitors and all the rest: he knew it so well, the ECLSS. They
had trained hard to know exactly what could go wrong with each component, and
what they could do to 'resolve the issue', as their instructor had so blandly
put it.
Yes, we know exactly what to do in almost
any conceivable situation, he thought. So why am I constantly so nervous at odd
sounds?
Anastasiya Vladimirovna Komarova turned
from the tiny view port and scowled. "This is Marco dancing around hamster
wheel. Perhaps a samba."
"No," Don replied, burying
himself in the new research paper on hydrated salt remote imaging that he'd
just received from UCSC. "It was from the other direction." He
enjoyed disputing planetary science or astrophysics with the Mars crew's chief
pilot. He invariably won, which was why she was so reluctant to be drawn in. On
almost any other topic Asya could pound him to weary pieces by the strength of
being 100% obstinate Russian woman. And that day her tone of voice seemed
especially nasal and irritating.
"And which direction this is
coming from?" she continued, plucking something from the air with distaste
and waving it at him.
Asya's half-fluent, half-faulty English
still grated on Don's sense of rightness, even after twelve months of intensive
training and team building and the fifteen days since lifting off from Satish
Dhawan Space Centre. There was no escape now. "What's that?" he
asked, distracted already from his paper and feeling his irritation morphing
into a fouler shape.
"It is one of the millions of your
charts!" she said. Her tone made it clear that she was restraining her
scorn with heroic effort. "Sticky-tac dry up in this air. Useless. Please
keep your views on the Martian climate to yourself." And she flicked the
sheet across the lounge. Air resistance slowed it almost to a stop.
He finally grabbed it and tucked it away.
"It wouldn't get like this if we'd done the tethered rotation design."
It came out as a loud grumble, rather than an under-the-breath note-to-self,
and he knew Asya wouldn't drop it.
Komarova didn't glare at him. Instead she
wound herself into a balletic spin, stretching out her arms then hugging them
in to vary her rate of rotation. "You know that tethering was ruled to be impractical.
It is a pity, but totally true, with the project budget people. Such misers. I
am grateful for radiation shields, especially since last week's solar outburst.
How can you possibly shield a spinning tin can shape from solar radiation and
keep within the mass limits they dictate to us? And still we bring all our gear
with us, and your – pah! – experiments and instruments." In all
fields related to space vehicles her English would spike up a couple of
proficiency levels.
Don knew she had a point. "It would be
better if we were not limited to the Hohmann, though. A quick seventy-day
transfer –" And he was still on her turf.
"No!" came Asya's loud
retort. "You chew over the old gum one more time. With rocket motor, even
with powerful Russian rocket motor, we do not get enough specific impulse for
your dream trip unless we build a NASA Battlestar, or we wait for a power supply
big enough for that magical ion engine, or we dream of a warp drive. Hah! All
with price tags we cannot pay. At least we get a refuelling tanker like Musk. And
the safety of free-return trajectory: Surely, Professor, even you can see the
wisdom. As you say, orbital mechanics one-oh-one, no?"
Just as Don was assembling a robust reply,
Annika emerged from the crew quarters with that tousled, bleary look which he
secretly adored. "Hey, guys, keep the noise down," she said with a
weak grin. "Asya, do you know what's up with the CO2 scrubber?
The air's getting a little… I dunno… sweaty in here." He liked her soft Afro-Canadian
lilt, too.
Asya caught hold of a grip to stop her spin
and shook her head. Don could see that she was restraining the focussed
hunter’s stare she used on him. "You know the routine. I check it every
day, two times." She was wary, tensing for an argument.
"Hmm… It's not so bad in here,"
Annika went on, sniffing the air, "but in my cabin – eugh! I
almost wish Abdul Qawi were here. He'd get it – " She caught herself and
glanced at Asya. "I mean, he'd love the chance to tinker with it."
Don didn't expect Asya to launch one of her
mock-offended tirades which would often defuse a tense atmosphere. It was too
late for that. She glared at Annika and seemed to consider some cutting, ironic
response. The two women's temperaments were like night and day; storm and sun;
they had avoided fights so far only by bottling up resentments or spilling them
to other members of the crew.
But instead she tapped her chin with a
forefinger and said, quietly, "That is strange, now you mention it. Did we
find out why they send him away four days before our launch? I never say
goodbye." She frowned to herself. "Although, perhaps this is no loss
of mine."
Marco's Latin-accented voice echoed through
the hatch that led to the medical lab and gym. "I will miss Abdu. He is
the Arabian Renaissance Man. You remember he write a musical play in the
French, about the poor car mechanics who build an EM-drive taxi to Mars?"
He laughed, seemingly carefree, and emerged head-first into the lounge. His
slightly lopsided, cheerful features glowed pink after his workout. All of them
had swollen faces from zero-G, but Marco had it in spades.
Don chuckled. "Abdul Qawi is a dreamer
– as well as an engineer, a soldier, a poet and a survivalist. The last debate
I had with him, he insisted that within ten years there could be four
settlements of more than a thousand people each. They would go for full
independence and form a trading alliance by that time. All powered by EM drives,
asteroid mining and the greatest concentration of intellect in the Known
Universe."
"Is nonsense!" scoffed Asya.
"Is all comic-book stories for boys! The world cannot even fix the
climate, the wars, the refugees. Is all too busy with crisis. You all three
listen to that madman and forget to study your flight procedures. And now look!
I stand behind your shoulder at every watch because you forget!"
She huffed and her mood settled down to
somewhere between grim and depressed. "No, I think we are lonely on Mars.
Mars population will be four. Maybe ten or eleven if our competitors launch again in
two years from now. The first valiant NewSpace crew: who knows what became of them."
Annika rarely frowned, but this clearly
disturbed her. "I am sure we will find the Smaug, and her
crew, and the whole New Space scene will get its moxy back on. You hear it all the time: markets go up as well as down. Look, the
world's always been messed up. Statistically, things are actually
improving."
With a slow nod, Marco backed her up.
"We begin our research, then we answer the big question: if there is
life. That will get the people's attention."
Asya snorted. "Most likely is not life,
except for our own bugs hitch-hiking on meteorites and NASA rovers. A dead Mars makes bad
journalism, as the Professor knows very well, right, Professor? You hope
to publish how many papers each week?"
There was so much about her retort that
outraged Don's scientific senses, but for the first time he had no desire to
argue. Let her stew in her ignorance. "So tell us again why you signed up
for this at all, Commander Komarova," was what came out of his mouth. “Why
not stay at home?” And he didn't care how it sounded. He was glad that she
flinched at the words.
But she just looked back at him, as silent
as the hungry vacuum outside. Don knew her, and in a rush he feared that she
would crack this time. She was breathing harder and faster, and her nostrils
were quivering. It hadn't happened so far – none of them had fallen apart –
they had been so busy, so tired, and so exalted – the post-launch checks, the
trans-Mars injection burn, then getting into the details of the cruise rhythm.
Whenever doubts or exhaustion or anger had threatened Don, he had simply basked
in a golden thought: We're really doing it! They were finally
doing what they had prepared to do. Grudges had to be swallowed if they were to
survive.
But now? The glamour had worn off, and if
everyone was as tired as he was, the team was about to implode.
"Why I come?" whispered Asya.
"Why I waste my life with you people?”
Annika tried to patch things up, stammering
conciliations. That was her job. Marco chuckled at them and started to make for
his cabin.
Asya raised her voice: a serrated blade.
"You know my namesake, Valentina Vladimirovna Tereshkova, first woman in
space. I met her, when I was a child. I never tell you this. She make all
of Russia proud.
You never understand. Perhaps I am the last Russian in space, the last
cosmonaut, and the first to land on Mars." Her voice grew even more acidic
now. "So, Professor, I will do with my life something even greater. For
science, for history. I baby-sit you children who cannot even climb into your
own MKS, cannot calibrate the star tracker, cannot go to sleep in space. That
is why –"
Don had never thought, before that moment,
that 'seeing red' might have a literal meaning. It was as though a film of
blood pulsed over his vision, his furious pulse drumming out a war dance.
"You're just the taxi driver!" he burst out. "Don't talk to me
about science – you have no idea what we're doing all this for. You
wouldn't know a methanogen from a phyllosilicate!”
Asya’s eyes burned at him “I hate you!” she
yelled, just as Annika shouted, "Shut up, both of you!"
They all three hung there, staring at each
other and at nothing. Marco's muffled, surprised, "Hey, man," from
just outside the lounge, only heightened the tension. To Don it was as if the
referee had just blown a deafening whistle, and they had all been caught in an
embarrassing foul. A single thought crystallised: that he had doomed himself to
spending decades of his life with these stupid people.
A series of loud thumps from the direction
of the cabin section interrupted the silence. They all looked that way.
Don spoke first. "That sounds like the
water pump."
"Don't be stupid," Asya shot
back, "water pumps in other direction."
"Come on, we find out," said the
voice of Marco, who was almost there.
They tracked down the continuing thumps to
one of the large storage lockers. The lockers also provided some sound-proofing
for the cabins, which lay beyond. Inside they found a cocooned figure, writhing
to be free of a reeking jungle of tubes, bags of fluid and padding. "Allah!
Allah!" came a distressed voice from within the cocoon. More muffled
Arabic followed.
They were all speechless, breathless,
clueless for a long moment. Then they were all pulling him out, untangling him
and laughing and crying. "Abdul Qawi! What do you think you're doing
here?" was all Don could say. He found he was grinning at Asya, who was
examining the medical apparatus that had been attached to their friend.
"He is crazy!" she cried.
"He is lunatic! He test-drive an induced-coma device and smuggle himself
onto spaceship!" She slapped Abdul Qawi, hard, around the ears. "You
have no brains!" Her victim looked sheepish, but as mischievous as ever.
She took a long look at Don. "If anyone find the life on Mars, it is this
lunatic. You are lucky man, Professor!"
Suddenly the long trip to the Red Planet
looked like it might work out. It might actually be a great time.
But then he realised just where Abdul Qawi had chosen to build his stowaway's nest. "Abdu!" he croaked, a hoarse whisper, "Where are the UV spectrometers and the imagers? And the - Half the science gear is missing!"
His supposed friend's eyes focussed on him. You could tell when his razor-sharp mind was operating when he got that look. Maybe less of a friend. Perhaps more like a saboteur. And his pronunciation was crystal-clear. "Ah, yes. Professor, I am so sorry. Please submit your lost baggage claim to the administration and we will make suitable arrangements. Thank you for choosing Emirates and have a nice flight." Then he grinned, not a hopeful or entreating grin, but a victor's self-congratulation.
Maybe it wouldn't be such a holiday after all.
But then he realised just where Abdul Qawi had chosen to build his stowaway's nest. "Abdu!" he croaked, a hoarse whisper, "Where are the UV spectrometers and the imagers? And the - Half the science gear is missing!"
His supposed friend's eyes focussed on him. You could tell when his razor-sharp mind was operating when he got that look. Maybe less of a friend. Perhaps more like a saboteur. And his pronunciation was crystal-clear. "Ah, yes. Professor, I am so sorry. Please submit your lost baggage claim to the administration and we will make suitable arrangements. Thank you for choosing Emirates and have a nice flight." Then he grinned, not a hopeful or entreating grin, but a victor's self-congratulation.
Maybe it wouldn't be such a holiday after all.
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