Josiah West 1: Kaleidoscope (2 page)

PRIMARY REACTOR.............185

SECONDARY REACTOR
........185

FORWARD SCREEN
..............100

STERN SCREEN
.....................150

MAIN DRIVE
..........................155

MAS
S-LOCK............................175

PRIMARY COOLING
..............145

SECONDARY COOLING
.........145

To the right of the display: IMPACT 11:50 was counting down. The reactor, drive, and cooling levels kept crawling upward. The master control program was pushing the failure point closer to the impact time. His eyes moved to the projected impact point.

“Enlarge map display to impact area and the mountains to the
North.”

The display zoomed in to
Beijing and the area around it. The projected impact point was a red circle that kept jumping around but would occasionally lock in one position for a few seconds only to suddenly jump again.

“WARNING – SATELLITE DATA STREAM IS BEING DISRUPTED BY IONIZATION DUE TO ATMOSPHERIC ENTRY - SWITCHING TO INERTIAL.”

“Project our best effort impact point if we break off at impact minus twenty seconds.”

A red circle marked as
4km diameter appeared centered near the peak of the nearest mountains north of Beijing. A bit more than half of the circle was still over the south slope.

“Calculate for impact minus fifteen seconds.”

The circle moved further north but half of it was still on the south slope.

“At impact minus five seconds you will disengage the mass-lock system and execute
any evasive action necessary to clear us from the impact area.”

He knew that a lot of people were going to die this day
, but the population density was lower in the mountain slopes and valleys than it was on the plain to the south. Dropping the Hahn Station into a mountain valley would contain things compared to smearing it across one of the most populated cities on Earth.

Five seconds! As he sat squeezed in his cocoon
, the thought of the rest of his life coming down to a five second window controlled by the functioning of an outdated assault boat that was being pushed to its own death by his orders sent the proverbial chill through him followed by a wave of panic. Waiting for the end was hell.

IMPACT 10
:00: It took a moment but, gradually, his thoughts calmed.
A five second window; hah, let’s not kid ourselves too much.
He smiled as he wondered if this was the normal human reaction to inevitability.

IMPACT 9
:00: “At impact minus ten seconds activate the ELT.”
They may as well find the wreckage.

IMPACT 8
:00 came and went on the display. Occasionally, a number on the power systems display changed by one or two; sometimes up; sometimes down. The noise was getting worse. It was getting a bit harder to breathe. He recognized the peculiar feeling; Kaleidoscope was pushing the compensators on the command deck into the combat overrun range.

“WARNING – FIRE IN MACHINE LOCKERS SIX AND SEVEN. FIRE SUPPRESSION SYSTEM ACTIVATED.”

Lockers six and seven contained the primary power transfer tubes for the secondary reactor. There were secondary tubes on the other side of the machine room but they were probably now carrying the entire load.

“Vent the ship and flood with nitrogen.”

This was another old system that was still active. Modern fire suppression systems had been installed, but this one could still be useful if nobody had to breathe.

IMPACT
7:00: “Display forward view.” His view filled with light as he looked down a glowing tube of twisted, almost frozen, pulsing pastel colors. The mass-lock system was causing the ionization of his reentry to do weird things. The main effect of the system only occurred where two or more emitters were focused. The two emitters on Kaleidoscope were focused 3km out and the individual fields were ripping the normally narrow tunnel of atmospheric ionization into a wild display.

IMPACT 6:00: The thought went through his mind that he was probably the only one to ever see this. He couldn’t recall any incident of a tug or a lifter doing its job in the atmosphere at anything above the standard 200kph. It was beautiful. It was hypnotic.

IMPACT 5:00:
His focus shifted...slowly. He realized that his heart rate was up despite the compensators, and that he really didn’t want to look at the reason he was here. “Magnify to Hahn station extents and increase contrast to level 4.”

The Hahn Station jumped to nearly fill the screen
, and the softness caused by the hazy tunnel he was looking through hardened to a reasonably clear view. The Hahn Station was built ten years before Gravitational Synthesis was developed to a level compact enough for small structures. It was made up of ten 100 meter long cylinders stacked end to end and rotating around their common longitudinal axis to give .8G at its outer rim. When GS technology had been miniaturized sufficiently the design of orbital facilities changed totally. The Hahn Station was kept in service for over fifty years on a diminishing basis, but it had been a virtual hulk for the last five.

He was looking at the side and one end of the long
glowing stack of cylinders. Something about it was...wrong. He counted the stacked cylinders...seven, eight, nine...NINE!

“Magnify extents
- near end of station.”

The image jumped. It was
a view of destruction. The last cylinder was gone; destroyed! This must have been the end they were building the low-traction drive on. The normal orientation of a long, cylindrical object in orbit was with its long axis pointed toward the center of mass it was orbiting due to tidal locking. Because of this, the greatest cluster of scanning gear had been mounted at the lower end and the docking facilities at the upper end. As a matter of convenience, the low-traction support frame was built at the upper end next to the docking facilities. That meant that the drive was pointing straight down...at the Earth. Part of the torn-up structure at the far end ripped away as he watched. It was obvious that a lot of the station was on the way down to Russia and Northern China. Unfortunately, the bulk of the station would make it to Beijing.

IMPACT 4:00:
Something moved! “Magnify 70 percent. Transit left 30 meters.”

The image jumped left and out. “Center on near edge of the dash
-nine cylinder.”

The image twitched once more. The individual cylinders that made up the Hahn Station were sepa
rated one from the next by 15 meters so that they were actually independent of each other. That way, the rotational speed could be varied in each unit. A couple of them had been used for zero-g manufacturing. Taking advantage of this, the outer ends of each cylinder had been beveled at 45 degrees and ceramo-plast windows installed in that angled section. Humans did better if they could look outside once in a while, and it was judged inadvisable to put the windows in the “floor” for obvious reasons.

The problem with that arraignment was that he was now able to look into one of those windows and see the woman looking back at him
. She had to be part of the drive installation crew, and she was staring out the window she was pinned to by the combined forces of atmospheric drag, Kaleidoscope’s drive, and leakage through the station’s hull of the overdriven mass-lock.

IMPACT 3:00:
A sharp stab of fear, of anxiety, went through him and he squeezed his eyes shut so hard he saw stars. “Forward view off.” He managed to gasp. He realized he was breathing in short gulps and tears were being squeezed out of his eyes, “Wow, I did not need that image.”

He took deep breaths and tried to clear his thoughts and slow his heart rate. The problem with that was the spac
e it cleared for other thoughts...well, a memory really. The deep voice of Colonel Pitts in his class on the Psychology of War came back to him.

“The ability of one human to kill another human is enhanced by distance. Pressing a button to launch a missile that may kill hundreds or thousands exacts almost no psychological penalty. However, pressing the firing stud on a hand weapon to put a binary slug into the body of another human ten meters away requires intense training to suppress the normal urge to crap your pants and run.”

Josiah
always remembered the smile that went with that last sentence. Colonel Pitts had been a Marine combat veteran, but it had been impossible to get him to talk about his experiences. He had committed suicide two years later. Now, his was no longer an exercise in time over distance, force over mass, or stress over construct. Reasoning and calculation could not erase the memory of looking into the eyes of someone that was about to die in a situation over which he had final control--irrational as that thought was in this case. Reality settled firmly into place.

IMPACT 2:00:
The atmosphere was denser. The shaking and noise were worse.

“Display projected impact point.” The previous display appeared. The estimated impact circle was down to 2km in diameter but had drifted a
bout a kilometer west. No real change.

“Record message to Admiral Jacks: Admiral, I’m sorry about the paint job. You can take it out of my pay if things go better than they look right now. I
...I...have no idea why I’m here, but it seemed like a good idea at the time. The Big-K is putting up a mighty effort; you can be proud of her, but I don’t think you’ll be using her again even if we do make it out.” He searched for something else important to say but drew a blank. “Thanks for everything. End message.”

IMPACT
1:00: “Record message to Nora: Well, you know I had to do this.”

His voice choked up and ended with a whisper, “Try not to be mad at me. End message
.”

IMPACT
0:30: Kaleidoscope jumped violently at the same time a subdued “CRUNCH” came from somewhere aft.

“WARNING – STRUCTURAL DAMAGE AT FRAME 46. DRIVE DESTABILIZING – COMPENSATING.”

He could feel the compensators tightening up. It was really beginning to hurt now.

IMPACT 0:20:
Another explosion shook the boat.

“WARNING - REAR SCREENS NOW OPERATING AT RESONANCE LIMITS - FAILURE IMMINENT.”

“WARNING - MASS-LOCK OPERATING AT STILLERMANN SATURATION POINT. ELT ACTIVATED.”

IMPACT 0:10: It was getting harder to breathe with the compensators trying to keep the boat together. It wasn’t going to work.

IMPACT 0
:05: The noise! The shaking!

IMPACT 0:03: “Now I lay me down...”

IMPACT
0:01: “...to sleep.”

IMPA
--

CONSEQUENCES

Monday, 7 April 2132: 0855 hours (EST) – 1355 hours (UT).

It was cranking up to be a warm day in Tampa, and Ensign Josiah West thought it already felt good to enter the cool headquarters building. He removed his cap and tucked it under his left arm as he checked the occupant list on the wall; it was very short.

DIV1COM
– 2
nd
floor:
Wow, the entire second floor,
he thought. Even though he had been assigned to a ship in Division One for nearly five years, this was his first visit to the headquarters building. The building only had two floors, but it covered a lot of ground. The lettering on the inner glass door on the lower level said DIV1OPS so the entire second floor was for the Admiral Commanding and his staff.
They must have a Hikiball field up there.
The GS lift platform was near the inner door, but he turned and went across the lobby to the stairway that curved along the wall and up to the second floor.

The stairway ended on a large balcony overlooking the lobby and facing a long, wide hallway that led toward the back of the building and another set of glass doors. The hallway had to be 10 meters wide and passed between glass fronted offices on both sides. As he walked, he read the names on the doors: Lieutenant Jesse Edwards, Lieutenant Commander Sara Sun, Captain Carlos Beltozi
--Beltozi was the Chief-of-Staff for Admiral Jacks. He recognized his name and three others as he passed their offices; he had met them under, somewhat, unpleasant circumstances a couple of months ago. Of course, depending on what was about to happen, the time he had nearly killed them all might become the “Good Old Days.”

To the left side of the large room beyond the d
oors at the end of the hallway, a young Asian looking male petty officer worked at a desk. The sign at the front of the desk said PO1 Gregory Phon. To the right of the double wooden doors in the far wall, a fiftyish, somewhat Middle-Eastern looking female Master Chief Petty Officer sat at another desk; on the other side of the doors from her stood an armed Marine corporal. The room was very wide and had comfortable looking seating areas in front of floor-to-ceiling windows at both ends. He pushed through the door and walked into the room. The sign on the Master Chief’s desk read MCPO Molly Shepard.

“Master Chief, I’m Ensign West. I received orders to report here at this time.”

She had been watching him since he had cleared the stairway; now she eased back in her chair and ran her gaze slowly up all 190 centimeters of him. She had blue eyes like his and spectacular cheekbones...and a disturbing smile with very white teeth that contrasted sharply with her soft, brown skin.

“So, this is the Ensign Josiah West that I have been hearing so much about.” She bent her right arm with the thumb pointing over her shoulder, “Some of it right through the walls.”

He had decided that today would end in one of two possibilities: On the bad side was a firing squad; the other was being discharged from the Navy so fast his feet wouldn’t touch the ground until he was at least a hundred meters outside of the main gate. The firing squad option just took center stage.

“Ahh...well, it’s nice to be remembered.”

Her smile remained fixed as she touched a pad under her left hand. “Admiral, Ensign West is here.” There was a slight delay, “Bring him in, Molly.”

She rose from her chair and moved toward the door as the Marine corporal palmed the lock panel, “Come with me
, Ensign.”

As he rounded the corner of the desk he asked, “You’re coming with?”

He didn’t think it possible, but her smile got bigger, “I wouldn’t miss this for anything,” she said as she stepped through the doorway.

The room beyond was the full width of the reception area in back of him. It had floor-to-ceiling windows all the way around with the far end of the r
oom behind the Admiral’s desk being a complete arc. It had to be close to 25 meters wide and nearer 30 deep. A large conference table took up most of the space to his right and a seating and dining area to his left.
Very impressive,
he thought.

The
Admiral sat behind his desk. A group of officers was clustered around the end of the conference table nearest the Admiral. He noticed that they all had the dark red background on their shoulder boards instead of the normal black indicating that they were all First Division Command Staff members. He also recognized four of them from the “Good Old Days.”

He only realized he was just standing there gawking when he heard the doors close behind him;
Might as well get this over with.
He took a breath, straightened up, marched up to the Admiral’s desk, and saluted, “Ensign West reporting as ordered, sir.”

The A
dmiral rose from his chair and returned the salute. He looked West up and down, eyeing the clean and sharp summer service white uniform he was wearing, “You look much better than the last time I saw you, Ensign.”

“Thank you sir; so do you.” He noticed the skin on the left side of the
Admiral’s neck and jaw was still red and raw looking. “How are you doing, sir?”

A brief twitch of a smile crossed
his face, and he reached to rub his left side, “Oh, two or three more sessions of localized regen and I should be 100 percent.”

For the first time that day a small sense of relief passed through Josiah, “I’m very
glad to hear that, sir. Reports on your condition tend to be a bit lacking in detail. The last time I saw you...well...it was bad, sir.”

Admiral Jacks broke another small smile as he came around the desk. Josiah then became aware that all of the
Admiral’s staff had formed up in a line shoulder-to-shoulder behind him. One of them compounded the surprise by gently tugging on and then removing Josiah’s cap from under his arm.

Admiral Jacks took a position in front of his desk
facing Josiah. The gray-haired Admiral was just as tall as he was so those gray eyes were dead level and gave the look of a man making a confession, “My injuries were not your fault.” The look in his eyes intensified, and his voice picked up an edge, “Don’t you ever think that again, I put you in that situation, and it was sheer stupidity on my part; in the end, it was you that saved our lives.”

Admiral Jacks then turned and picked up a data pad that had been lying on his desk. Captain Beltozi stepped forward from the end of the line to Josiah’s right, turned to face along the line, and in a sharp, drill sergeant’s voice, commanded, “ATTENTION TO ORDERS.” Everyone snapped to attention. Even Josiah did so automatically; the surprise had been total. The
Admiral began reading from the pad.

“On 24 January 2132 while taking part in Operation Blackberry in the Olympus Mons region on the planet Mars, Ensign Josiah West, a member of the crew of the First Division support ship Maxim Caldwell, was Pilotin-Command of a Kite class shuttle craft maneuvering through the Melas Chasma in an attempt to observe an assault training exercise.”

Josiah’s mind finally focused on what was happening,
Good Lord, he’s reading a Statement of Commendation; he’s giving me a MEDAL??? Ok, no firing squad.

“Present on that shuttle as observers were:

Admiral Commanding 1
st
Division Arthur Jacks

1
st
Division Chief-of-Staff Captain Carlos Beltozi

1
st
Division staff member Lieutenant Commander John Hoffman

1
st
Division staff member Lieutenant Kofi Ataxis

1
st
Division staff member Lieutenant Simone May-Reynolds”

Admiral Jacks paused for a second and glanced over the pad at Josiah. He must have seen something amusing there because he had another one of those small smiles as he returned his attention to the pad.

“It is to be understood that Ensign West was piloting the shuttle under protest on the grounds that he believed the shuttle had been poorly maintained and was one of three shuttles remaining on the Caldwell during Operation Blackberry that he considered to be ‘hanger queens’ and dangerous to fly.”

At this point
, he lowered the pad to fix a hard look square into Josiah’s eyes. It was obvious that he had worked long and hard on the next part because the pad remained at his side as he continued quoting from the Statement of Commendation.

“It should be further noted that Ensign West protested to the point of insubordination. If there had been another pilot with the proper rating available, Ensign West would have been written up and confined to quarters. Given the situation and a perceived need to be on the ground during the assault phase of Operation Blackberry, Admiral Arthur Jacks overrode all objections and directly ordered Ensign West to pilot the shuttle.”

Another small smile that looked like an apology crossed his face. The pad came up and he continued reading, “With the authority of Pilotin-Command now his, Ensign West continued his campaign of near insubordination and ordered all of the above listed personnel to wear full survival suits and bring a full survival kit. He then ordered two extra 100 liter oxygen tanks to be loaded on the shuttle along with what appeared to be a nonsensical assortment of spare parts and gear. Prior to departure, Ensign West held a full inspection at the foot of the shuttle loading ramp.”

As the
Admiral spoke, Josiah replayed his memory of that moment and the anger that had boiled in him. To be forced to put his life on the line just to chauffeur a bunch of over-brassed, desk jockeys that wouldn’t recognize the noisy end of a stutter-gun if a two-year-old pointed it out, practically had steam coming out of his ears.

Being Pilotin-Command of any vessel carried the authority of command over anyone in that vessel, no matter what their rank. Even a four-star could not, technically, override the judgment of a PIC. Of course, pushing the letter of that regulation could be a bad idea if
that low ranking PIC had visions of a career in the Navy. In Josiah’s case that would not be a problem, and the thought that this might be an opportunity to shorten his “career” had skirted the edge of his mind. Either way, he had no intention of leaving his tender young body to rot on the barren landscape of Mars, so he had packed the shuttle’s cargo compartment with all the spare parts and survival gear he could find. Leaving dead passengers scattered about had only been a secondary consideration at the time. As he stood in front of the Admiral, the thought occurred to him that he should, probably, keep that last part to himself.

Again, the
Admiral gave a quick look over the pad but with a bigger smile this time, “It should also be noted as a personal aside that I nearly blew a gasket at the thought of being braced by an ensign for a uniform inspection after he had shown up directly from a work party wearing filthy work greens. Of course, he had the authority, and I’m the one that gave it to him. To his credit, he did catch a couple of problems that were repaired before our departure.”

He returned to the official Statement, “During our descent and approach to the target area, it was noted that Ensign West handled the shuttle with cautious skill. In spite of an order from Ensign West to remain strapped in,
Admiral Jacks released his harness and was moving forward to vent on the hapless ensign about his overly gentle ways.”

The Admiral lowered the pad once more,
“The next thing I knew I was lying in a low-g support sling on a hospital ship with tubes and wires everywhere and a two centimeter thick layer of bio-gel mat covering the left side of my body from my ear to my knee. To say the least, I was very...annoyed.”

That resulted in a good laugh from everyone. It had to have been a staggering and confusing mental transition.

“The remainder of this statement is derived from the combined testimony of Captain Carlos Beltozi, Lieutenant Commander John Hoffman, and Lieutenants Kofi Ataxis and Simone May-Reynolds.

“As Admiral Jacks rose from the right-side rear seat of the shuttle, there was an explosion from the machine area below the deck behind him and just forward of the aft bulkhead. This was later determined to be caused by a short in the right side drive coil power relay. Admiral Jacks was knocked unconscious and thrown across the back of the seat in front of the one he had been occupying. The drive system and most other systems including the inertial compensators immediately ceased functioning, and the shuttle dropped from an altitude of only 100 meters above the ground. As the shuttle fell, Lieutenant Commander Hoffman and Lieutenant May-Reynolds, who both occupied seats forward of the Admiral, grabbed him as best they could in an effort to prevent further injury during the expected impact.

“
During the descent, Ensign West opened an access panel on the center console and manually shorted a relay that connected the emergency capacitors to the GS lift system with an antique metal knife that he carried in an equipment pouch on the leg of his survival suit. He was then able to level the shuttle and reduce the impact speed in the few seconds he had left. The impact was still severe enough to tear Admiral Jacks loose from the grip of Commander Hoffman and Lieutenant May-Reynolds and throw him against the center console between the pilot’s seats causing severe life-threatening injuries. Injuries were minor among the rest of the occupants.